BRUTUS,
I"M there with DA TARDIS!!!! Come take me away!!!!!
laz57
Gotcha, Laz! Hey, Sam's were running low, so I picked up another case on the way home so we're good!
Where's Bill (RT) tonight? Did I miss him?
Oops - sorry, it's Ken, not J? Welcome Ken!!! Great bunch of guys here, man! The BEST!
RIP Chewy - best dog I ever had.
My Saturday morning posting is on Bob's Train Box.
Celebrating 18 years on the CTT Forum.
Buckeye Riveter......... OTTS Charter Member, a Roseyville Raider and a member of the CTT Forum since 2004..
Jelloway Creek, OH - ELV 1,100 - Home of the Baltimore, Ohio & Wabash RR
TCA 09-64284
Mornin' boys. Mornin' English. Fresh pot made. 42 and grey here in the Mid-Atlantic region. The shopping is coming along, and Wifey and #2 teenie-bop want to be dropped off at the mall today. Hardest to buy for are my parents... Hope my RAVENS can finish the deal in BIG G tonight.
Laz - I imagine when you rolled that tipple for the first time, you jumped around like chro-magnum-man seeing fire! That's what I did...
P.S. - In case y'all didn't notice, the I T folks got all the old posts back on line...thanks.
Brutus I was here but couldn't turn beacon on as the one who must be obayed had controlls of the putor last night so couldn't tell you about the beacon.
I acually watched TV last night instead haven't done that in months lol.
Not to much going on time to get going I guess I hear the dinning car coming down the tracks time to go make some breakfast.
Life's hard, even harder if your stupid John Wayne
http://rtssite.shutterfly.com/
Mornin' rt. Howz things down at the VA? Any Christmas displays for the boys this year?
Buckeye - Are you trying to get BK fired...
Still no word from RockIsland....
Good Morning from Southern Ohio,
Sleeting on the way to work and temps are just above freezing. I am working my shift and half of another supervisor’s shift today so that will be an 18 hour shift, bleh. Getting too old for this, but the supervisor I’m covering for has been real good about covering me when I need off so fair is fair.
Got he bride mad last night. She asked me to look over the annual Christmas letter, and I made a few “editorial” changes that I thought were funny and before I could restore the original letter, she started printing it! Oh boy, did I get it, confessional material there!
Jim F – Amazing how roomy the tardis is!
Will check back later,
May God bless
Jim
Woooow. Did I miss a lots of posts. Did the Town Hall Christmas meal with my hot wings. Wife stayed home to clean house. Came back to house for a minute to get presents for kids we are helping single mom have Christmas, she was gone with sister shopping. Then she came home later and we went shopping for the last kid. Good thing is, all four kids will have a very good Christmas this year. Finished and got home around 10:30. Watched some of White Christmas and found that old version of Christmas in Connecticut was on. Wife loves it. Switched channels. Next thing I knew it was 3 AM. Went to bed. Partly cloudy and warm. Did get to see some big orange ball in the sky yesterday afternoon. Then figured out it was what you call sun. Had not seen it for days. One good thing is, no SNOW. I told Santa that the only thing I wanted this year was SNOW on all the Yanks and more snow on that rascal in Ioway. Now for some coffee and sausage biscuits.
PS:the one thing you DO NOT get your wife for Chirstmas. Scales
God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified
fifedog Buckeye - Are you trying to get BK fired...
Do you think my letter was a little too pushy?
Just returned from shopping for Mrs. Buckeye. I really outdid myself this year for gifts. I got her:
A necklace from the Dollar Store Digital talking scales for the bathroom. (Really neat. Get on the scale and it yells out your weight in English or Spanish!) Matching shovels for her garden. A new super light snow shovel. A new synthetic broom. Chain saw oil. Another Chia Plant...I wonder what happened to the last five I gave her. An Aqua Globe A Fix-A-Hole Drywall Repair Kit A Coleman Fish Pen with Reel and for her birthday in a couple days, a Dryer Dock.
