Tulsa Rail 2025

 I’ve been late with my review of Tulsa Rail because I’m upset that no one else post reviews. We all go to these events. If you’ve spent ANY time with me you know I expect a comprehensive review: travel, food, cocktails, and layouts.

So here goes. I attended Tulsa Rail 2025 on the weekend of March 21st through March 23rd. I chose to drive. Over the past several years, every time I take a plane flight I get sick. I usually catch whatever I’m going to catch on the first day at the airport or on the flight, then by the third day of the ops event I’m exhibiting full blown symptoms. At So Cal Ops I had to leave the Sunday layout early. Additional I remained sick for the following TEN days. This has become intolerable. Our last trip to London was  the Bataan Death March for me. I will simply not fly if it can be avoided. My last two ops trips have been illness free, and I have to say these were both excellent trips.

So I drove. Since my wife was not involved in these trips, I left on time, and made excellent driving progress. I woke up early as usual, and departed my house at 400am.

I drove 12 hours the first day. I do not ever like to drive this far in a day anymore, but since I left early, I was not driving, tired and worn out after dark. Making my way through Memphis I was subject to a brown rain, and upon entering Arkansas I found all the plowed fields being blown east, into Tennessee. Lots of Arkansas top soil found its way across the Mississippi.

I found a nice hotel in north Arkansas and spent the night. Not being able to get comfortable on this hotel bed, my back is wrecked, I woke up early, in pain, and departed Arkansas at about 320 am. The wind was stiff.

I arrived in Tulsa at 10 am, passing through some of the most wretched poverty I’ve seen since a trip to Philadelphia a couple years ago.

The base camp hotel was kind enough to let me check in upon arrival. Hampton inn and Suites , and it was an excellent accommodation. I highly recommend it, and compliment the Tulsa Rail organizers for picking it.

I hit a local chili place for lunch at 1130. They had a very nice staff. Their “Award Winning” chili, was anything but. Oh well, better than McDonalds.

I spent the rest of the day antique shopping, and found a shit pot full of dishes, that we needed at home, CHEAP.

I had dinner at Panda Express and flipped channels, endlessly, until bed time.

Friday morning I arranged with Rick Watson to have breakfast at the Cracker Barrel, we also arranged a bonus session for the morning. We went to Steve Gillettes N-Scale layout and had a great time. I offered to take Steve out for lunch, and he replied, “Only if we go out for the best Chicken fried steak you’ll ever have in your life!”.

Who can resist that?

Upon arrival at the restaurant we were seated immediately, and when the waitress came up to take the drink order I told her, “Four Chicken Fried Steak Lunches with Mashed potatoes and Green Beans”, she double checked “ all the same thing, for ALL of you?”

“Yes ma’am”

That was easy. Oh yeah, and a Dr. Pepper.

The next session, officially the first session, was at 6pm. I was assigned to Jon Pansius’s Tulsa Jct. Railway, H.O. Scale, set in 1930. Jon uses NCE, and CCWB.

Now I’m going to digress and offer some ops weekend etiquette advice. Some guy contacted me about a week before the event asking if he could carpool with me to Jon’s. I said yes. On the day of the op session, around 2pm I texted him, and WE established that we would meet in the hotel lobby at 5pm so we could drive over together. 

I was in the lobby at 5, and could not find this guy. I checked around, no one had seen him yet. I waited until I was the very LAST person at the hotel, before leaving.

I arrived at the layout 2o minutes late. The pre op brief was almost over. I found my missing car pool partner at the layout. I asked him why he did not wait for me, and he informed me that he got another ride. I asked him if he had thought to text me?

If you are going to ride with someone, make sure you make them aware of any changes in your plans.

So while I was filling in the guest book, Jon, announced that the first job to be filled NEEDS to be the YM position. Immediately spoke up, “I’ll take it!”. I then re-entered the group, and asked everyone if anyone wanted the job, and if they did I would back-out, no question asked. Apparently at some point during the pre op talk, Jon informed the group, that the yard was vital to the operation, and he scared everyone away from the job. No one else wanted it. Great!

