Graphics by SeeYou 190
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to the Diner for December. Since December is full of stories and many traditions, and is the season for many delicious treats, well save the treats and have a story. When pondering the prospect of having a wintery theme coupled with the alternative of warmth and sun, I came up with this compromise.
Welcome to WINTER WONDERLAND BEACH, which is very close to Anytown, USA. It is a place where one can go skiing and surfing on the same day with railroading galore whether it's in the snowy mountains or the coastliner along the water. So, give us your snowy or sunny pictures for us all to enjoy Winter Wonderland Beach! And, have a delicious treat along with it.
Jim (with a nod to Mies Van Der Rohe)
Hi Jim,
Thanks for moving the Diner.
Cheers!!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
In keeping with this month's theme, lets start off with a winter and a beach scene.
Bow Lake, AB, frosty! 2017 by Jim S, on Flickr
That picture makes me cold just looking at it.
Dockweiler Beach 2014 by Jim S, on Flickr
This picture is one of my wife's and my old stomping grounds. I think from this that you all can get the idea of Winter Wonderland Beach.
Dave: Thanks. I hope you and everyone else enjoys this month.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Great job with the Diner move, Jim!
Waiting for train 19 by Mike Danneman, on Flickr
Wait, you said Winter and the Buick? Right?
Cheers, Ed
Good morning!
Ramsey IL depot (NKP Clover Leaf District)
Bill Tidler Jr.
Near a cornfield in Indiana...
Good morning Diners. A large coffee and blueberry muffin please, Brunhilda.
I think I'll stay in the Diner q little while the 'Help' is doing the washing.
How Nordic people do the laundry - YouTube
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
Good Morning Diners. Brunhilda, I'll have the same as David please.
Winter Wonderland Beach huh? Interesting place. Looks like this chap went straight from the beach to the slopes.
Maybe this is what he took to get there:
This should be fun. Happy Friday everyone!
P.S. Ed, glad to hear Felicity is doing well.
Mike
Good afternoon Diners. Thick snow all around. Accidents on the roads around us.
I am trying to get out of having to go here, there and everywhere on errands.
Winter Washington Snow Trains - YouTube
Good afternoon, diners. It's a late start here, so I'll still have bacon, eggs, and black coffee, please.
Water Level RouteJohn, do you have that bridge rebuilt yet?
Thanks for asking, Mike. I spent the morning working on my layout bridge. I've changed it from single track to double.
The bridge itself is finished, but the approaches are taking longer than I thought. I have trouble getting the sloped approaches exactly correct so there are no abrubt bumps or dips. I haven't attached the tracks yet.
Before:
After:
I can't wait to get this project finished. No trains can run until I'm done, so I'm having some withdrawal.
Jim, thanks for moving the diner to the new winter wonderland beach location! For me, it's hard to believe it's December. I guess I should start thinking about buying Christmas presents pretty soon.
David, I'm with you about staying inside during snowstorms. There are lots of crazy drivers out there.
It's cold today, but our part of the country can't make up it's mind. Several days we will not get above freezing, and then next week we have a prediction for a day over 60°. The dog doesn't care about the weather -- she enjoys walking no matter what.
Have a great Friday, everyone.
Several years ago, this was just west of my town. No beach, but plenty of winter wonderland.
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."
York1The bridge itself is finished
York1I can't wait to get this project finished. No trains can run until I'm done, so I'm having some withdrawal.
Has anyone noticed the number of posts from people who have been forum members for 10+ years? People who rarely, if ever posted previously?
Makes one wonder what changed.
Water Level Route The bridge itself is finished John that looks great! My fears ars are coming true. I finally had time to send my NCE system in for repairs and I'm also finally having time to go run trains that I now cannot without my DCC system. I sympathize with you!
John that looks great!
Have patience, Grasshopper.