A necklace from the Dollar Store
Digital talking scales for the bathroom. (Really neat. Get on the scale and it yells out your weight in English or Spanish!)
Matching shovels for her garden.
A new super light snow shovel.
A new synthetic broom.
Chain saw oil.
Another Chia Plant...I wonder what happened to the last five I gave her.
An Aqua Globe
A Fix-A-Hole Drywall Repair Kit
A Coleman Fish Pen with Reel
and for her birthday in a couple days,
a Dryer Dock.
Don't tell her, but I might hold back the Coleman Fish Pen with Reel for her mother's day gift.
Good Morning from Blueberryhill....
It is a cold and damp 30 degrees. Only going up to 32 today with cloudy skies.
It is going to be a quiet Holiday Season here. Wife's Mom will be buried Monday. Family coming frm a lot of States.
Daughter's husband got laid off from Lincoln Electric. No Holiday pay or yearly bonus. Real sad. No health insurance. Two grandkids.
Well, Dining car was here for the usual breakfast.
Y'all have a great Saturday.
Chuck
Morning all. Got locked out of the church this morning. Someone changed the key code and didn't tell me. Maybe it's a sign. Sorry for your SiL's circumstance, Chuck. I hope he gets recalled or another job lined up soon. Buckeye, that sure is a gooder letter you wrote for Bob; I hope he 'preciates it. I showed the bride your gift list to see if there's anything on it she wants. Got a look. Hmmmm. Maybe I have to return some things. Nothing too special planned for today - some work, cleaning 'round the house, need some more lockons. Maybe I can work up something instead using the spade connecters. Brutus, they exchanged the coat. Got it home and the bride didn't like the color. It was the only one left in his size. She can take it back.
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
Chuck, Our condolences to you and your wife. Sorry to hear about your SIL losing his job. Never is pleasant but really hurts this time of year. Doesn't sound like a very compassionate company.
Had an interesting problem with an MTH diesel that I had not run for a while. A Railking GP9. I set it on a powered track to charge the battery, since it had not been run for probably a year. After charging for a while I started it up and it sounded and ran good, until it came to the first switch & stopped dead. My first thought was a dirty center rail at the switch. Not so, as it stopped dead again as it hit the switch. My next guess was that one of the contact rollers was not making contact for some reason so I checked between rollers and had perfect continuity. After scratching my head for a bit I checked between wheels of the two power trucks, no continuity. After opening it up, I discovered that the screw that holds the black lead to the front truck was loose. I tightened it and everything is back to Normal. This was one problem I had never run into before. Thought I would share it for what it's worth.
GOOD MORNING ALL
Well one more day and the sun starts heading back our way, I know, it'll take a long time but it's a start. No news yet this morning, the main streets are clear of snow but still messy, side streets, good luck. Like many other places they have cut back on trucks, salt and of course OT..Our street in days long gone would have been plowed overnite, now who knows if they even will. Maybe some trains today...Everyone stay safe....S.J.
"IT's GOOD TO BE THE KING",by Mel Brooks
Charter Member- Tardis Train Crew (TTC) - Detroit3railers- Detroit Historical society Glancy Modular trains- Charter member BTTS
Buckeye Riveter fifedog Buckeye - Are you trying to get BK fired... Do you think my letter was a little too pushy? Just returned from shopping for Mrs. Buckeye. I really outdid myself this year for gifts. I got her: A necklace from the Dollar Store Digital talking scales for the bathroom. (Really neat. Get on the scale and it yells out your weight in English or Spanish!) Matching shovels for her garden. A new super light snow shovel. A new synthetic broom. Chain saw oil. Another Chia Plant...I wonder what happened to the last five I gave her. An Aqua Globe A Fix-A-Hole Drywall Repair Kit A Coleman Fish Pen with Reel and for her birthday in a couple days, a Dryer Dock. Don't tell her, but I might hold back the Coleman Fish Pen with Reel for her mother's day gift.
EMS just left my house. Laughed so hard I could not breath and passed out. Mrs. Chief called EMS.
