Afternoon
Tomorrow starts the first day of winter.Calling for a mixed bag of stuff for tomorrow.Still only a 10 percent chance for a White Christmas here in Nw Ohio.Ns has another coal train in the siding at work.also saw a westbound stack train go by after work.Chores to do here at home.One more day of work then it's vacation time.
stay safe
Joe
Deshler Ohio-crossroads of the B&O Matt eats your fries.YUM! Clinton st viaduct undefeated against too tall trucks!!!(voted to be called the "Clinton St. can opener").
Finally! Haven't been able to log in to the forums for nearly a month. Fixed it by deleting cookies after getting a long-awaited answer from Trains.
Joe, our chances up here in Iowa look to be about 0%. I'm surprised you're at 10%.
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
0% down here, too.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Your welcome to take as many tons of it you want free or just come up and frolic in it. Good 6 foot high banks everywhere.
Also a week of nightly ice fog has a thick coating of white frost on absolutely everything that is exceptionally pretty in sunlight. That'll get you in the mood.
Must be beautiful up north!
Edmonton got freezing rain about 10 days ago and all the rural roads are still skating rinks. Highways are good though. And now we have a wind warning for tonight and tomorrow, supposed to get gusts of 90 km/h (55 mph).
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Brian: You aren't the only one that wondered what had happened. It's like Bergie's ghost made an appearance. Tried responding to another thread for four days straight and got nowhere.
We are now wondering what liquor cabinet the boyz at old Weatherliar U. got into.
Sixty degrees in Denver tomorrow. Now there is snow on Saturday and late X-mas day (albeit 20%) where there was nothing yesterday. Went "over the hill" yesterday (and back) - White knuckle ride over Vail Pass and thru the Eisenhower/Johnson tunnels in a ground blizzard that shut down the freeway just after we passed by. Plenty of people on the road that clearly were not qualified to be up there in winter conditions. Must have been quite the sale on ditch finders.
Lost an old railroad friend yesterday that had quite a boomer's resume. (Class 1 and shortline and on to tourist railroad.)....Sad week.
afternoon
Mc sorry for your loss.Ns was busy.Coal train still waiting to go east.Last day before shut down everybody wants it now.Snow flurries as we came home.Chores to do here.
My tech guy stuck a program called "Ghostery" on my laptop (the only place I ever visit the Forum), and it cleaned up the site quite a bit. In fact, too well--for awhile I was unable to access the Rochelle Webcam. I finally had to go through the sites it was blocking and find the one that would allow the trains to go through again.Right now it's blocking five sites on this forum.Snow chance: we got just a tiny bit today, and that is the last chance of weather for a while. There may be snow falling Christmas morning, but we don't expect to be here to see it. We're hoping for Linda and family to arrive tomorrow night from California via Portland, but there are supposed to be storms out that way tomorrow, so we'll be keeping an ear to the computer.Today's baking is done; it included four types of cookies in tins, with meringue cookies (we call them "forgotten cookies") sitting in the cooling-down oven to harden. Tomorrow is the day for whatever house-straightening hasn't been done as of now. I still have two massive tables to do for the sightings report I was hoping to put out yesterday.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Thunderstorm in Central MD - 15 minutes after I completed working on the race car trailer! It was in the 60's today.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Above freezing in Calgary, Alberta today, and that has been the daytime situation for at least a week. Been out on the motorbike, just have to avoid back streets that may still be icy. Even though the days have been warm, the sun is too low to melt much ice and the outdoor rinks are still in decent shape. A bit cooler for the next few days, but no snow in the forecast. Not like early October when we got buried by 16" of the stuff!
Rather different 70 miles to the west in the mountains of course. Even further west the highway folks were shooting down avalanches in the Rogers Pass on Thursday. The railways coordinate with Highways and hold trains back if necessary. They sometimes position a plow train nearby just in case the snow reaches the track.
John
evening
Was able to take brother out and go watch trains.Ns and Csx were busy.Had lunch in a diner just east of the NS yard in New Haven Indiana.Had a good view of the tracks.Stacey says everything is done for the lunch tomorrow.Going to relax tonight.
stay safeJoe
Good Morning
We delivered the goods for Matt's group after church yesterday.Saw a few trains on Csx.Going to Christmas Eve service tonight.Merry Christmas.
Polar is over for another year. Hero Boy sounded too much like Arnold Stang this year. Time to recover and enjoy the season.
....snow here in Denver is still MIA. (mountains have more than average snowpack for this time of year - range fires on the prairie becoming a source for concern.) The scottie knows he grew all that dense outer fur for good reason - where is it?
mudchicken Polar is over for another year. Hero Boy sounded too much like Arnold Stang this year. Time to recover and enjoy the season. ....snow here in Denver is still MIA.
....snow here in Denver is still MIA.
We wrapped up our Polar on Sunday night - an added date. Despite being added a little over a week ago, the "Cocoa Class" filled right up, including some folks who travelled some significant distances just to ride the train.
I spent most of my time in the cab this year, so saw little of our passengers, except two nights working in the station (impressive to see nearly 600 passengers gathered in that grand old station), and I was the conductor the last night.
Drove home afterwards, arriving to find a dusting of new snow. It's continued to snow lightly all day, but that's only about an inch we've gotten. After near +60F earlier in the weekend, a green Christmas looked like a possibility.
Busy wrapping gifts tonight for a visit to the daughter's house tomorrow.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Merry Christmas
Off to G+G's house.Safe travels everyone.
