The pot of coffee is always on [even after 2 years have passed]. Come on in. Sweet ice tea too.

[FJ and G]

Chief,

You'll soon be out running rabbits with the beagles, or bagles as I call em

[ChiefEagles]

My DAD use to refer to them as BEATLES. [:)]

[Roger Bielen]

Was 16 when I left for w**k this morning, 48 now and last I heard they were talking 60's tomorrow. With this yo-yo weather we'll all be sick next week.

Picked up the smoke element for the Hudson on my way home today, I'll install it tonight, test tomorrow night and see if it improves the smoke any.

[ChiefEagles]

OH NO!!! now they have changed the forecast [well the guy that blew it Wed]. Some others have not yet. Highs in the 60's Wed and dropping to the high 30's Thursday and Friday. Maybe some frozen percip Sat. [:(!] Got to be in all day Saturday at Town Board retreat in Raleigh. Freezing stuff means I stay home. [:(]

[Frank53]

aye yi yi - was in the 20's overnite here in southwest Florida.

Have a meeting tomorrow which means I will be firing up the bike and putting on six or eight sweatshirts. I'll look like those two Hanz & Franz guys from SNL.

[ben10ben]

Evening folks,
Cold day here. It was about 15 when I got on the bus this morning, but had gone up to low 40s by the time I left this afternoon. We're having a real heatwave this week; supposed to be mid 40s through Saturday. Most of the white stuff(Ohio) that we got on Saturday is gone, leaving its ugly salt stains all over the roads and cars. Only a few little patches here and there, and I look for all of those to be gone tomorrow.

Anyway, I did manage a breakthrough in my telephone collection[:)]. My 1940 vintage Automatic Electric Model 40 quit ringing right back around Thanksgiving. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I noticed it sounding very quiet and hesitant. I took it apart at that time, tweaked the bias spring a little bit, and found, much to my dismay, that it now didn't ring at all. In a fit of desperation, I rewired the whole thing, and still had no luck.

I took another look at it last night, and found that rather than loosening the bias spring back in November, I had tightened it. This particular ringer uses a screw adjustment on the bias spring where loosening the screw tightens the spring, and tightening the screw loosens the spring. The previous ajustment had left the spring so tight that the armature wasn't able to move back and forth, thereby keeping the phone from ringing at all. After loosening the spring, I discovered that the real problems to begin with were some loose screws and wires that were imparing the motion of the armature. Fixing those gave me one excellent sounding Automatic Electric telephone! The beauty of this phone, compared to the standard 500 set and laters, is that it has solid brass bells(gongs) that give a much richer, mellow ringing sound than the 500 type ringer we all know and love. The prewar phones generally are much more pleasing to the ear when they ring, and I've really missed hearing the sound of this one ring.

Anyway, now that I've bored you all with a telephone story that I'm sure you have no interest in[:)](sorry for being so long winded[:)]), I'll leave by saying that I hope you all have a good night and a good day tomorrow!

[spankybird]

Good Morning All,

NE Ohio is cool and quite this morning, temp at 23, no new snow.

Pick of the Day


Chief – eat your heart out, got to love the smoke

All be safe
tom

[daan]

Hi guys,
We finally got some snow this morning.. It's not much, but it's a start. Sadely they allready salted the streets, so I couldn't use the 4x4 this time. It was only an inch or so, and the salty streets makes the snow melt in no-time..
From a friend collector in holland I got the sad message that if I want to get trains from the usa I have to pay 50% tax from january the 1st.. Luckily there was nothing on the post. Guess I've to wait a little time before I order new things from the states.
It is due to a conflict between the EU and the USA about a steel convention. Sadely the people with no harm in mind have to pay for that...

In the mean time I've started with another hobby, motorbikes.. The trains are still there and I even started to make a mountain. but the sun and blue skies from the last few days and the support of my girlfriend waked up the old biking spirit..
A Harley is too expensive here (secondhand from 13000 dollars), but there's more to choose. I'm thinking about a moto guzzi V65, a 650cc twin cylinder V engine made in Italy. It's said that they're very good and it's an old whish (I wanted a BMW R80 or a moto guzzi chopper style since long ago) and they are not too expensive..
The last few day's we've been looking in all the motorshops in the neighbourhood to see what they offered.. There is a new whish, for the future, a suzuki V twin of 2200cc, but it's monsterous in size and prize. They also make an 1800 and a "small" 1600, but for the price they ask I can also buy an electroglide..