Chuck, sorry for SIL. Why is it everyone waits until Christmas to shut down or lay off? Cat jsut laid of a bunch in two NC plants.
Off the Miss Edna's.
jefelectric Had an interesting problem with an MTH diesel that I had not run for a while. A Railking GP9. I set it on a powered track to charge the battery, since it had not been run for probably a year. After charging for a while I started it up and it sounded and ran good, until it came to the first switch & stopped dead. My first thought was a dirty center rail at the switch. Not so, as it stopped dead again as it hit the switch. My next guess was that one of the contact rollers was not making contact for some reason so I checked between rollers and had perfect continuity. After scratching my head for a bit I checked between wheels of the two power trucks, no continuity. After opening it up, I discovered that the screw that holds the black lead to the front truck was loose. I tightened it and everything is back to Normal. This was one problem I had never run into before. Thought I would share it for what it's worth.
John my Friend that owns a hobby shop mentioned in some cases ( and he sounds like it quite a few) if you let a MTH engine go completely dead from sitting that there are some chips that need to be inserted in a certain order to get it running again ever heard of this or have this problem? He says they do a lot every year this time.
fife no as I have to work so I don't have time to baby sit the trains and I've been told not to leave them unattended ( its a shame they said they will mysteriously run them selves right out the building and no one will see a thing) Were already looking into way to secure it better once they get into the new building what we figure is the track and all will be permanently mounted to the boards and the trains themselves will be taken up each day and locked up in a storage room that only a few have access to.
I'm going to try and start getting donations soon of track for them I got some but I'm going to need stuff like switches ,crossovers, terminal, more straight and curve and especially the different sizes to make things work. well We got another delay in getting the building the other day as we were to take custody first of year now looks like Feb or march. Kinda funny as they were to get custody of it originally back in march of 2008.
Not to much else going on looking at some more train cars but might get killed If I do but such a great price. But need to controll myself so I can get a new putor as this one is dieing.
Good afternoon,
No one likes to lose their job but especially at this time of year, Jef, I would say it is very bad. Right now at my job we are all a bit scared as 275 fulltime positions need to be cut out as of November 21st, so far I know of 15 full time positions that have been cut and one more full time position up for cutting, a suporviser this time. That is still 259 full time jobs up for the budget ax!!
Jef, I never heard of MTH having that kind of problem, have heard of needing to replace the battery for the PS-2 system if you let it sit too long. I bought the MTH charger to help with that purpose in mind.
Not too much going on, warm here in south Florida near 75 again in the day and near 60 at night, may go into the high 50's over the weekend. Wife had flat tire on her car, took it to Goodyear Tire store, $20.00 or better just to fix a flat!! My back has been acting up again or I would have plugged it myself and saved the money.
Had my friend Jerry over the other night and ran my trains, the S gauge acted up as I have not run them for almost six months. Fastrac layout under the main table runs good but needs a larger transformer, I only have a small 40 watt transformer supplying power right now. Have a set of K-Line Interurbans running on the Fastyrac with a Heavyweight Passenger car painted Reading Green without lettering in the center of the other two. Need to buy a new transformer with more power in the next year's train purchases.
Lee F.
Today's Chicago Tribune crossword. 48 down. six letters. Miniature train name. L-I-O-N-E-L
Afternoon all,
Temperatures are dropping this afternoon, but unfortunately no snow is planned.
Lots of birds on the property today. My favorites are the woodpeckers, nuthatches, and brown creepers (more elusive).
Last night I hooked up a Lionel IR accessory controller to some crossing gates. I like the way the IR controller works! It's solid metal and quite hefty. A nice and well built device that works quite well.
My semi-scale GG-1 was derailing and disconnecting from cars on Lionel turnouts. Very frustrating but I finally got it resolved. I ended up filing down some of the plastic guides on the Lionel O22 switches and that smoothed things out quite a bit (I was surprised) as the train passed through but didn't stop the derailing. Other alterations required taking the back panel off or a switch or two and rebending the tabs to pull rails closer to the plastic base plate. Last bit of work was bending the front trucks a bit on the GG-1 so that it had proper clearance. Bending the truck had the biggest impact, but the other work really helped to smooth out the ride through the turnouts.