Good morning
Going to see what rolls by this morning.Hopefully neighbors mess gets cleaned up before tomorrow's rain.Need to run errands this afternoon too.
Nice day yesterday at daughter's house - the kids liked the presents, brunch and dinner were delicious and I survived the post-turkey dinner drive home.
One highlight of the day was the drive through Oswego County, where the trees were all coated with snow, creating something of a winter wonderland. The roads were clear, though, so it was clear sailing all the way.
Today is Boxing Day for our neighbors to the north. One of the Canadian participants in a daily amateur radio net told us that the term "Boxing Day" comes from the one-time practice of working on Christmas Day, then receiving a box of gift from the boss the next day.
While it's dropped a bit in this day of on-line ordering, it also seemed to refer to boxing all the presents you wanted to exchange up and heading for the returns counter at the stores...
I'm not absolutely sure about this, but I once read that Boxing Day got its name for the Christmas boxes you gave to people like your mail carrier, paper boy, etc. on the day after Christmas.
CSSHEGEWISCH I'm not absolutely sure about this, but I once read that Boxing Day got its name for the Christmas boxes you gave to people like your mail carrier, paper boy, etc. on the day after Christmas.
The weather here was a little damp--their was a light snow which did not stay in the morning, and a somewhat heavier snow in the late evening and night which is still visible. From the forecasts, I had thoughts of such heavy snows as we had two years ago and five years ago (five years ago, my daughter cleared the snow in the morning, and I cleared it in the afternoon.
Larry, I beat you are family gatherings--Monday night with one daughter and some of her family )including her daughter who lives in Brooklyn) and last night with the other daughter and her family.
A merry second day of Christmas to all!
Johnny
I guess it's going to be Monday all week. Been trying to retrace a Union Pacific line change from 1907 north of Denver when the yellow peril built a new bridge over the South Platte River. Just cannot find enough detail on what they did. (Some draftsman from long ago erased the relationship between the new and old allignments?) So far, not enough pieces and parts to figure out the puzzle, even with Uncle Pete's help back in Omaha.
The brain damage (and dumpster diving in Uncle Pete's attic) continues.
BrianH: Don't think the issues with Trains website are quite over with. The "bug" seems to be affecting all three CPU's I work with differently and it's a new fix applied every day. Hope the programmer/code junkie got a big bag of coal yesterday - deserves a unit train's worth.
Went out and saw what CSX had to offer.A unit grain train is filling up west of town.Problem is the engine will be facing the wrong way when it comes out.An ethanol train came by with CP,Bnsf and a Up unit.Ran errands as well.
I gave my wife a lump of coal for Christmas, it looks great on her finger. Of course, it was under extreme pressure for a very long time before it was mined.
mudchicken BrianH: Don't think the issues with Trains website are quite over with. The "bug" seems to be affecting all three CPU's I work with differently and it's a new fix applied every day. Hope the programmer/code junkie got a big bag of coal yesterday - deserves a unit train's worth.
I haven't had any problems since I "ate" all my cookies.
Quoting Brian "I haven't had any problems since I "ate" all my cookies. "
I didn't eat mine; I threw them out because they apparently were rotten.
We have plenty of cookies left here, and came home with more different ones besides. We left for Michigan on Christmas Eve and came home today. Not a single worthwhile train sighting the whole time, and none in the days before our trip as I was concentrating on getting a report out. I'm well overdue! Linda, Chris, and Linus arrived here Sunday morning, and came up to Michigan with us. It was great having our entire family together on Christmas Eve. We'll have another gathering with just daughters, spouses, and grandchildren Friday. Meanwhile, we'll put Linda and family on a dinky to Chicago tomorrow afternoon to spend some time with friends who will be taking Amtrak down from Milwaukee. Linda currently has some mobility issues, so we're using BNSF instead of UP, to put them in the same station. It's nice to be able to do that.
Rain has arrived in Nw Ohio.Was able to go use one of our gift cards for luch.The Amtrak Lake(Late) Shore was about 2 hours late as it came west in Delta.Looked around the csx yards on the east side of Toledo as well. Tomorrow we get the oil changed in Stacey's vehicle.Get to use another gift card for lunch.
Evening
Took Stacey's car for service today.Also used gift cards for lunch and supper too.Ns looked like they were busy digging around the fuel pad area in the New Haven Yard.Traffic came in on the NKP and Wabash while we were there.The high hoods were still being used for yard power.Wasn't much in Garrett on the way home but Csx ran a few westbounds.Need to take Stacey's car to the wash tomorrow.Didn't go on any Indiana backroads but we still brought home some Indiana with us.
Was Southbound and down - left Central Maryland just before midnight in the rain and had rain all the way to about Mile 40 in South Carolina. Hit Jacksonville at Noon. Saw regular gas prices as cheap as $1.859.
Heard some csx trains coming through town this morning.We have church and then need to give hugs this afternoon.Grandma's snowman kit is going to be put up for awhlie.Guessers calling for rain to move in tomorrow.Wishing Houston Ed a happy birthday tomorrow as well.Off to get cleaned up.
Good Evening
Rain all day today.Under a flood advisory and a high wind watch as well.Going to stay in and watch the ball drop from here at home.Matt is busy in the train room working on the wiring system.2018 wasn't the best for friends and family.Let's hope 2019 is much better.Happy New Year.
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