Hope you all are fine, stay safe and I'll post a picture if I've found a nice engine...

[FJ and G]

Ben,

When I was growing up, a phone was a luxury we couldn't afford. Nice to see you can apply your mech-elec skills to the ole phone.

Tom,

What's Spankybird think of all that smoke? My love birds like the toot of my steam whistle.

BB is out back making tracks through the snow and sniffing around for small game.

Chief,

There were several specials on TV about beagles being used to sniff out pythons in Florida. One beagle sniffed out 56 in short order. These snakes are throwaway pets that grow big enough to eat (squeeze) a human and one was shown on TV strangling a big alligator.

[laz 57]

HI GUYS,
Warm here at 27 degrees picked up abou 1.5 inches of OHIO more to come today.
Have a good one.
laz57

[cnw1995]

A nice warmer day today - lots of melting snow.

DId you hear BNSF unveiled a new logo for their trains at the NYSE recently? See
http://prn.newscom.com/cgi-bin/pub/s?f=PRN/prnpub&p1=20050124/DAM043-
a&xtag=PRN-prnphotos-43269&redir=preview&tr=1&row=1

There must be a character limit to the hyperlinks here - just copy and paste the whole URL into a new browser window...

[ChiefEagles]

Morning all. Warmer outside. Think I will move a fence today. Will seem good to do some real work outside for a change. Have a good day and God bless all.

[Frank53]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daan

In the mean time I've started with another hobby, motorbikes.. The trains are still there and I even started to make a mountain. but the sun and blue skies from the last few days and the support of my girlfriend waked up the old biking spirit..
A Harley is too expensive here . . .

try cuttin back on non-essentials like, umm, food and shelter. [:D]

You'be riding an HD in no time and be glad you did.

accept no substitutes

[FJ and G]

Doug,

The paint job of new BNSF is plain ugly. What were they thinking?

[FJ and G]

Guys,

Read the last paragraph of this article sent to me by a train buddy:


Railroad agency urges new safety rules



BY SCOTT DODD, DAN HUNTLEY AND ADAM BELL

Knight Ridder Newspapers


(KRT) - The federal government urged railroads on Tuesday to adopt new rules to ensure that manual switches on rail lines are properly set, or risk another accident like one that killed nine people and spread a toxic chlorine cloud over Graniteville, S.C., on Thursday.

About 40 percent of the nation's rail lines have manual switches that must be opened and closed by hand to move sections of track, according to the Federal Railroad Administration, which issued Tuesday's safety advisory.

Those switches are found mainly in rural, less-traveled areas such as the Norfolk Southern line through Graniteville, which carried five trains a day.

Heavily traveled lines, such as those in major cities, generally use automated switches that can be set and monitored remotely.

Misaligned switches are among the most common causes of train wrecks, a Charlotte Observer review of federal accident records shows.

From 2000 to October 2004, switch problems accounted for 106 of 4,683 accidents, or about 2 percent, that took place on the "main" section of the rail lines, outside of rail yards or industrial sites. The federal database includes more than 260 causes of train wrecks.

During that nearly five-year period, Norfolk Southern had 368 accidents, according to federal data. Improperly lined switches were the main cause of 3 percent of those wrecks.

A misaligned switch may have caused a Norfolk Southern derailment in Pacolet, S.C., in September, which spilled 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel. Authorities said that investigation is ongoing.

A 2003 Burlington Northern Sante Fe crash in Scottsbluff, Neb., was also blamed on improperly set switches. That wreck killed the train's conductor.

The Federal Railroad Administration said Tuesday that it was concerned by two recent accidents:

The one in Graniteville, where investigators say a switch on the Norfolk Southern main line was left open, sending a 42-car freight train hurtling off the main track and into a parked local train.

One on Saturday in Bieber, Calif., where a freight train was diverted onto a side track and struck two loaded grain cars, injuring two railroad employees.