Have two O22 turnouts connected together that cause quite a hop with the GG-1 as it goes through at around 12 volts (quite fast for my layout). One turnout is from the early 90's and the other is a modern O22.. Other engines don't hop as they go through, but they are also lighter in weight. The hop with the GG-1 goes away at lower speeds. Tried many things to make the transition as smooth as possible but can't completely get rid of the hop. I'll have to keep working with this one.
Enjoy.
All the MTH Realtrax folks need to read this:
http://ogaugerr.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/57660482/m/79210952
Espeically the long one with comparison.
Hello everyone,
Just checking in here. I've been really busy lately with school projects, tests and a lot of other stuff.
I haven't been paying much attention to my trains lately, there's just been so much stuff going on that I have very little time. I'm sorry that I haven't been checking in as often, I think my last post was about 4-5 months ago. I've been pursuing photography lately, because I recieved an awesome camera for my 18th bday in July. It's a Canon Digital Rebel XTi 10.1 MP. I'm in love with it. I have the stock 18-55 lens, and a 70-300 Canon zoom lens. Both are awesome, and I happen to be getting a Canon Fisheye lens for Christmas, which is what I have wanted for quite some time now. I haven't downloaded any pictures because my laptop happened to fail again, so I'm waiting to get it working again. I think I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 270-280 pictures stored on the card. It's a 4GB card, but I need to download the pictures soon if I want to continue photographing things.
I have been in very good health since last December. Tomorrow will be one year of my ACL reconstruction. That year flew by. I was able to play soccer this year, and I was very happy I was able to, considering it was my last year to play. But, I do plan on playing in college.
For college, I have decided to go to community college for the first 2 years, and then transfer to Penn State for my final 2 years. I still haven't figured out a set major, but I know I want to do something with history or business. I do have something about photography in the back of my mind as well.
I still haven't bought a car, but to me it doesn't make sense right now. When I get out of college, though, I plan on buying a 2007 Subaru WRX STi. I love those cars. I also plan on owning a 2008 Kawasaki ZX-10R motorcycle in all black, the complete opposite of the Subaru, which will be white.
Well, that's all from me right now. I'll check in as often as I can.
Colin - Good to hear from you again, glad you are doing well.
ChiefEagles All the MTH Realtrax folks need to read this: http://ogaugerr.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/57660482/m/79210952 Espeically the long one with comparison.
Chief....Did I read the word "JUNK" in the comparison? I remember you and I saying that the track had changed, and now we know more details. Needless to say, if I ever build another layout, I will not use any type of MTH track after this fiasco.
Colin....Good to hear from you. Missed you.
This all just makes me think of a conversation I had the other day with a hobby shop owner trying to sell me on fast track . I mentioned I was thinking of using good old O-27 for the VA as it was going to be basically a Permanent layout on a board and he come up with had a guy come in the other day with old O-27 track that kept falling apart and needing 6 more lock ons for a 4x8 layout as it couldn't keep a train going at a consent speed . Well gee I think if you use a pair of plier's and tighten the track up a little yeah but with fast track its so tight you don't need to do that. Well my question is yeah maybe true today but you take it apart and put it back together as many times as the Old O-27 I wonder if it will still be as tight. I know the fast track probably will be better than the old O-27 but give me a break compare apples to apples your paying $1.50 for a piece of track or are you paying $3.89 a piece make your decision I'm trying to keep it affordable and still good layout for these guys. I can remember doing a complicated layout on a 5 X 9 and using only one lock on as a kid. I didn't solder each track or anything like that but I did make sure my connections where tight.
Colin,
Enjoy that camera!
Check out the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L lens. It comes in both IS and non-IS versions and is reasonably priced. The F/4 non-IS version runs about $500-$600 and is tack sharp and light. There is also an f/2.8 version but it's a heavier and more expensive.
