Chatterbox Whatever - Trains Magazine

Something strange is happening outside!  There is this bright yellowish-white orb up in the sky.  I vaguely remember seeing something like it once before.

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary.  The railroad got me home about 11am, tying up about 23 times out.  Looking at the marks and taking into account the number ahead of me laid off and the number of extra board available, it looked like about 10am Christmas morning.  So we spent the day celebrating both our anniversary and Christmas together.

About 630pm, we had been celebrating by playing Yahtzee, when Becky said she needed a short nap.  I had been up since 1130pm the night before, but wasn't really tired.  So I checked the line-up.  Because holidayitis had been taking a toll on guys ahead of me, I knew I had moved up some.  When I brought up the boards, I was shocked.  I was still 16 times out but the second available, but not rested for another 2 hours, and I knew the guy ahead, also not rested for an hour or so, was probably going to lay off.  There were two trains close to my rested time, with one extra board available.  Off to bed I go to get a little sleep.  I woke up an hour after I was rested and checked the board.  I was still about 15 times out, the first in OK status, but the trains had beat my rest time and had been called using the extra board guy on a vacancy and calling the next OK person on the pool behind me.  The next westbound was back around Rochelle and extra board guys were becoming rested.  I stayed up a little bit and we went to bed about 1030pm.

When I woke up about 830am, I checked and I'm still the first OK but about 11 times out.  There are only a few trains coming and quite a few extra board OK and becoming rested that most, if not all, of the vacancies should be filled.  And some of those vacancies should expire unless they extend their lay off status.  I might not go to work until tomorrow (26th) morning now. 

Jeff