phillyreading There have been a few storms nearby in the past year or two. May have to think about moving but my wife don't want to leave southeast Florida. Guess I will just have to do as the rock group REO Speedwagon says; Riding The Storm Out!
There have been a few storms nearby in the past year or two. May have to think about moving but my wife don't want to leave southeast Florida. Guess I will just have to do as the rock group REO Speedwagon says; Riding The Storm Out!
Lee, you don't want to be there. Here is video of what we went through in 1990. On the video from time 2:30 to about 4:30 is our neighborhood. At 3:12 that is the house accross the street from ours. All 16 houses on our street were trashed. 29 dead and over 500 hurt. It was on the ground for 16 miles+. F4 and F5. The high school was less than a block away.
Without being in one you just can't know. You can move but you can't hide.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=+1990+plainfield+il+tornado&&view=detail&mid=9F37DE305A86C663C69A9F37DE305A86C663C69A&FORM=VRDGAR
Joined 1-21-2011 TCA 13-68614
Kev, From The North Bluff Above Marseilles IL.
Good evening all,
KRM, I know what you mean about tornados. Mrs. Buckeye and I went thru the Hanover tornado in 1974 (although I did not know the lady then and still have not met her) and that was one for the books as well. I had an excellent day at work as I finished the major work on the project I have been focusing on. Tomorrow will be the first test. Weather was brisk today, but got my walk in. I hope everyone has a good day.
Keep on training,
Mike C. from Indiana
Evening all!
Got warm quick today. 65. Maybe 75 tomorrow.
Packing stuff up today from the train show.
Chief - mainly an issue of time. I will take a crack at it sometime in the next month. Problem is personal train repair projects piling up. Argh.
Have ridden out several big hurricanes in my short lifetime. Lots of tornado warnings here but have been lucky.
Regards, Roy
Another day of rain here off and on. Pumped more water out of the pool today. Did not go to Helen's facility today but hope to go tomorrow if the weather is better. The road leading over there has a lot of pot holes now that were washed out by the rain. Tomorrow should be the end of it for a while.
Ray
SPMan
Morning. 49 degrees and warming into the 60's.
Meetings start at noon.
Roy, know what you mean. With the Mayoring and etc., don't have time. Use to love to do that and upgrades too.
Hope weather improves for all.
Have a good one.
God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified
Hey Kev,
I went through hurricane Andrew on August 24th 1992. Talk about a storm!! A cat 5 hurricane(max winds over 212mph, ripped off wind recording instrament at Homestead Air Force base 212mph) destroyed almost everything in it's path. It had tornadoes inside the hurricane and destroyed things in an uneven path. Concrete block houses with just a few blocks high remaining, condo town house roofs sitting in the road, cars inside the houses, pine trees stripped bare, cars on top of cars, tracker tralers overturned, even a CSX freight train gondola turned over, mobile homes with 6 inch metal frames twisted like bread wrappers. Looked like an atomic bomb went off in Homestead FL that morning. My condo had hurricane shutters installed and a two pieces of roof shingle pierced one shutter. One other note about hurricane Andrew and that is it was forecasted to travel along the Florida east coast from Miami to Jacksonville but came straight across from the Bahamas instead.
So the tornado here in northern Palm Beach county was not that bad over all but bad enough. Also I have been through 3 other hurricanes and nothing was as nad as Andrew.
Temp going back up to 81 by thursday and then cooling off again for a few days. Today should be around 72 for a high, weekend temp is supposed to cool down some again.
Trying to get bathroom cabinets installed and H.O. model train layout board mounted to wall(fold down). Installed some more telephone poles on layout yesterday, this time on the upper level.
Lee Fritz
KRM phillyreading There have been a few storms nearby in the past year or two. May have to think about moving but my wife don't want to leave southeast Florida. Guess I will just have to do as the rock group REO Speedwagon says; Riding The Storm Out! Lee, you don't want to be there. Here is video of what we went through in 1990. On the video from time 2:30 to about 4:30 is our neighborhood. At 3:12 that is the house accross the street from ours. All 16 houses on our street were trashed. 29 dead and over 500 hurt. It was on the ground for 16 miles+. F4 and F5. The high school was less than a block away. Without being in one you just can't know. You can move but you can't hide. http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=+1990+plainfield+il+tornado&&view=detail&mid=9F37DE305A86C663C69A9F37DE305A86C663C69A&FORM=VRDGAR
Kev,
Sorry to hear that people were killed where you live! However according to the news 15 people died in Georgia over the weekend due to tornadoes.
