The session of May 7th

..was rather uneventful. We managed to get 8 people together, which is about 4 short of what is necessary to have a dense, highly challenging timetable. And I admit, I have given up on making exact plans as to when a train is expected to run as with 8 operators you simply cannot stick to the plan. Especially if 2 come later and 2 leave early. Not to mention the no-shows.
Since the making of the plans was a rather time-consuming affair I've given up on that for now.

But that is only one side. The other side is that for those of us who are coming because they like switching are disappointed because without planning there is no reliable switching in Avery possible.
And then there are those who disobey the track warrants and continuously run red signals and into open switches.
As a matter of fact, that annoys me really. It’s like building a highway for everyone to use and nobody uses it. The red light on a signal is there because you must stop your train. Period. I cannot understand why this is so difficult to understand.
And it has bad consequences, too – the layout shuts down and after a dozen shutdowns everybody becomes annoyed, not to mention that the signaling system goes down and loses track of the signal aspects. Which means that they show false greens (results in another shutdown) or false reds (which taxes the dispatcher who has to talk everybody by the red signals).
Many problems could be solved by using the mind. After all, that’s what it’s created for. But I admit that the design flaws the layout has don’t help a bit. (See the other post of today!)
So let’s face the future…