Heartland Division CB&QKevin .... I hope you did not have too much rain.
We only had a very light rain on and off all day. The evening newscast said we had about a half of an inch. The breeze was steady all day, and it only got gusty one time.
Tomorrow is supposed to be just a little worse, then the system will move into the Gulf Of Mexico where it is predicted to develop into a Tropical Storm.
Time will tell.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Ken .... I hope Dirk's paws improve soon.
Kevin .... I hope you did not have too much rain.
TF ..... Praying for Judy, Barbie, and the rest of your family. It is a difficult time, I'm sure.... Also, if you think you need eye surgery, I would suggest to not delay it too long.
Lion ..... Thinking of you. Last I heard, your brother was recovering from Covid, and I hope he is better.
Everybody .... Have a good night.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Eveing Diners
Flo, give the gang and I a please and Dirk a dog treat.
9-11 I was a manager of a Midas and we had a TV in the custmer waitting area. I was stund by the first plane, the second I knew we where going to war.
Dirk Pip and the Vet. Dirk started lipping again and had to take him to the Vet before work. He will not stop chewing and licking his paws. This time he has a yest infection on his feet? Guess from all the licking. Cost me $112.06 that I did not really have but he is worth it!
Time to sit out with Dirk, so later and Dirk says Woof, Woof.
I hate Rust
Last night at the hotel was fun I never laughed so hard in my life and I'll tell you about that later
This morning was trying Barbie and Judy are a mess We need to stop at the flower store and be at the cemetery at 2 There is tears all over the place today
Hopefully we will be through this soon as I understand round 3 at dusk with the release of the candle light flowers on the pond is coming up next
Mom has offered to pay for counseling for both Judy and Barb They just can't let go of their little sister
TF
We have a Tropical System moving through right now, not a hurricane, not a storm, not even a depression, this is just a "system".
We are forcast for 2-3 inches of rain and 20 MPH sustained winds with gusts to 35 for the next two days.
The weathercasters finally have something to talk about! They are so excited on the news right now. We do not need the rain, and the ground is saturated, so there might be some low level flooding in inland counties.
BroadwayLionTIGERS LOVE SPAGHETTI: It has orange stripes!
Sorry, Lion, we ate it all. Daisy did get several noodles under the table. Even a tiger wouldn't be able to get the noodles away from that ferocious dachshund.
It doesn't look like I'm going to make North Dakota this fall. I'm going to aim for spring.
Between going south to see grandkids and the winter, I'll have to wait. Normally, winter wouldn't matter too much, but my reason for getting to Roosevelt National Park was to hike some of the trails there. Maybe next spring.
York1 John
I asked my doctor if I gave up delicious food and all alcohol, would I live longer? He said, "No, but it will seem longer."
Edit: Top of the page!
It's happy hour here, so have a drink or two on me. I'm cooking spaghetti, and having my drinks while I cook.
TIGERS LOVE SPAGHETTI: It has orange stripes!
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Good morning ....
Again, thanks to those who shared 9/11 memories.
Old Engineman ..... Thanks for sharing your story. Perhaps, you should submit it to Trains for publication in their September 2021 edition.
Jimmy .... I bet you never forget your seeing Flight 93 in its final moments.
Ed..... Nice photos.
Dave ...... Railbiking looks like quite an adventure.
Everybody ..... Have a good Saturday.
Good morning. Black coffee this morning.
Old Engineman, very good report on the 9-11 attack.
I think today is cleanup the yard day. We've had three days of rain, wind, thunder, etc. The rains are past, and we have a yard full of leaves and branches.
On top of that, the squirrels are having a field day in our oak trees. They are cutting off leaves, dropping acorns, burying acorns, teasing the dog, etc. We can't let Daisy the Dachshund look out the window -- it is constant barking at squirrels.
After the yard work, there should be time for more work on the layout's donut shop.
I know its 9/12 but here's my experiences of 9/11/01
I was 9 years old in 4th grade, South of Pittsburgh. It was a normal morning, until the teachers started acting different and turning on TVs on their desk. Having a B last name, I was close to the desks.... so I saw it all happen. Well, I looked out the window, and saw a plane flying low..... it was the only plane all day. Later on, using thr flight plan and the parents of friends, I put 2 and 2 together and realised it was United 93. Before Shanksville. The principal was on the speaker system saying "don't be scared, this is happening far away, we're safe here" meanwhile 93 flew over our heads.
Kids were being pulled out of school left and right, and I wondered why I wasn't as well. When I got home, there were only 2-3 kids on mg school bus... normally 25sh iirc. No trains ran that day. It was very quiet outside
(My Model Railroad, My Rules)
These are the opinions of an under 35 , from the east end of, and modeling, the same section of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway. As well as a freelanced road (Austinville and Dynamite City railroad).
