Chatterbox Spring 2021

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

For a variety of reasons, Lynn gave me the green light to get out on Father's Day if no family events turn up.  I'm still deciding where I'll go.

[CShaveRR]

My plans for Father's Day included watching a parade of trains at Griffith.  However, Pat thinks it will rain on my parade, so we'll have to see.

Got some interesting cars off a train at Old Harlem today.  It was headed by an NS and a BNSF unit.  Short train; they pulled all the way out so an EOT could be applied.

[tree68]

I'll be painting a bookshelf I just built, and planting some more annuals.  I'm a little late on the annuals, but hopefully they'll look good...

I'm building the bookshelf so I can move some of my books off another shelf and repurpose it as a charging station.  Between my ham radios, railroad radio, and fire department radio it can be a challenge to find places to plug in all the wall warts.  I can't just use the bookshelf I'm building because there are no outlets where that's going...

Meanwhile, we're still looking for rain.  Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence River are on the order of two feet low right now. The two bodies are the only ones on the Great Lakes that can be controlled, and the people in charge of that control have blown it badly.

 

[BaltACD]

tree68

I'll be painting a bookshelf I just built, and planting some more annuals.  I'm a little late on the annuals, but hopefully they'll look good...

I'm building the bookshelf so I can move some of my books off another shelf and repurpose it as a charging station.  Between my ham radios, railroad radio, and fire department radio it can be a challenge to find places to plug in all the wall warts.  I can't just use the bookshelf I'm building because there are no outlets where that's going...

Meanwhile, we're still looking for rain.  Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence River are on the order of two feet low right now. The two bodies are the only ones on the Great Lakes that can be controlled, and the people in charge of that control have blown it badly.

Started raining in Watkins Glen about 5 PM and has been steady up to the current time 11 PM.

[tree68]

BaltACD

Started raining in Watkins Glen about 5 PM and has been steady up to the current time 11 PM.

Oswego County got hit pretty hard.  The storm is just rain over Oneida County, and the Southern Tier just got wet, from the looks of it.  You should be out of it soon.

Several folks from up this way regularly work the safety crews at the Glen.

[BaltACD]

tree68

 

BaltACD

Started raining in Watkins Glen about 5 PM and has been steady up to the current time 11 PM. 

Oswego County got hit pretty hard.  The storm is just rain over Oneida County, and the Southern Tier just got wet, from the looks of it.  You should be out of it soon.

Several folks from up this way regularly work the safety crews at the Glen.

Had a 'exhausting' Watkins Glen race weekend.  Broke exhaust pipe on 1st session Friday.  Put on my spare pipe, which is a different configuration than my primary for the next sessions and was down on revs.  Got the donation of a pipe similar to my primary and put it on for the Saturday race and as I was completing the 1st lap of the race the exhaust manifold broke.  Two stroke engine don't work without a properly designed and operating exhaust and I don't want to be deaf for the balance of my life.  Weekend done as I don't have a spare exhaust manifold.

[CShaveRR]

Well, my Farther's Day turned out as well as I'd hoped for, and better than I actually expected.

After church, the sky didn't look too threatening, so we headed out to Indiana. Soon after I-294 joined I-80, we got backed up in traffic. So I exited and surprised Pat by where we came out. It was just a small detour, but enabled us to find and purchase some (relatively) inexpensive gas. Never mind that we found some gas for under three bucks a little later on--Pat no longer had to worry about the fuel level. We got down to Griffith, and there was plenty of room on their outdoor patio. (A note on that...they have indoor dining, too, but one table--not many more--affords the view of the tracks that every table on the patio affords!) Sadly, only one train went through while we were there--a far cry from the seven or so that showed up when Matt, Joe, and I went last month. And it wasn't a very good one for my purposes.

We did hear another train squealing its flanges on a curve, but it didn't go past the restaurant. After we finished, I showed Pat the sharp curve that the train had negotiated. Then, when we went back north, we caught up to this train, moving very slowly. The decision was then made to go up toward Pine Junction, and maybe see the whole thing there. A Canadian National train was headed south on the old J, but he was stopped. We went in on Clark Road, and saw nothing at all, except for a headlight for a CSX westbound. And while he was going through, a CSX eastbound also went past (I couldn't get much off that one, for obvious reasons--the westbound was closer!).

We headed back out, and as we were coming up to the new overpass, I saw a northbound CN train on the old J. I did some near-spontaneous change of plans and went into my favorite parking spot, where we saw the entire train...it was the same train that we'd heard on the curve in Griffith, and had been moving slowly. He kept me very busy there.

Another CSX train was encountered at Blue Island. We'd seen this guy moving west out of Barr Yard, and I was planning on waiting for him to catch up to us. No need--it was a perfect meet at the Broadway grade crossing ("meet" in the railroad sense--we didn't actually collide or anything).

After that, we were content to head home. Within three miles of Lombard, the rain finally started...never hard enough to make it a problem to get out of the car, and into the garage and house. I am so glad we weren't scared off by the dire weather threats!

So far, research has uncovered 200 new cars for me from this trip. And earlier today Joe had sent a picture of a couple of new scrap gondolas, that turned out to be from a batch of 300. Plenty of secondhand cars to look into as well.