Attendees: Mike Kipps, Steve Robbins (whym), Jerry Ritter, Wayland Moore (o), Mark Chase, Doug Barry (tpym), Howard Heltman (whaym) and Glenn Downing (d).

January 21, 2017 was the Hibernation Session. First the new computer that replaced the old interlock computer quit working twice before I determine it was going into hibernation mode after 30 minutes. A quick change in windows corrected this. However getting the crew out of hibernation mode was much more difficult. Dispatcher Glenn started the session with a discussion about mile markers and why they start at White Hall and not Thorny Point. Then he went ad hoc and decided to use the water in the Hopkins Spring water tank to fill the MOW tank car instead of at White Hall. To add to this decision Glenn decided to get this MOW extra out early which used up a valuable crew member resulting in delays for scheduled trains as they waited for crews. To try and rectify this issue Glenn wanted the MOW extra engineer to walk across Virginia to pickup a train in Thorny Point. However no matter how many times Glenn tried to implement this solution the superintendent ran interference stopping it. Another hibernation event took place when the Broadway Turn engineer Doug decided to join Howard Heltman's club and bring the ELC loaded log cars to White Hall instead of delivering them to the saw mill in Lacey Springs. And I believe I also went into hibernation mode before the session. I did not update the train order system with the latest changes. This caused none of the CIs (conductor instructions) to be available. On the positive side OPS session number one attendee Mark Chase was able to attend. Hopefully what happened will not keep him from trying to come back.