Here is a different sort of railroading adventure:
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
OldEnginemanComment log entry for Tuesday, September 11, 2001: "The view will never be the same."
Hi OldEngineman,
Your log entry is very moving. It expresses the loss that we all suffered in a very poignant way.
My 14 yr. old son was home from school that day because he was sick, and we were watching television for lack of anything better to do. When the reports came on it was surreal to me. We were pretty much speechless, but I said to him that we had just watched thousands of people die! It still makes me feel cold and hollow when I think about it.
We were at the orthodontist with our daughter, there was a TV on and everyone was in an absolute state of shock. How do you take something like that in?
Sacramento State Fairgrounds has one of the beams from the Trade Center as a memorial along with a huge floating granit ball with over 3,000 names carved on it. We must never forget those lost.
On a more personal note, we had to take our old cat to the vet last night. She was 2 months shy of 20 years old, and she just wore out. I hate that part of having pets. Today the air was so smokey you could see the effect just feet away. Seemed kind of fitting.
Tomorrow will be better. Looking forward to huevos rancheros and coffee!
OldEnginemanThe View From the Bridge
Thank You, Old Engineman
Your testimony serves as a heartfelt, accurate account of a very trying time for all who witnessed the events. I hope your words live on forever for future generations so that they may have at least some sense of understanding for how so many of us felt.
Hell Gate Bridge 47 by Steven Siegel, on Flickr
IMG_0508 by Edmund, on Flickr
Thanks again, Ed
I posted this to the "misc.transport.rail.americas" newsgroup on September 12, 2001. I've changed only a few words for this post.
========================================
The View From the Bridge
Like everyone else here, I turned on the television yesterday morning and couldn't believe what I was seeing.
But it was another working day. I tried to call, to find out what might be running. Didn't get through. I didn't try very hard to contact them - I knew there would be a train to run. So I left for work on my regular time.
When I got to the crew room at New Haven, I found that many of the daytime trains had been canceled, including mine, #173 on Tuesdays. In the chaos, the tunnels into and out of New York had been closed and then inspected before traffic would be allowed through. However, some trains were starting to run again, so I waited around to be available in case they needed me for something.
#149 was going to run on time from Springfield (to D.C.). That would be mine. I asked the Motor Storage engine dispatcher for my engine: the 915 - it was only one there. It's one of the last "old-time" AEM-7's, not rebuilt, no ACSES, and still has the old-time cab signal display. It's an engine that remains a pleasure to run, rather than a contest. Indeed the 915 has changed very little since my first trip on it many years ago.
The inbound train arrived on time from Springfield, and we left on time as well, but waited at South Norwalk for a Metro-North extra heading up the Danbury branch. Their schedules had been disrupted as well, and they were running what they could trying to get things back together.
We stopped at Stamford, finished the run down the New Haven line with clear all the way - unusual. Then headed down the Hell Gate Line for New York.
Perhaps the most spectacular view of Manhattan island and the boroughs of New York City is one that most people will never see: from the cab of a locomotive on the Hell Gate Bridge. You're up in the air, but not so high that you lose the breadth and magnificence of scope. You may get a similar, fleeting glimpse from the Triborough Bridge, but on the Hell Gate you have more time to appreciate what's before you.
Back in 1986 when I first got a computer, one use I found for it was to keep a database record of all my jobs. At first, I kept only essential data: engine numbers, terminals, mileage, times, etc. But then I decided I should include something more, a place to record comments about the day's trip.
The View from the bridge was one of my first experiences on my first trip over the road as a promoted engineman back May 1981, and it has earned entries in my "comment log" through the years. Here are a few:
October 28, 1990 (Conrail): "Saw a complete rainbow stretching from the Bronx to Long Island - the most perfect I've ever seen"
July 1, 2001 (Amtrak): "Saw a bolt of lightning hit the World Trade Center just before going into tunnel on the trip in"
Two days ago, Sunday, September 9 (Amtrak): "There was no one to run 57, so I took that instead of 163; on the way back, NYC looked very nice under clouds overhead"
Coming westward on the Hell Gate Line, you pass by Oak Point Yard on the left with the elevated Bruckner Expressway on your right. You're down below street level here, but at the west end of the yard you start the climb. You're slowing down here, from 60 to 40 for the sharpest curve, as you leave the South Bronx. You turn right, go across the Bronx Kills bridgework, then continue upward past the toll booths of the Triborough Bridge. As you climb towards the 50mph curve at the east side of the main span, that's when you really see it. The View.
And of course, they were gone.
We arrived at Penn Station with 6 cars, 2 trainmen, 5 passengers, and no one on the platform waiting.
When I don't see him, I'll leave a note for the outbound engineman, saying how many cars, and condition of the brakes and engine. But last night I added an extra line:
149
6 cars
Brakes OK
Eng OK
A sad day.
