July '22 Coffee Pot. Foot long hotdogs smothered in chilli, onions, mustard, coleslaw, and grits! A Yankee-Doodle-Dandy tradition for 18 years.

[fifedog]

Mornin' guys and gals. Overcast & 70 in the Potomac Highlands. Big rain-maker system apparently staying south of Fifedom. Been busy around the house. Fixed the smaller train shelf, making the gaps less visible. Repaired two leaking faucets in the master bathroom with new cartridges. Installed new "blingie" LED light fixture in our walk-in closet. Even took some layout pics for upcoming SPF. However, since grandsons went home, had to take out my own garbage...

SHARK WEEK! If you want to see what Laz has been up to, check out his Whistle Stop Wednesday vids on youtube (pgwadd).

"We're gonna need a bigger layout..." 

[fifedog]

anjdevil - Understand. First Christmas without my Mom was pretty emotional.

[TheWaysideRailroader]

Evening, the only train news I have is that I ordered 3 freight cars from Menards.

(An "Original" Norfolk Southern boxcar, a J. Sheperd and Sons boxcar, and a Skittles hopper) 

That's all! 
I like how Menards makes cheap o gauge rolling stock!

[fifedog]

Mornin' guys and gals. Sunny and 68 along the Patterson Creek cut-off. Spent yesterday cleaning and organizing the FifeShed. Nothing on the agenda today.

Last night, watched the Trainworld livestream with Mike Wolf. Very informational and interesting. You can catch the segment on YouTube. 

My buddy Tom received his power and dummy set of Lionel SD45-2s, finally. These are the special ATSF Bicentennial painted units from TCA. I hope he brings them with him on his next visit.

Wayside - Agreed, it is fortunate for our hobby that Menards has emerged when it did.

[Leverettrailfan]

TheWaysideRailroader

I like how Menards makes cheap o gauge rolling stock!

I really appreciate the Menards stuff, I have a few cars. Mine all needed minor tweaks, but I didn't mind too much. The main things were that the B&M hopper car had issues with the trucks being too close to the body and not resting level on the track or entirely clearing the body. I made a couple shims out of some sheet styrene that was kicking around, and now it's perfect.
I also swapped knuckle springs out because they were too stiff and made it hard to couple- and replaced the springs that return the 'latch' for the coupler in the metal trucks- they were ok but I thought a gentler spring might make the cars couple easier as well. I used 1661e-30 brush springs that I had removed from equipment I had serviced.
I also oiled & greased certain parts to make the couplers open and close easier. They work fantastic now. I modified the plastic knuckle couplers on my New Haven hopper to give them 480-16 springs since the built in plastic one was much too stiff and those usually break anyways.
If you don't mind that you might benefit from- or need to do some 'tuning up' on your new stock, Mendards is a great choice. 

Vacation in Maine has been fun, got to visit the WW&F and had an absolutely fantastic time there- wish I had gotten more time but we got there late and they close stuff down somewhere after 3:00-ish. The work they do there is simply amazing.
One of the best parts of visiting our family's friend's place here in Maine is that we get to go sailing- he's taken us out quite a bit and while I don't think I'm that great at it, I've had a lot of fun taking the tiller. I'm still learning more about making adjustments to the sails based on where the wind is coming from and where we're trying to go, but I'm starting to understand it much better than I did in past years.

Tomorrow I'll be returning home, so today is my family's last full day in ME. I'm going to miss it!

We lost one of our neighbors last night, still processing that. I never knew him well, but it's still very sad. I've been mowing their lawn for them this summer.

Take care all, stay safe & well.
-Ellie

[anjdevil2]

Hey, good morning

Cloudy, looks like 90s through the weekend - off to the Poconos for a wedding tomorrow.

Fife - Yeah, I'm expecting it to be very emotional - When I took the tree down in March, I could hardly see it.

Got my Greenburg's Edison tickets, so I'm ready to go on the 7th.  I have some money saved for that.

I have a nice bit of Menards, I'm hoping some of the cars are at Greenburg's - I love those sweptline Dodge pickups. 

Still a lot going on here, debating on putting the house up for sale, with interest rates bumping up, I can't sit on this past the move out date of my Princess.  She's ok with moving in with up or at least into Jenni's house until she moves.

Hope to stay home on Sunday, I would like to clean out the garage and get that straightened up.  Probably will take Mom's Mustang out for a wash and vac.

Prayers for all in need

[Flintlock76]

"Good Hunting!" at the Greenberg show!  I've been to a number of Greenberg shows but the Edison show is the "Gold Standard,"  I've been right-time right-place lucky twice to have a visit and was VERY impressed!

[fifedog]

Mornin' guys and gals. Pleasant and 66 along the Patterson Creek cut-off. Need to head back east to say farewell to another friend and neighbor. Will be coming back through , so at least the bug "juice" will get washed off.

The gals and grandsons spent the day in Dutch Wonderland yesterday, which was a belated Mother's Day gift to Ms Kelly. They had a nice time, but the 6 hour round-trip is getting old. I volunteered at the RR museum, then dined at the local sports pub on fried shrimp and Yeungs.

End of the month. GOOD! Hope August is better, emotionally. Somebody please start new Coffee Pot, as I'll probably be a late riser tomorrow.

[pennytrains]

Great!  July is almost over and I just FINALLY got hot dogs and buns!  

[Leverettrailfan]

Better work fast!

I may be biased, but in my personal experience August hot dogs taste just as good as July ones do.

-Ellie