To me the weather is going crazy! Maybe another rocket launch will cause it to get worse and caue more global warming too.
Lite rain and 40 this morning. Temps going down by the end of the week.
In my lifetime I have been Very close to but never in a torando. Drove away from a couple of them.
A morning out with a friend(Monday)we stopped at P&D, Menards and the P.O. for stamps. Then lunch. Menards still had the train items on display. I like their buildings but have no place to put them.
S.J.
"IT's GOOD TO BE THE KING",by Mel Brooks
Charter Member- Tardis Train Crew (TTC) - Detroit3railers- Detroit Historical society Glancy Modular trains- Charter member BTTS
36 heading to 42 overcast, another winter gray day. Sounds better than what you guys are getting.
Not much going on. It took me hours yesterday to get the table correct in that track program SCARM but that is true of what I have already. I don't think I could draw my track layout that is on there now because I have so many cut sections and 072 K-line sections that are not in the program. But it is fun messing around with it. But as an old guy That program don’t know how much you can wiggle tubler track around.
V8Vega Tue. 57/43 Why do people live where there are tornados or hurricanes? But then again my house was new in 72 because the house that was there was destroyed in the 71 earthquake.
Tue. 57/43
Why do people live where there are tornados or hurricanes? But then again my house was new in 72 because the house that was there was destroyed in the 71 earthquake.
Afternoon all!Not much to report except it is a nice warm day at 66 so far. Claim it will make 75 later.Lots of news helicopters continuously hovering about a half mile from front of house. The cemetery where they are laying the Little Elm Texas Detective Jerry Walker to rest that was killed last week is just 1/2 mile from my house. Huge procession. The news said he was the first officer ever killed in Little Elm. Very sad. Family with young children.
With hurricane Andrew we only knew about 30 hours before it hit that it was going to hit Homestead FL. THe original forecast had it going up to Miami FL all the way along the coastline to Jacksonville FL, only within the last 30 hours did we get word that Andrew was going straight for Homestead instead of turning and going to Miami. So most of the east coast was getting ready while Homestead was not preparing that much. Some areas were not told to evacuate until 28 hours before the storm actually hit, so the roads were all ready over packed from other people leaving parts of southeast Florida and we were afraid of being stuck on the roadway when Andrew hit so we stayed home and rode it out in a small city called Naranja Lakes. We lost all utilites except for telephone as the land line still worked but only to call out.
If Andrew followed the course it was supposed to take 3 days before it hit Homestead most of the east coast cities of Florida would have been destroyed; Miami to Ft Pierce, maybe even up to Melbourne would have looked like what Homestead had got.
Good day for a walk. Work went well. Project did not save as much time as I thought it would, but there are still some tweaks to be made. Nothing to do tomorrow but look at the new Lionel catalogs. Wife and I went to a church sponsored movie, "Bells of Saint Mary's". Pretty good flick. I hope everyone has a good day.
Kevin looks good your layout addition.
You know what I could never understand when I lived in FL. was the people who had to drag there boat with them when they where trying to escape a Hurricane coming. I saw more times where a boat trailer would break down or a boat got flipped in a accident and block the road for the others trying to get out of the way of the storm and now are stuck because someone had to pull there boat behind them.
Haven't really did much today. Hope all had a good day. Talk to you all later
Life's hard, even harder if your stupid John Wayne
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Morning. 50 degrees. Went up one degree in 5 minutes. Going to 71 degrees today.
One lunch meeting so hope to get errands done that I wanted to do two days ago. Try and stay away from Town Hall so I can.
Lee, sad about Homestead. I lived there some when I was in the Army 68-69. Pretty town. Chrome Ave. with its white painted palm trees.
Hey Guys, I'm Back!!