If you do any travel during school (all college students should travel) the EF 24-105mm f/4 IS makes a nice single lens travel solution and is also very sharp.
And to keep this related to toy trains, why not use that camera to take some shots of your favorite trains? Give us fun exercise in f-stops and depth of field.
Enjoy!
Evening all. Back from a kid's Christmas pageant at church. You can imagine they can be trying. Snowing a bit here again and supposed to get blasted by sub-zero cold. Sigh. At least we're indoors. Nice to hear from Colin. Comm. Coll and transfer is the way to go.
Evening all!
Colin: Good to hear from you!
Completed last Kid's Christmas show! Good show...I managed to take my mind off the choir mics and rang one out... I was running the choir mics on the edge, as it's difficult to pick-up the kids, and just lost one. I learned a great deal about the LS-9 board, and how they wire everything for Sunday Service.
Bride is glad it's over...It's still difficult for me to volunteer at Church like this...the kids seem to wear her out.
Brutus: Dare I go out on another run???? I dood it. Beacon is on.
Kurt
Hey TMCCMAN - Hows' your Dad doing?
DougM, yeah - I'd say it's her turn if she wants a new color
JimSP - Ever seen Dr. Who? The little blue box is just the small part that exists in our dimension or something, it's like a giant building in there and I think the size changes too?
RT! There you are! Sorry the wife stole the 'puter! We don't have public access in the area where I work and stuff has disappeared from desks before Good idea to keep it secure. I agree, I wonder how long FT would last if you kept rearranging it over the years?
Buckeye - that was the funniest thing I've read in a good long time!
TSchmidt - good find on the beer car
No trains today, but there are some boxes inside the door. I think the wife doesn't want to open them while the kiddos are up, in case it is stuff she ordered for them? I'm dying to see if some of my train stuff came in, but laying low out of respect.
Stopped at Sears on the way home - bad idea to go to the mall this time of year, yikes! Found what I wanted. They have an auto-switch. It is like a 3 outlet plug thingie that when you power up the device plugged into outlet A, power is relayed to outlets B and C. I'm going to use this to control a shopvac with a special filter on it with a tube taped to my drywall cutter tool so I can control the amount of dust spraying up in the air at least a little.
Then, I had a coupon for Home Depot for $10 if I spent $100 on a single ticket. Well, I thought I'd get drywall, but realized I could not take them all at once like that - it would take about 2 or 3 trips with my little truck. So, instead I bought the ducting, diffusers, etc for the basement. I need to decide where I want the air ducts - I guess out near the farthest (back of the house) wall, away from the furnace room. I have a return vent to the furnace already, down near the floor to give cross ventilation. I'll need to pick up more drywall in a week or so anyway, but this was stuff we also needed and I hit the $100 mark about right on, giving me about 9.95 percent off, which isn't bad for HD shopping.
Evening all beacon on retook over the putor. Hey Brutus if you can use it befor the 29th I have $10.00 off of $50.00 at Lowe's. Let me know will send asap to you like Monday morning.
Just looking at the NYC caboose got with train set it has frosted windows but not illuminated I was thinking of putting a middle pickup on one axle and running wires to a light in it as it actually has a spot for a light fixture and bulb. even has hole to run wire.
Been looking at 3 log dump cars but not sure if I want to get them there at a great price ( ones from the cascade train set) but shipping a little high but the deal as a hole is good ( $46.00 for all including shipping) and they have more than 1 set for that price. Also have the engine for like $76.00 including shipping. Guess I need to be Good and hold off I really need to look at new putor first but geese the deals are there.
Oh well thats that.
Thanks for the advice on the lenses. I don't have much money to spend, but when I do it's ging to be split for hobbies and gas money for when I use my parents cars. And thanks for the welcome back wishes, I really appreciate it. Brutus, my dad is doing well, but it's my grandfather we're worrying about right now. He had a stroke about a month ago, but he still seems out of it. We're keeping a close eye on him.
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