In both cases, investigators believe railroad crews may have failed to return manual switches to the correct position. By doing so, they sent trains hurtling down the wrong tracks.

The FRA's advisory told railroads to make sure their rules require crews to report to their dispatcher after they've reset switches, and to fill out a form logging in those changes.

Norfolk Southern was considering whether it needs to make any changes to its procedures to comply with the advisory, spokeswoman Susan Terpay said.

Federal inspectors plan to check next week to ensure that railroads are making the changes. After that, the agency says, extra measures could be taken, including new regulations.

"The railroad procedures as a whole generally have worked," FRA spokesman Warren Flatau said. "Thousands if not tens of thousands of trains are safely moved on a daily basis."

The advisory applies to less than half the train traffic in the United States, the agency says, because most trains operate on tracks with electronic signals, which tell crews the position of a switch and warn of problems.

The crew of the train that crashed in Graniteville had no warning, though. They were in "dark territory" - a rail line without electronic signals or automated switches, like about 40 percent of the track in the country.

Norfolk Southern has approximately 21,500 miles of track, Terpay said. About 11,000 of those track miles aren't equipped with signals, but they tend to be in less-traveled areas.

"It's done based on the level of traffic, just like a city would determine where to put in traffic lights," Terpay said.

National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said investigators will consider whether Norfolk Southern should have automatic signals or dispatcher-controlled switches on its line through Graniteville.

The NTSB was prepared to wrap up its on-scene work Tuesday, even as cleanup crews continued to unload chlorine from the wrecked rail cars.

About 5,000 residents evacuated Thursday can't return to their homes until the cleanup is complete and environmental crews have tested their homes and businesses to be sure they're safe.

Meanwhile, the legal battles have begun. The first lawsuit against the railroad was filed on behalf of two plaintiffs in Aiken County court Tuesday, local media outlets reported.

A half-dozen lawyers placed large ads in Tuesday's edition of the Aiken Standard newspaper seeking clients, including Greg Jones, who grew up in Charlotte but now lives in Wilmington.

His ad took a third of a page. "I don't want to add to the appearance of `ambulance chaser,'" Jones said Tuesday, "but I did want people to know how serious the effects of chlorine poisoning can be, and that I'm here to defend their rights."

The South Carolina Bar Association says attorneys are prohibited by ethics rules from soliciting clients in person within 30 days of a disaster, but advertising is OK.

While Graniteville residents are waiting to go home, officials suspect some outsiders are trying to make it look like the town is their home in hope of getting money from Norfolk Southern.

The railroad has provided more than 2,000 Graniteville residents with financial assistance since Friday to help cover food, lodging and lost wages.

Sixteen people submitted change-of-address forms to the state motor vehicles department this week, seeking to change their addresses to Graniteville, said South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart. "That's more in one day than we'd typically see in a year."

One woman, who changed her address Monday, was arrested Tuesday for "obtaining goods under false pretenses," local police said. Police are investigating other applicants for fraud.

---

(Knight Ridder correspondent Henry Eichel contributed to this report.)

---

© 2005, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

Visit The Charlotte Observer on the World Wide Web at http://www.charlotte.com

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.




David Vergun
Content Coordinator
Strategic Communications
U.S. Army
[e-mail]

[ChiefEagles]

What a change!!!! 49 degrees and still rising. :: Everyone must be W--King today. [:(] Sure is quite. Even Tom is not posting. [;)] About time he earned his keep. [:D]

[spankybird]

Dave,

Spanky doesn’t mind the smoke. Since I changed over to the JT Maga-steam, it doesn’t linger in the room. Spanky will sit on my shoulder and look at an engine go by and say ”HOT”. He will also go ”woo woo”

He is such a hoot.

[FJ and G]

Tom,

It would be interesting if Spankybird could detect "hot boxes" on the axle journal boxes and chirp "hot." Then you know it's time to oil the axles or apply grease in the gear box. The bird could detect subtle squeeks that you or I might not discern.

Spankybird could become a regular RR working bird. I guess she (he?) acts as a sort of dispatcher from above in its control tower.