Wow, what a trip! Arrived in Chicago a week ago Sunday at 5:00 pm, left there this past Sunday at the same time. Worked about 96 hours that week! Everyday 12-16 hours and last Saturday night all night long. Since I've been back have had 2 Dr appointments and an hour and half dental appointment today. Looking forward to this afternoon and things will slow down for 4 or 5 days.
The layout was a huge mess when I got to Chicago, the instructions I provided were not followed. There were two balls of wire all tangled and tied up, one was the size of a volleyball, the other a softball. Looked and looked for 2 hours trying to figure out where to start untangling stuff. Finally started with the power distribution, had two TIU's that had both failed and they were sent off for repair. A new system was purchased before I got there and started with that.
I had made arrangements from the other forum for a local DCS experienced guy to come and help the prior week. He looked at the situation and didn't want anything to do with the wiring. He was a savior helping me, if it wasn't for him I would still be there.
The primary problem was, when I disconnected the 5 various modules I took two terminal strips, cut the connecting wires one at a time and put each end in a seperate terminal strip. Leaving 1 strip secured to the bottom of the layout, the other flying but securely tie wrapped. I had them identified with a specific number, then identified "pin 1" the same on each strip. The idea was the installer would simply reverse the procedure, one wire at a time and reconnect them. BUT that is not what happened! Instead, he took the "flying terminal strip" and secured it to the bottom of the layout near the secured terminal strip. As a result the wire bundles were wrapped around one another, thru each other, etc.. Then connected jumper wires between the two terminal strips. To secure the flying terminal strip many were twisted 180 deg, and some of the wires were 22awg and 24awg. Needless to say there were many, many broken, loose wires and connections.
The teather to the control panel alone had around 80-90 wires, and they all had to be disconnected 1x1 and resoldered. EXTREMELY time consuming!
My helper "JOE" was a God Send, he not only knew what he was doing, but was pleasent to work with, and did quality work. We did well together! He helped me maintain my sanity. Meals and coffee were always promised but seldom arrived. Just to make things worse, the people were VERY nice, but were too busy or just forgot about us. Think I had 6 meals the entire time, one was at Joe's house when I was departing. I was staying at the customers house, and didn't have a car. No business any where nearby.
I made it home, totally exhausted, sore, and worn out. I will post some pictures soon. Just glad to be home!!!!!!
Don
Don whatever you charged the guy wasn't enough.
Overcast as usual, 40s today but 40s will soon be just a memory.
The new Lionel catalog is online, some nice things but nothing I'm gonna spend my money on....$$$$
Howdy All.
Don, Sorry about the layout but there would be NO amount of money for me to put up wit that.
Gonna have to skip this Friday and Saturday at the museum. Got extremely ill on Sunday high fever and just dead on my butt, slept most of the day. Early Monday it looked like it was getting better, guess again, it struck back with a vengence. Ended up going to the ER about 8:30 pm and didn't get out til about 2:45 am. After all the tests and what not the major problem is Pulmonary Edema and Acute Bronchitis, at least no pneumonia.
At least the rain has stopped and the sun is out. But it was cold this morning.
Gettin' tired , time to go lay down again
Remember the Veterans. Past, present and future.
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Aloha. What a saga, Don. Hope everything works now. Ive been sick all week - still got a monster cold. Dodging tornadoes and hurricanes brings back memories. Once looked out the back yard at night in a thunderstormand saw the funnel cloud in a flash of lighting framed nicely in the window. No sirens or anything. Gathered the clan in the basement in light speed and the it turned and churned up a corn field a block away. Whew!
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
Good sfternoon,
Not a lot going on today, Did spend some more time working the layout program in 3D mode.
Wife made me clean and polish my den desk. What A PITA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It did need it...
So Don, will this guy that helped you out be able to keep them running so you can stay home?
Forgot to say looked at the new old stuff in the Lionel web site today and saw nothing much, only thing I saw that got me looking and wanting was the CSX Intermodal freight set. Do I like it? Yes, Do I want it, maybe. Do I need it? No
Temps dropped to seasonal 50's (30's -low 40's at night) and look to stay that way for the next 10 days. Nice! Tired of the yo-yo weather.
