winter doldrums

[kimbrit]

This Saturday night sees the UK putting its clocks back 1 hour from BST to GMT so it will be dark when I get home from work and no tea time train run for a few months. I know that Europe as a whole alters its clocks for daylight saving, how about America, Australia etc? I shall be spending my time servicing loco's, weathering stock, how about you? any interesting projects in mind - perhaps Vic is building a new garage

Cheers,

Kim

[Tom The Brat]

Except for some places in Indianna, USA changes the clocks Saturday (Actually 2am local time Sunday).

[Anonymous]

Kimbrit

I will be working on some new building and water tower , and it's time for engine maintance, grease and oil and clean my rolling stock. i need to repaint some older buildings , so i will be busy over the winter with getting ready for next summers rail roading .  Good to see your back kim.

     BEN

[kstrong]

Things on the agenda for this winter...

1) Finish passenger car project
2) Finish two stations for railroad
3) Start 2-6-2 scratchbuilding project

Now, when you consider that I started the two stations over a year ago, you may begin to get a sense of how often I actually get down to the workshop recently.

I think I'll consider myself lucky if I'm able go get the workbench cleared off.

Later,

K

[vsmith]

Kim check out my "Saga" thread, all the latest on the garage with pics's there, get up to date!

 

Yeah, looks like winter project for me will be finishing out the interior of the garage and the studio and rebuilding the indoor layout, and the outdoorlayout only on weekends. I have to hope for a relativly dry winter so I can improve the backyard, its a real disaster area now! All the construction has really left the planting devistated. Need to start from scratch again.

 

It remains to be seen whether I'll be relocating my workbench to the new studio, or into the new garage, wife's been making noises like she's having second thoughts about letting me use the studio space for my workbench, grrrrr.

[Anonymous]

I hate the clocks going back. However I have more time to model in the winter than in the summer. I'm finishing the Mogul come He$@ or high water this winter!

Kevin, two words for you BABY MONITOR

[bman36]

Hey there,

Canada changes this weekend too eh. For me it means more driving the "Mc Rig" after dark. As for projects...four USA Trains coaches just got pulled apart for a repaint. Vintage CN in Black and Green is going on. Add to that an Aristo 0-4-0 that has been in pieces for 3 years now will get the same treatment. Gonna' wire the tender to draw current as well. That will be enough for me. A bathroom in the basement needs to be built also ( rats ).... trains are more fun. Aside from that, me and our little American Eskimo will lay out in the snow beside where my layout is. I can tell her to keep watching for the first rail to appear again from under all that white stuff. Later eh...Brian.

  

[FJ and G]

I'm pressing ahead in the cold and rain and laying more track and building two 30-foot long bridges, one of concrete and one wooden truss, as well as landscaping.

It's still hard to believe it's been only about 9 or 10 months since I handlayed my first track, converted my 3-rail electric Lionel trains to homemade R/C 2-rail, built a couple of giant structures and long bridge, pond, river etc.

Within the next 2 years, my goal is to convert my 1:48 layout to two 1:13.7 railroads, one representing 18 inches and the other 2 feet.

I'm looking forward to the next 9 or 10 months.

No winter hibernating for me. It's full steam ahead!

[Marty Cozad]

This thread title is depressing,,,,,NOT  !!!!!!!
Winter ,,, NO mowing, no watering,,, nice and cool for doing those hard back braking jobs on the RR.
 This si the time to go after it.
I have yard lights and other lights if need be.
 Theres nothing better than running trains in the dark with lighted passenger cars , etc.
So much to do and so litttle time before next spring to get it done.

Go here and see whats happening ,,,NOW
http://www.mylargescale.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=41681
Lots of photos to see all that can be done.

[Mike Dorsch CJ&M r.r.]

You are my railroad hero Marty . I'm just gonna put all the little pieces that broke off most of my rolling stock back on that I keep in a little jar .

[SandyR]

My garden railroad sees almost no sun for four months, and we get heavy, wet lake-effect snow that freezes into a glacier. So my winter railroading is limited to the not-so-great indoors. I have some small industrial-type cars to finish, and an inglenook switching layout that I've just started to build. At the rate that I get things done, it will be garden season again before all is complete!

SandyR

[Anonymous]

Well of course this is all an argument for living here on the Sunshine Coast, it was 38 Deg C at a train running down in Brisbane yesterday and bright sunshine but of course it was only 30 Deg here on "The Coast". It only ever rains here of a night time and we have no pollution, traffic problems, guns, or even poverty.

It is in fact springtime and we are recovering from a particularly harsh winter it actually got down to 15 degrees one night or two nights.  

However we do have a controversy about daylight saving every onther state bt Queensland went on to daylight saving last night or is going onto it but us and it is hurting us in many ways.

Rgds Ian

[Anonymous]

I'll be converting all my 4' curves to 5'.   More landscaping,  structures etc.  Till the first snow, that is.

[Anonymous]

Winter?

Whats that - Little old Adelaide, whilst progressive enough to have daylight savings, has just concluded its driest winter on Record - adding even more relevance to the Company Name - the Dust Bowl and Dirt Cheap Railway.

I'd dearly love it to rain, and rain, and rain. My big water tanks are empty, the house is starting to crack, and it is bearly Spring.

Winter Doldrums - Nuh Uh - Please send your big fat juicy rain clouds via express courier to me!

anyways - summer is an excuse for the missus to send me outside to fix things.........