Penn Station was very quiet. I walked out to 8th Avenue and 31st. Looking downtown towards the darkness, I saw what might be flashing lights far off, couldn't tell how far. I walked eastward on 31st Street, the taxi stands were blocked off with police vehicles; I heard they commandeered the taxis for emergency service. 7th Avenue was closed south of 34th Street, being used as an "emergency vehicle corridor". It was eerily quiet in midtown, almost no one there.
Back inside, there was no eastbound work for me. All earlier trains were gone and the ones coming later would have crews arriving, available to work back. So I could deadhead home.
There weren't going to be any eastward trains from Penn for a couple of hours, so I decided to take Metro-North back to New Haven. I walked to the 7th Avenue Subway entrance by the Long Island Rail Road side, with money out for a subway token, but the clerk at the booth waved me through the open gates. There was no service south of 34th Street - downtown trains were terminating there, then heading back uptown.
Waiting in the subway car to leave, I listened to a gentleman who worked for Jersey Transit. From his window he had seen it all: the second plane hit, the first collapse, the second collapse.
Grand Central was all but deserted. In the quiet there, one can take in what must be the greatest public space in America. I caught the 10:17pm for New Haven. The guy running it had hired out one man behind me.
The ride home in a deadhead car gave me time to consider the day, turning everything over inside.
In 1941 about 3,000 lives were lost at Pearl Harbor. We went to war, against known enemies, known countries. Yesterday we lost ... well, who has ANY idea yet of how many? Certainly thousands.
But this time, our war must be not against a country - it must be against a CULTURE. We must fight it and do whatever it takes to win. If we are not willing to do this, we will certainly face a greater Hellfire NEXT time.
I got home 3 hours' behind my regular time.
I have yet to finish my timeslip for yesterday, and then enter it into my records. I'm unsure what I can put into my comment log to fully represent yesterday's events.
I didn't sleep long last night. The televisions keep looping videos of the planes slicing into the buildings. How many times can YOU watch it? There are going to be more videos, perhaps more chilling than before. At once, the most awful and compelling sight I've ever seen. I am hard-pressed to keep my composure when I stop to think of those hundreds or thousands of doomed people in those buildings. Those who chose to jump rather than be burned alive. May God have pity on their souls.
Last night just after sunset on the bridge, I looked in the distance and saw the ashes of their lives floating up from Manhattan and across Brooklyn.
Comment log entry for Tuesday, September 11, 2001: "The view will never be the same."
It was foggy in Maryland and I was off that day watching CNBC. They didn't know how big the 1st plane was that hit, and I knew a B25 hit the Empire State Building, so I figured it was a freak accident. Took the dog for a walk and came back and heard a second plane hit.
Heard some horrific stories from people who were there, that I wish I could forget.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
I was playing racquetball. We came off the court all sweaty, and became transfixed by the TV at the counter for over an hour.
We remember.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Good afternoon from perfectville. It was another sunny day with temps in the mid-20s. Sure is lots of smoke coming up from Washington and Oregon though.
Spent the day at the computer working on this Estate I am dealing with, man I had no idea her affairs would be in such a mess. Talked on the phone to a nice guy from U.S. Bank for a long time. Trying to figure out how to get things done with the border being closed. I picked up a cheque for many millions at the Lawyer from a land sale that was part of the Estate. I drove right by PWRS on the way to the bank with it and was thinking how many millions in stock would they have on the shelf? I kept going.
Just found out that the dog we used the 30 year old frozen sperm on is pregnant so we will be having pupsicles on Canadian Thanksgiving.
9/11 was a long exhausting day for me as was the following few days. I have told about it in the past so won't repeat it. Still wrenches the heartstrings remembering.
I was selling some artwork once and the scammer alarm bells went off. It is a long story, but I sure had fun with the guy. His name was Rev Lumpkin Williams based in England (so he said). If you Google his name he is infamous.
We placed a notice to creditors for this Estate I am looking after and boy did the scammers come out of the woodwork then. They did not get far with me.
Dave, thanks for posting all the pics of NM, I'll have to go visit and do a walkabout.
TF, sorry to hear you have to go through a two part service for your SIL. My Sister wanted the full meal deal for our parents so we did that. Starting with my generation though, at most we will have a get together at someone's house and then privately spread the ashes at some point. Big funerals and big weddings seem to be a thing of the past in our social circles. My wife and I got married on the grounds of the Hyatt in Kaui. We said we would buy dinner for those that showed up, 18 did.
Time for a Rum and Pepsi.
All the best to all.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Our family arrived in town late because they tied one on last night. We're just getting ready to go to the hotel for two days and Judy asked me how she looked? I said beautiful course just like when they ask do I look fat in these jeans and of course the answer is NO!
A guy usually doesn't say this but I figured what the hay. I asked her how I looked. She said you look like junk, go comb your hair and she got a way with that
Good afternoon .