I found the yard fairly easy. I had a helping switch crew, and together we blocked the yard, built the out going locals, dealt with all the inbounds, weighed all the cars on the scale track, pulled and spotted all the cars on the clean out track, and finally re-billed all the MTY’s.

Jon has a fairly complex MTY car request procedure, and told me that I was the first YM who had chosen to do them, and that he usually did them during or after the session.

Later at the banquet I was told the yard was so well organized when I left the next guy had no work for his session.

Anyway I had a good session.

Got back late, and went to bed.

Back pain got me up at 3.

First session was at 930.

Another lesson in ops weekend etiquette.

A second guy contacted me, to inform me that he was at my two Saturday sessions, and that we should car pool. Okay. Once he got into my car I informed him that he had two choices. He could navigate, in which case I would be quiet and turn when and where he told me, 

-OR- 

We could use my GPS, in which case he had to be quiet and I would drive, following my GPS’s instructions.

He said I should navigate.

We no more left the canopy of the hotel when he told me I needed to get over to the left. I was going to slow. I was going to fast. I was in the wrong lane. On our schedule the travel time was supposed to be 20 minutes. Once we got to where my GPS said I should turn left, he said I was going the wrong way, he “has been here multiple times before”, and I was going the wrong way. I went his way. We got lost, and ended up 20 minutes late.

This was Tom Fausser’s South Brooklyn Terminal layout. What GREAT urban scenery. Tom has a background in design, and it REALLY shows. Four person crew, maybe 12 x 12 space, H.O. Scale, Easy DCC , and CCWB’s. Four jobs, zones 1, 2, 3, or the car float.

I was zone two. Lots of tight urban trackage. What a great scheme. Each switch job goes out and back to a central yard. The car float takes cars to the yard and back.

Now everyone must cooperate, otherwise you cannot get into the yard. Unfortunately I was not given much cooperation from two of the three others. First the car float guy, was inexperienced. He would enter the yard with three cars, THREE CARS, and take a half an hour trying to spot them. It was mind numbing. The other guy was my car pool partner, who dominated the yard as if he were the only crew on the layout. 

Eventually I walked away, leaving my job un-finished, sat down, and talked to Tom about his layout and its design. Really a beautiful and fun layout. I actually could tolerate the inexperience of the car float guy, but my car pool partner became the gift that kept on giving!

So that session finally ended. We had a short time between sessions, a 20 minute drive to the next layout, and a little time to get lunch. My car pool partner informed me the third guy from the layout was joining us for lunch. I told them they could pick the place, and I would drive and keep quiet. After 31 minutes, without moving, and no decision on a place for lunch, I started my truck, and said close the door, I’m leaving. My car pool partner got in, the third guy got in his car, and we all went to a lunch place suggested to me by the hotel manager. I had a club sandwich.

Time was short and we were off to Jim Senese’s layout. AGAIN my car pool partner side seat drove. “I’ve been here dozens of times.” Finally we got out to where my GPS said to turn, and that we were 1 minute from our destination, and my partner screamed, “This is totally wrong, DON’T TURN THERE. I’ve been here dozens of times. You going the wrong way!”

So I pass the turn. This is way out in the country. It’s not just around the block, it’s one mile south, one mile east, one mile north, then one mile west. We are back at the same mailbox, the one my GPS says to turn at. It’s got the correct address on it. But my carpool partner is now screaming, “YOU’VE GONE THE WRONG WAY, WE ARE LOST. NONE OF THIS LOOKS FAMILIAR.!”

So I say, quietly, “ lets just turn in here and see if this is the right place “

“THIS IS WRONG. THIS ISN’T JIMS HOUSE, HE HAS A CABOOSE IN HIS FRONT YARD! , I DON’T SEE A CABOOSE!”

“You mean like that one over there” I say while pointing at the MOPAC transfer caboose in Jim’s front yard.

So we are late again. Jim runs two man crews, and my car pool partner says “Let’s partner up!”

NOT IN A MILLION YEARS…

“I’m sorry but Rick Watson and I already agreed to be partners, Hi Rick!” And sorry for the ambush Rick.

So Jim’s layout is set on the last day BEFORE the merger of BN and FRISCO. He has a crew of 8, Easy DCC, H.O. Scale, and switch lists.