Would be interesting to hear the bird carry on a conversation with engine chatter. DCS could even allow you to program in some Spanky sounds into the locomotive!

[ChiefEagles]

MY JT LINGERS!!! It fills the downstairs too. Going to put an bath exhaust fan in the ceiling of the train room. Will be the first project as soon as the room is cleaned out and before I get it re-painted.

[TurboOne]

Good morning all,

got a quick minute, and thought I would stop by and say howdy. Weather man was wrong again. [:O][:O][:O] It is clear, and warm. 71 and climbing. Woo Hoo.

Hey Tom, we have a pack of wild parrots here in El Cajon, just had about 80 sit and chat on the telephone lines. Big Blue Macaw is the leader, the rest are green. Didn't see any red one, maybe they have their own gang. [:D]

Laz, glad its warming up !!!

Take care all

Tim

[cnw1995]

Tim - you made me remember we have a bunch of monk parrots - myiopsitta monachus - here in Chicago - in a park on the South Side - in fact, this past summer, the tree they congregated in - crashed to the ground in a storm but they've survived.. They're alleged to be descended from pets that escaped, survived and raised their own young beginning in the 1970s. Today, they total about 200.

How do they survive? I've heard three reasons: While native to South America, they can handle temp. extremes pretty well - they are the only breed of parrot that builds a big, warm dry, communal nest, and they enjoy a plentiful food supply (bird feeders) (Go Spankybird!)

Yes, that new BNSF logo looks terrible. I first thought it was a joke. The railroad subsidiary is also renamed BNSF Railway Corp. (I think previously it was 'Railroad')

[spankybird]

Tim and Doug,

What you may be seeing outside are Quaker parrots. They can live outside, even in the north. Some states have laws against owning them, or if you do have them, the wings must be ping (cut off at the first joint, then they can’t fly).

Here is a web site that tells you if you can own them in your state.
http://www.quakerville.com/qic/statelaw.asp



When I was breeding birds, I had a pair of these.

[cnw1995]

Yup, Tom, monk parrots are also known as quaker parrots - them's the ones. I am a font of useless knowledge today...

[Anonymous]

Well, i was at my 'work" at school! so, no posting all day, but Ill be withj you guys this night!

Chris

[spankybird]

Doug, the quaker parrot is a very good talking bird. It is also very much a one person bird and very mean to anyone else. Mine never bonded with me only each other. I do wear leather gloves when I handled them.

Chris, good to have you around tonight. Don't forget your homework

[ChiefEagles]

Chris, who put Tom incharge [telling you to do your homework]? [;)] Got up into the 50 today. Dug post holes [easy with ground wet and not frozen like up nawth], mixed up concrete mix and cemented in two. Rest will be just tamped in with the dirt. Got to take down old posts and wire before doing new. Seemed good to work outside for a change. Been since Nov 10th that I was not suppose to do very much. [:)] Need to service Pam's car. Too tired now. Possible freezing stuff Sat.[:(]

[1688torpedo]

Hey I was wondering. Do Monk Parrots live in Monasteries and sing only when their allowed to.? And, do Quaker Parrots like Oatmeal.? Tom, you have to use J.B.Weld in order to get some Parrots to bond to you[;)]....Keith

[laz 57]

TURBOTIM when I retire thats where, SD, I think I will spend some of the winter. It hit 35 here today and felt warm.
CHIEF remember to pace yourself with those post holes.
SPANKBIRD wonder if Spanky say HOT when some good looking women go by? Or is it just the engines?
Have a good one.
laz57

[ChiefEagles]

Man, it is still in the upper 40's. Got post holes to dig tomorrow. My back aches. Humm You'd think I had been sitting around the house doing nothing for 3 months. [;)][:(] LAZ, I'm staying at the Holiday Inn Express, 5680 Allentown Blvd in Harrisburg. Arrive late Friday afternoon on Feb 10 and leave Sunday after lunch on the 13th. Then it will be Wille Nelson's "On theRoad Agin".

[laz 57]

CHIEF
I know where that is in Harrisburg. We will see whats up for then and maybe get in contact. Looking forward to meet you. See you there or at the store.
laz57