TF ... Thanks for your comment to me. Are you sure you don't memorize signs? LOL .... I'm glad my story was encouraging to you. If you are thinking of eye surgery, I suggest going to the best available eye clinic in your part of the country. I had mine done at Vanderbilt Eye Institute in Nashville, TN which is as good as it gets in this region.
Everybody ..... Thanks for sharing your 9/11 memories. I should add to my discussion, we are thankful to Canadians who were very kind to very many people who were stranded in Canada as a result of the 9/11 attacks.
Have a nice evening.
Thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who lost their lives and all of the lives effected by 9/11.
I do not remember the day as I was only 2, but I remember my moms story.
She was on the way to my aunts house to drop me off so she could go to work. On the radio she heard the news and ran into my aunts to turn the TV on.
When she got to work, her and her coworkers went and bought a cheap TV to watch the news in the brakeroom. When the boss found out, he sent out a mass email telling everyone to get over it and get back to work or else they would be fired. So she did what anyone else in that situation would do, she typed her resignation letter and slapped it on his desk. She turned and walked out and flipped him the bird as he tried to get her to stay.
Kinda like your situation kevin, although I hope yours turned out better.
John- Do you think you could whip me up a plate? Sounds yummy
9-11
School was just beginning. My wife called and told me to turn on the TV. In one of the homerooms, I turned on the TV and told other teachers to do the same. It took a while for me, let alone the students, to realize we had been attacked.
After the first shock, I told the teachers to try to have as normal a day as possible. We had quite a few parents call to see if they should get their kids early. I think they wanted to just hunker down in their homes due to the uncertainty.
I have some very bad memories from 9/11, but not what might be typical.
The customer's site I was working at closed down as soon as the second airplane hit the WTC. I returned to our shop. My supervisor was upset that I had left the job site and not finished the work.
He was dressing me down in his office when the phone call came in from World Headquarters to close our shop.
Garry
I was so glad to hear your current eye surgeries went so well for you. To see the best near and far for the first time in your life sounded so encouraging when I read it days ago.
Until about three years ago I had both really good farsighted and nearsighted vision. My farsightedness currently is still awesome. I have had people in my truck that did not believe I read the road sign way down the Highway before we got there and said I had been there before and I knew what it said Who thinks like that? Like I don't have better things to do than memorize signs
Every year my nearsightedness just gets worse and worse. I don't even think a current prescription last for a year anymore which is making N scale model railroading extremely difficult. My right eye nearsightedness is diminishing faster than the left. Hearing the success of modern-day eye surgery and how well it worked for you is an inspiration for me to look into getting my nearsightedness problem taken care of.
I finally have insurance now so I am going to look into this. I'm not too much of a doctor person but I would like so much to see things well up close again.
I remember the morning standing in the livingroom watching in shock with Judy that day so many years ago.
My moment of silence goes out to the lives that were so needlessly lost that sad day remembered.
Prayers for a peaceful world and hope
John
Good morning.
Recalling 9/11/2001.
Shelley and I were in Halifax, NS, Canada where we arrived on 9/9/2001. We flew to Halifax from Nashville, TN on American Airlines changing planes in Boston, MA.
Early on 9/11, I turned on the TV in our hotel room. CNN was broadcasting a boring story, and I forget what it was about. Suddenly the show was interrupted. ...... Breaking news. ...
A plane had hit one of the WTC towers. We spent the day watching the horrors.
About 50 trans-Atlantic flights were diverted to the Halifax airport and parked there. All flights to the US were ended. ..... We wondered how to get home and when.
Several days later, we rode VIA Rail's Ocean to Montreal. We had a room in a Budd sleeper ahead the Budd dome-observation car. It was an overnight trip of 22 hours.
About an hour after arriving in Montreal, we boarded a VIA train to Toronto. We stayed two nights at the Royal York Hotel next to Union Station in Toronto. .
Next, we boarded Amtrak's International which passed through Michigan on its way to Chicago. There was a delay of several hours at the border. All train passengers got off the train to ride busses to Port Huron MI where we got back on the train. We rode the train to Flint, MI.
At Flint, we got off the train and rented a car. We drove to Nashville where we got our car to drive home.
........
Prayers of rememberance for all who died on 9/11.
....
Dave: .... Thanks for posting the beautiful NM pictures.
Rememberance Day today
Thanks for the stunning pictures of New Mexico Dave, Enjoyed!
hon30critter
Looks like you had a little fun at the Photoshop with this one though I think if you added a flying saucer somewhere the picture would be most perfect
Some more album covers with trains on them.
Good morning, everyone.
Cool and rainy this morning. It was a nice walk on the trail.
It will be a nice sleepy day today.
Here are some images of New Mexico's stunning scenery:
LastspikemikeI think it best if I do not explain on a publicly accessible website how these scams actually work.
Why not? What do you think might happen?