Train Orders on a Small Layout? Answer Hazy.

Thanks to the fortunate arrival of a coworker from out of town, I had my first operating session in months today, and it went well.  One fatality - a brakeman was brutally run over by the Santa Cruz Passenger.  Although all crews are warned to use flagmen on the broad curve between Campbell and San Jose, I need to warn folks to put the flagman far enough out so a crew in the aisle might see it.  All the trains also ran, even the San Jose Turn with its mixed freight that had twice as much to do because it didn't fully run last time.  The new track at Campbell for the Hyde Cannery and Sunsweet packing house worked well, though it would have worked better if the track didn't get filled with eight cars by session end.  (For those of you wishing that SwitchList would avoid sending cars to overflowing sidings, lets just say I feel your pain.

More importantly, I tried out my idea of simple train orders for trains going between Vasona Branch and Santa Cruz.  On the good side, I think it did encourage the crews to think a little bit about where they were going and where they'd have to meet those other trains, and it did encourage some of the typical railroader "oh, great, we're stuck at lowest priority."  I did make sure to write the orders at the last minute so no one ended up stuck on a siding for an hour because of bad planning.  On the bad side, there was still an awful lot of paper to write up, and for the crews going from San Jose to Los Gatos, the amount of interpretation they needed to go that last two feet from Vasona Junction to Los Gatos was a little annoying.

But a good time was had by all, and except for a couple balky cars, one unpowered frog, some dirty track, and a tree leaning into the right-of-way, things went well.