battalion51
Engineer
Yesterday I took a little journey on P098 and P091. There were a few interesting things that happened, all involving meets. I waited at Delray Beach for 98 until 0839, when we were due out at 0822. 98 sat down at Yamato siding for about 25 minutes, first to be passed by K941, then by P607. So both the owner and the operator were able to screw us over. We got our retribution at Lake Worth though, to some degree. K973 was waiting in siding for us when we arrived at the north end, but the signal failed to drop once they were in. We waited for P609 to pull in behind 973 as we held the main, the signal dropped and we were on our way to West Palm 10 minutes gone. The Conductor of 609 positioned in the cab car backed 609 out, and they went south, 973 behind them. Once we got just south of Okeechobee (Sheman SX915) we brought up 5 distant signal Approach signals in a row. As it turns out Q250 was ahead of us pulling in siding at Ft Basinger (SX891) so we could over take them, 17 minutes lost there. Then for our meet with 89 up the road at Plains (SX884) we took siding, but it had a 10 MPH slow order on most of it, 5 minutes lost. Coming back on 91 we took the siding at West Frostproof (SX847) and lost about 4 minutes. As we pulled out, the dispatcher called and gave us 6 Part 1a's (new slow orders), a 50, 4 30's, and 1 25, but dropped four ordrs, one a 25, the others 50's. We had a lot of fun at West Palm Beach, it was raining, an we were in siding with 90 holding the main. 90 had complications getting out since the engineer was copying a fair number of slow orders. So the baggage cart was unable to get over to us to unload bags, while P621 sat behind us in the siding (one interesting note on 90, they had three engines, 69 and 46 the first two facing north, and the 202 facing south). We had Bag car 1852 with us on 91, the former Ethan Allen Express Car, but the words Ethan Allen Express were painted over. I just hope Viewliner and my trip goes better tomorrow.