Model railroading is so multi-faceted that even a whole lifetime is never enough. Give me a four-walls-and-a-roof kit and I will spend a month on it, painting, mortaring between the bricks, glazing the windows, building a rudimentary interior, printing walls and floors, adding figures and furniture inside, providing illumination, improving the sheet-of-plastic roof...stuff like that. Then it needs scenery around it, maybe a dog or a cat.
Down time? No such thing. To me, even an Accurail shake-the-box kit needs Kadees and metal Intermountain wheelsets.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Good Evening,
John, nice work on the bridge.
TF, I have a Ford question for you: 351 Windsor vs Cleveland . Back in the day I had thought the Cleveland engine had larger heads and thus was more powerful. For me back in the day was early '70s when I worked for Sunoco as a sales rep and spent a lot of time in owner operated service stations. I was watching an auction on TV and a car had a 351 Cleveland.
Ran trains yesterday . Gave the mike a good run. It is now back in the engine house. I need to re-programme the decoder in the S3 to hopefully improve its performance.
CN Charlie
Saturday is upon us. Two of my granddaughters are spending the weekend with us. This morning I'm in charge of Belgian waffles with home canned strawberries, ice cream and whipped cream. For some reason they like staying here. Maybe it's the cats? Thanks for all the interest and support for Felicity. It sure would be interesting if there was a way to download her background and know what her story is. We're pretty sure she already had kittens even though she's a baby herself. Well, practically all of them here with us all have that 'other life' before finding kitty utopia. They know there's a safe haven for them with us.
Sixteen Paws by Edmund, on Flickr
Yep, they got it rough...
Dwarfed by snowy mountains by Mike Danneman, on Flickr
Crossing the Snake by Mike Danneman, on Flickr
Here is a winter scene that is not taking place in the wide open country side. It is very much an urban setting.
For those of you who like to scratchbuild or kitbash structures, there is a very interesting trackside building at about the 6 min. 30 second mark. One corner of the bottom story of the building has been cut back to make clearance for the trains.
I can't get the video to embed properly. Nothing shows when I try. To see the video, highlight the link, then right clkick it and select "Go to........".
https://youtu.be/-rREQTM8Qus
Good afternoon from a freezing cold land of the former North British Railway The temperature is staying below zero C. Thanks to Global Warming (I say sarcastically).
Took granddaughter to Brownie Camp. 200+ girls camping in this weather. Mad. They will enjoy it no doubt, but still mad.
LE&W, Eaton Indiana (date unknown)
Good morning, diners. Bacon, eggs, and black coffee, Chloe.
Cold and cloudy. The Northern Lights were supposed to be visible in our area last night, but it was too cloudy to see them.
Have a great day.
The Colorado Ski Train.
Ski Train departing Fraser by Mike Danneman, on Flickr
NorthBrit Took granddaughter to Brownie Camp. 200+ girls camping in this weather. Mad. They will enjoy it no doubt, but still mad. David
i used to love winter camping when I was younger. We'd actually take a train to a whistle stop near the camping area, hike a few miles and set up camp. This was decades ago, so we didn't have camp stoves and had to dig through the snow for firewood.
Our old Boy Scout leader's motto was Scouting Builds Men.
gmpullman Thanks for all the interest and support for Felicity. It sure would be interesting if there was a way to download her background and know what her story is. Cheers, Ed
Thanks for all the interest and support for Felicity. It sure would be interesting if there was a way to download her background and know what her story is.
We have two rescue cats and we wonder the same things. We got them both as young kittens, and this is the only home they've ever known. Still, Snowflake must have had a calm first few months, because she's always calm and self-confident, while Whiskey is skittish around strangers even though he's fine with us.
Both cats are permanently indoor cats. The run away when the door opens and never try to go out.
Crown Royal for all. I like mine over ice. It is distilled near Gimli, about 60 miles north of me on the shores of Lake Winnipeg. That is where I kept my sailboat for 30 years. The steam from the distillery made a great navigational mark, you could see it miles from shore.
Got the decoder re-programmed on the S3. It runs great now. A nice MLW switcher that CN used all over the east. In the west they used GMD units.