[tangerine-jack]

Real trains run year round, so do I.  If the weather is too nasty to be outside, then I have a million other projects to work on as well.  Marty is correct, this is the time of year you can do the heavy grunt work on the railroad without sweating to death or getting carried away by mosquitos.

Daylight savings time makes no difference to me, if it's dark then I will turn the lights on.

 

Ian, what part of the Sunshine Coast do you live in??? Here is an exerpt from your  own newspaper (yes, some of us Americans can and do read news from other places).  You may not have guns, but crime and murder seem to have a home.

"What’s behind the terrifying new trend finding its way onto Sunshine Coast streets

02.09.2006

By CANDICE HOLZNAGEL MORE Australians are murdered from knife attacks than gun shot wounds and the trend is beginning to show itself on the streets of the Sunshine Coast. Two knife attacks – one resulting in death – have sent shockwaves through quiet coastal communities in the past week. Last Sunday Sunrise Beach teenager Sonny Baker was found stabbed to death in front of his home. Deon Paul Langworthy faced court on Monday charged with his murder and was then transferred to Princess Alexandra Hospital for surgery on knife wounds to his own hands. On Monday night a 37-year-old man was stabbed several times in the stomach and his back at the Kings Beach Tavern. "

[Tom The Brat]

Only 5'? See if you can work in 8 or more.

[Anonymous]

Jack mate; i can hardly bellieve what you have reported, this must be adifferent Sunshine Coast to where i live. I have been to that Kings Tavern or more exactly to Christmas Carols in the park acrross the road. Here on Kawana Island we have only ever had one crime; some one had too much to drink and stole someone elses garden gnome, i don't think we have even had a traffic accident.

Rgds Ian

[tangerine-jack]

No Ian, I wish it were true, but that is from your own local newspaper.  Truth be told, that is not too bad all things considered.  I don't think there is anywhere in the world you can go and have a zero crime rate.

[FJ and G]

Got outside this weekend and layed 30 feet of truss bridge for my new 7/8n2; and started work on the concrete bridge for the 7/8n18





BB the beagle watches from nearby brambles

[Tom The Brat]

I dunno, Ian. Kidnapping gnomes is pretty severe

[Anonymous]

Torby you are right and this was a pretty large one at that; but of course there is a more serious crime here in Australia nad that is stealing "Nevilles"; They are like garden gnomes but more in the image of Australian aborigines, usually with a spear and sometimes standing on one leg.

Rgds Ian 

[Tom The Brat]

A criminal underground down under

[kimbrit]

Haven't you got somebody like a Neville in the White House then? Or is he more like a gnome? I bet Bush would go down well in the bush, outback - so to speak. Nevillles, I love it, wouldn't like to fall on one of them with his spear after a few beers.

Kim

[FJ and G]

I'm REALLY in the doldrums now. When I got home yesterday, it was too dark to work on the garden RR. Blame it on the end of daylight savings time! Why can't DST be year-round? Would create more light in the gloomy winter!!!! In the summer we don't need all that light and heat.

Baaah Humbug!

[Anonymous]

Yeah Kim I think the name was derived from Senator Neville Bonner an aborigine ploitician.

Ian

[Anonymous]

Well this year I have lost 10 acres, my shop, the net, and this was all when I was going to get started kitbashing. Man it is screwed up!

[Anonymous]

One more curve to go and I'm all converted to 5'  turns.  Torby, I wish I could, but five is the best I can do in the limited area my layout occupies.  It's a 20' x 7'  (approx,)  irregulary shaped planting area surrounded by sidewalk, thus no expansion possibilities.  Well...I guess I could go up.

[Rastun]

This winter I'll be trying to finish up:
1. An Irish Railbus
2. An Aristocraft C-16 conversion into a Baldwin Mogul
3. the retired boxcar from GR plans
4. A drovers caboose project from GR plans
Then I also need to start on:
1. Building trestle bents
2. Building a bridge
3. Making more citizens for Avalanche Creek
I think that's it should carry me to next winter rather easy.
There is those three other locomotive projects also.

[vsmith]

Dont feel bad Eric, I'll be rebuilding my layout this winter and I'm sticking to R1, its what I'm used to and keeps me from making anything to big that would dwarf  my layout. I'm afraid a Neville up here would be very politically incorrect due to the inherent racial issues something like that is likely to stir up. Up here they're called Lawn Jockeys, although originally they were ment to represent a slave servant who would hold the horse for his master in antebellum days. They were popular in that form from the 19th century right up to the 1970's then they started morphining into little horse racing "jockies", same figure, different colored paint schemes, but there's still alot being sold with black facial coloring. What I dont get is that if your African American the you can have something like that without any fuss at all, but if a tightie whitie like me puts one out its akin to a racial slur even if they have the same figure in their yard, huh? Even my black friends can't figure out that logic. Oh Well, welcome to America 2006. Anyway at least I dont have to worry about it, no protesting gnomes showing up at my house demanding I remove my pink flamingoes, or maybe I can be more racially diverse and get some blue flamingoes before the manufacturer closes shop.

 

Found this very ineteresting connection between lawn jockeys and the Underground Railroad.

http://www.loudounhistory.org/history/underground-railroad-jockey-statues.htm

 

A sample of a particularly offensive Lawn Jockey

http://www.lawnjockey.com/images_jocko_N.jpg

 

These have morphed into this:

http://www.lawnjockey.com/images_cav_front.gif

[tangerine-jack]

What happens if I get offended by that last lawn jockey?