Orders in the Hoop

Here I am scooping up the train orders at speed (throttle 8) as I run past the depot at Bertram on the Hill Country Flyer this summer (picture by my friend, Bradley Linda). I have picked up train orders in this fashion at 60 mph more times than I can count. The trick is to stick your arm through the hoop- not try to catch them with your hand. It is fairly easy to do (although you have to lean out quite a bit) when there is a standard hoop system like this one. It can get tricky if the operator is passing the orders up with a hand-held hoop, particularly if the operator is not quite experienced. I have had operators get cold feet at the last minute and step back, making it impossible to reach the orders, and then I have had operators misjudge the height and hold them up too low to reach. I had one operator think he had to loop my arm rather than the other way around, and we played arm tag, with me grabbing the entire hoop at the last second, raising a bruise on my palm that didn't go away for weeks.