Don - wow, what a mess. Glad you got it done and found some competent help!
Doug M - another wow. Tornado in Chi-town. Get well soon!
DougnattaG - get well soon my friend!
Good evening all, Had a quiet day at home today. When out to Der Weinerschnitzel for a hot dog on a stick and a dog with sourkraut, small fries and a drink. Cost around 8 bucks. Afraid to ask what a full meal would cost. When I was a kid mowing grass for a guy with a fleet of power mowers we worked from dawn until dusk for $5 and were glad to get it. Just shows how things have gone up.
Don, I'm worn out just reading that horror story. You must be exausted. I wouldn't bet on the customer knowing how to operate it even after everything is fixed. That story about getting food while you were there is like they treated some guys from Lionel who were installing a layout for some big TV celebrity back in the day. I think it was for Jackie Gleason or it could have been Authur Godfrey. Anyway, I read the story somewhere. Glad you're back home.
Doug, hope you are feeling better after all that time in the ER. Prayers sent for you.
Quiet day at work. Impressed with some of the items in the Lionel catalogs. The scale tinplate S-2 set looks interesting. So does the conventionally powered FA postwar set. I also noticed the Flyer RTR sets were transformer controlled as well. Just some things you notice. More emphasis on Disney and no Thomas at all. Got to scrimmage with soccer kids tonight inside. That was nice. I hope everyone has a good day.
Wow, can you believe this? Two posts in one day! Thought I would reply to some of the comments you all made. First of all, I made it throught the Dentist appointment, was as bad as I was expecting.
SJ, Your right I'm sure I didn't charge them enough, but at least it was an hourly rate. So it isn't too bad. Not enough for the Loooong hours, and sparse meals. But, just could not leave it, and it not being operational. Most of the stress was self inflicted. When I saw the mess and trying to figure out what needed to be done, and the fact that I had a pre-paid return flight, my chief concern was how to get things done and make the flight. Then when I rescheduled a day later, now a new deadline. And increased pressure to complete and already missed a deadline that made it worse. So on it went day by day, new deadline, already missed one now trying to make another.
Dennis, You commented about age, I'm 67 so just a young guy, and I didn't drive this trip. They provide air fare, and the guest room. What I am pleased about that I was able to do the job, especially given I spent the better part of 2014 and 15, laying in a hospital bed. I realize that I am truly blessed.
DougDG, It started out for the money, but then it got to be a matter of pride. I just couldn't think of having to leave there with the layout not working. And it almost did! Saturday night I was testing the tracks with an illuminated passenger car, went across a bypass and it was a direct short. 18v across the two outside rails! I was frantic. Looked and looked for the power drop, couldn't find it. Saw some ground wires that were not connected, and measured voltage, found one that was hot. In the meantime, every LED and light on the control panel went dark. Physically followed the "hot" ground wire and found where it AND the red positive was crimped at one of these terminal strip locations and the wires were crossed. EASY FIX, then found a ground wire that fell off a junction point, touched it to ground and the entire Control Panel lit up. Didn't find that until 3am though. Man was I Happy!
Doug M, Sorry to hear your not feeling well, its gotta be all that warm weather I brought. BTW, this Joe that was working with me has a Crawl Space layout in his basement. I saw it on Sunday, it is totally awesome! You need to see it! He told me you are not very far from his place. I'm going to send the both of you a email to intoduce you guys. Hope your feeling better soon.
Kev, (Joe), is in his mid 70's and he has volunteered to assist in training and advice. Joe runs MTH track and wasn't familiar with Ross switches until this week. Unfortunately the boys that live there are pampered and spoiled, they don't have any respect for anything. A new Acela was there and the cars had been thrashed, as well as a LOT of other stuff. Of course that drove Joe crazy. I'm going to see if I find someone locally to do some maintenance stuff. (Know anyone?)
Roy, Boy it was so much worse than I expected when we last talked. I recall sitting back and looking at the wires, and thinking "Now how would Roy approach this?" Start with power, and it worked. Sure going to be much more methodical in any other layouts I wire!