Jim kind of just throws you out there, and there is a sort of steep learning curve on the layout geography; where you are and where you work. But within 20 minutes Rick and I have it figured it out. 

I believe we had a good time, I really liked the layout. We were the MKT crew, and had a large grain elevator and a cement plant to switch, as well as a hand full of smaller industries. Finally we had to make our way over to the produce yard, drop off our transfers to other roads, and get home. Because we were so early, it was no problem getting through traffic, and we finished up in our yard waiting for a transfer from the FRISCO. Great session. I mean GREAT. Happily do this all again.

We got back to the hotel, and got ready for the banquet. Most of these dinners ant these things  are in the $50-$60 range and the food is usually awful. Let me editorialize, I think it’s very important to get the entire group together. I want to meet old friends, talk about sessions, layout progress, anything. The social aspect is very important to me. I have, for quite some time, thought these banquets were a bad idea. They cost too much. Everyone complains about the food. The effort expended far outweighs the benefit.

However, I do not know of another way to get everyone together. Maybe an “awards” cocktail party, hand out amusing awards. Eliminate the food aspect.

Having said all this, the Tulsa banquet was the best one I’ve been to in a long time. It was $20. It was all you can eat bar-b-que. it was not great food, but it was not terrible either. AND it cost -$20.

Got to bed late. Each night I was losing more and more sleep. By Sunday morning my longest nights sleep was a little over five hours. Up at 4:20 am.

This time I was not going to put myself in a position to share a ride with anyone! I was packed, loaded up, and checked out by 6:00 am.

I had a bowl of Frosted Flakes in the hotel dining room, and I was out of the hotel before 700am. The last op session of the event was Sunday morning, beginning at 920am. I sat in the truck, in front of the layout location, reading and checking the internet, falling asleep. 

When the layout owner stepped out to put up his cross bucks, I got out of the car and introduced myself. I was the first to arrive, and stepped inside, visiting with  Steve “Doc” Campbell. 

Steve’s Frisco Cherokee Sub layout is in a room about 25 x 50. H.O. scale. Uses NCE, and CCWB’s. It’s set in 1950.

He has a seven man crew. Two at the main yard, one each at the refinery job, Zone 3 job, MKT Job, ATSF job, and another Frisco job. After drawing numbers, and as is normal with me, I got the last number, I took the one remaining job, Zone 3. I switched some local industries, pulled a sleeper of the “Meteor” and managed traffic through the depot tracks. I return to the main yard with a transfer of all the cars I pulled during the day. On my return trip I bring back a cut of cars that the next shift will work.

Managing traffic through the passenger depot was a time suck, and I started the day a bit snarky. Additionally a local helper questioned my decisions, a HUGE no-no with me. But after some cookies to get my sugar up, and some EXTREME self-control, I sanded off the rough edges of my mood, and soon I was friends with everyone. 

Steve has the momentum set VERY high on his engines. I think this is fine for over-the-road trains, but not the best choice for switching. I would guess dealing with the momentum cost me 50% of my time, seriously, I spent half the time trying to control this engine. While I would not rate the “job” as challenging, on the 1 through 10 nuisance scale, I would put this momentum at 10!. (10 being the biggest nuisance).

Steve on the other hand was a great host. A retired Doctor, hence the nickname name “Doc”. In any case I finished fairy quickly, and visited with Doc and his helper.

My plan was to leave directly from this layout for home, and this I did. I took the northern route home and the GPS had me on Route 66 .

I made it to Mexico, Mo., where I visited with dear friends, and spent the night in a best western, which was the worst accommodation of the trip, and nearly the most expensive! The next day I got as far as Columbus, OH., where again I stopped to visit friends. The next morning, after a fairly early start, I was off for home. After a brisk six hour drive I  arrived home at 10 am.

One last thing, I drove to and from Tulsa. I did not get sick, but the biggest added benefit this that this was one of the best railfan opportunities I’ve had in years. So watch trains, play trains, see friends. Great Trip!

I think my biggest take-a-way is, on future trips I’m probably not going to car pool with anyone!