No cats here. We had Westies for many years and they don't get along with cats. Terriers are lovely dogs as long as long as you keep in mind that they were bred to kill.
Good Sunday morning everyone. Donut Day! Just black coffee, Flo.
Yesterday we drove through heavy snow on our way home from visiting someone about fifty miles away. For a while we traveled 20 miles per hour on the highway, and even that was probably too fast.
The strange thing was that about ten miles from home, the snow stopped. At our house, there was not any snow at all. I don't think I've ever seen such a defined line between snow and no snow. It wasn't a gradual decline -- it went straight from heavy deep snow to none at all.
In retirement, I don't mind snow, and I would have liked it here. It's pretty nice having the fireplace burning while watching the snow out the window.
We heading out the door -- hope everyone has a great day.
Snow at the Grand Canyon.
Arizona Centennial Train Arrival at Grand Canyon 3254 by Grand Canyon National Park, on Flickr
Steam in the snow:
An icy Jake’s Pond by Mike Danneman, on Flickr
I hope everyone is holding up well,
Good Morning Diners! Flo, coffee and wheat toast please.
How is it Monday already? Ugh! Spent part of the weekend working on my computer. I do a whole system backup to a portable hard drive each year around this time, so I got that taken care of. Took two attempts as the first one didn't work for some reason. At about 6 hours a try that was annoying. Then I upgraded the SSD to a larger one and quadrupled the RAM. The original SSD was full so it was time. The RAM was on a heck of a sale for black Friday, so I maxed out what the machine can handle. Nice to have that done. If I do anything else to it, it will be to swap out the hard drive with a second SSD, but that's for another day.
Also got almost all of the Christmas presents wrapped, and a few small projects around the house done.
Did a very little bit of tidying up around the layout, but that's about it for trains this weekend.
Good morning, everyone. Chloe, I'll have my usual.
It was 20°F for the dog's walk this morning, but it was nice with very little wind. No snow on the ground. I actually hope we have some when the family comes later in the month. It's nice to take the grandkids sledding.
Work on the layout's bridge approaches continues today. I would make better progress if I didn't take long TV breaks.
It was not a good football weekend for me -- both the Saints and the Chiefs lost.
This is the start to a busy week. I don't like weeks like this with something scheduled for every day. Some people try to be busy during retirement. I'm not one of them.
Have a great day, everyone.
Christmas Eve Empire Builder by Mike Danneman, on Flickr
CLOVER LEAF TStL&W (later NKP)
Good Morning,
Apparently it is Monday. Seems the same as yesterday to me. A foggy morning here and 21F. Supposed to hit 45 by Wed. We don't have any snow to speak of which is unusual for this time of year. The river nearby has a thin sheet of ice and is as low as I have ever seen it. We do need some snow this winter.
Broke the glass in my coffee press so had to get out the old drip machine. It is about 40 years old but still works fine. It is a Siemens with a real gold filter. Too large for my daily needs but the new glass won't be here until tomorrow. I need my morning coffee or no point in getting up.
Time to run a passenger train so got out the cars with the 5 axle C liner for power. I really like the style of them better than any other cab engine.
Some nice steam in the snow photos being posted. The photo for Dec on my calendar is a steam switcher in winter at Allandale which is close to Dave's location.
Time for more coffee.
St Moritz to Tirano Switzerland
★ 4K Cab ride St. Moritz - Tirano, fresh snow, strong winds & snowdrifts [03.2020] - YouTube
Just finishing up watching Jaguars and Bengals. Bengals went ahead with a field goal. I won't be disappointed if they win only because it would affect the Chiefs if Jacksonville wins. Chiefs lost to Green Bay last night. Bummer! I won't comment on the officiating on that last drive. I hope I'm wrong, but it just seems like the Chiefs are a bit complacent and not that hungry this year. When they're on, they can beat anybody, but they've been off a few times they shouldn't have been.
Oh well, my
Not much snow yet this year, but this is December in Chicago. I'm not holding my breath!