Ray, You're right on both counts. Total exhaustion when I got back. They don't have a clue on how to operate. Before I left, I tried showing/training them. The Mom didn't want to be responsible, everything I said went in one year and out the other. The boys, couldn't be told anything. I had the remote and started showing them, the remote was grabbed away, and the kid said "I can do that!" So I let him go. Of course he couldn't do anything without pressing the "3" Start up. After about 5 minutes and them said it was broke and dropped the remote. I ASKED them if they wanted me to show them. Then I started the engine and they took the remote. So I made a comment to read the DCS Manual, and grabbed my bags and headed for the door.
So as it is now, no one has heard a word from them. Including Joe. As an optimist, I'm sure it running, and they are too busy to call. If I were a pessismist, its probably already broke. But not for me to be concerned.
Hope I haven't bored you all, but pictures will be coming.
Good Night and Take Care.
Mornin' boys. Mostly cloudy and 51 along the Patterson Creek cut-off; breezy & cold later. Took advantage of the 64 degree temps yesterday, and hiked the GAP through the Narrows. Caught a CSX empty hopper train, and a returning set of helpers. Got wifey's fancy new porch light installed, and it does look nice, and she is happy. Even broke out the uke and let fifemax sun hisself in the backyard.
dougnotta - Sounds like ugly bronchitis, not cute...
cnw1995 - Hope you're feeling better.
dbaker - Let's hope all your efforts don't wind up in a dumpster.
Morning all
Don B. I would pray they didn't call and wouldn't blame you if didn't answer if they did.
Have a task ahead of me that not sure when I might consider it. That's taking all the trains down off of the shelving ( this would be one side of the room at a time) cut grooves in the boards for the wheels and then put it all packed up again but with out track this time. With track some of these are basically just slid in there with no extra clearance. Mainly the upper shelves with the more modern type items, but to get to them I need to remove the other shelves so might as well do them while I'm at it. Just not sure when I'm going to have the gumption to do so. Well guess I need to move on, talk to you all later. Need to take my meds and eat.
Mornin' FellasDon - Thanks for sharing your adventures! When you started the last response to DougDB I knew where you were going 'then it got to be a matter of pride'. That is why my 'projects' are never done. I'm always looking for ways to improve the craftmanship quality. I'm still learning, but the more I do the better I get (hopefully).Fife - hiking the Narrows sounds rather relaxing.Well the fridge saga may be nearing an end. Filed a BBB complaint on Monday and got a call from Sears' BBB department that evening. After going through everything the lady on the phone said "My deepest and sincerest appologies. There is absolutely no excuse for this to have ever reached this scale." Yep, been saying that since my first threat to call a lawyer, which I had done in December and was told if this gets to X, Y, or Z call me and we'll file. Didn't quite get to X, Y, or Z thankfully. I'm still out the cost of the fridge, 1/2 month rent, 2 days off work, and $100 in tolls by the time it is all said and done. I'm going to try and get them to comp the cost of the fridge still.FiL had some more work done on his place, had the inside of his screened porch redone and man does it look nice. I'm going to talk to my builder friend (who did this work too) and get some pricing on materials. I may do the same to the rental in Pittsburgh to fix some shotty stuff I did back when I didn't know any better.
https://brentsandsusanspicutures.shutterfly.com/
88 - It is. I simply park at the parking lot off Valley St, and head west. Takes about 40 minutes to get to the WM bridge over 40. You literally are hiking next to the Western Maryland Scenic tracks, and the CSX (former B&O) Pittsburgh line is maybe a 100 yards away, across Wills Creek. I think of the C&O Canal as my 184.5 mile treadmill, and the Great Alleghany Passage (GAP) as my 150 mile stair-stepper. Both meet 13 minutes from my door.
Morning gang!
Sunny and a brisk 36 this morning. To hit 50 this afternoon. Love this weather! Slow warm up the next 5-6 days.
DonB - been there. Hate deadlines set by air tickets. Makes you nuts. Glad you got it done.
88 - glad you got the fridge thing taken care of. I have had similar but more minor (as compared to your ordeal) issues with Rooms to Go and Fridgidaire. But got both resolved satisfactorily in a reasonable time.
DougM - hope you get to meet Don's new Chi-town buddy.
Fife - the hiking trails sound really cool.
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