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

[tschmidt]

Evening all,

It was an unbelievably hot day here today...plus the humidity. I thought I was living in the south! It looks like all week will be this way. Our school has it's annual Fun Fair tomorrow evening...lots of games and food for the kids and families. I'm hoping the weather holds out and the thunderstorms don't materialize.

Have a good day tomorrow.
Tom

[ChiefEagles]

Trimmed trees and shrubs this afternoon. Then ran them through the chipper. Took about an hour. WOW. Now I am sore. Off to bed. Been watching "The God Father III". Have the whole series on DVD. That and the Sapranos are my favorite. Have a good night and God bless all.

[spankybird]

Good Morning from NE Ohio

where the temp is 74 deg at 6:00am with Blue Clear Skys

Yes it’s hot here, but at this time of the year, it beats the memory of Snow.

Buckeye – let me know when Ohio Rail Passenger Association meeting is. I will be on vacation the last week of June. Maybe we can go together.

Pick of the Day

Double heading towards the weekend

All be safe
tom

[laz 57]

Hi GIZ,
LIVE FROM MILLERSBURG, PA its.....................

FRIDAY EVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hot one to at 73 @ 6AM.
Don't know if I will golf today maybe just go out tonite for wings and beer.
Made up 12 coal loads for my NS hoppers. 5 for me five for brother and two extra.
Have a good one and STAY COOL.
laz57

[ChiefEagles]

Morning gang. Got town meeting in a few. Tomorrow will be almost all day County Task Force meetings. Wow. Coffee is good this AM. LAZ, I have a gallon of lump coal ordered and on the way. I use real loads in my hopper cars. Makes a heavy train but they stay on the track at high speed. Tom, lots of pressure on that caboose between those two engines. Can not find a small three pin connector for smoke unit or I'd have finished the MTH dummy. Will do a "makeup my own" job I guess. Have a good day and God bless all.

[laz 57]

CHIEF the next time you come up to Harrisburg, I will get you some of the rice coal and you'll have some fun putting these together. I use a piece of foam the size of the hopper put carpenters glue on it, sprinkle it with the rice coal, let dry. Come back about 3 hrs later and put more glue on in stragic places and more coal, to make it look humped up, let dry. Come back the next day and spray paint black, let dry. Then to give it a hard coal or anthricite look give it a final coat of clear lacqure. Easy and fun to do also if cars derail you don't have a big mess. I'll bring one down and show you at the BPS.
laz57

[ChiefEagles]

Lnow what you mean about spilling. Got to get that layout off the floor. The Peek has been known to get man with me, go upstairs [which he hardly never does] and run through my train cars. Now you get three or four hoppers of coal on the carpet. [:(] If I had my layout built, I'd take my JD excavator and get it back into the cars. [;)]

[Buckeye Riveter]

Laz, what is rice coal?

[ben10ben]

Afternoon(or morning for some of you) Folks,
Not much going around here. I have a set of Lionel U36bs belonging to OGR forum member BNSFScotty that I've had for a while adding TMCC and smoke to them, and am planning to fini***hem up today. Got my pictures back from the train ride last week, and will post some later.

David,
Good luck on the job! I'm sure that you would make an excellent editor for Model Rairoader.

[FJ and G]

Thanks, Ben and others who emailed me. I just finished faxing/emailing my resume and included writing samples from CTT's Sept 03 and May 04 magazine. The cooler Wisconsin weather would be good for BB the beagle's rabbit chasing. The recent heat wave here has her panting.

BTW, for those of you who also post on OGR, I haven't been posting there much in the last few weeks because of numerous log-in problems, dealing with "time-outs" error msgs. I don't know if anyone else has been experiencing these.

[FJ and G]

Buckeye,

You'd probably be better than me at locomotive testing, as one of my test criteria would be to drop a locomotive to the slab to test its "durability." I'm afraid that those "scale" locomotivess reviewed in Model Railroder wouldn't quite hold up as well as some of the toy train metal beasts. :-)

[spankybird]

Drop Test

What fond memories. In my past life, I worked for a company that manufactured arc welders, portable type. Their drop test of the welder was to have it placed in the back of a pickup truck and connect a chain to the welder and tie it to a tree. Then drive the truck out from under the welder. The welder had to work to pass the test.

They said that was a real life test as to how a construction worked would treat his welder.

[ChiefEagles]

Ben, are the U36B's can motors or the old pulmor type? Been wanting to convert one I have from the MPC era. Just have not called DD or TA to see what would work and if it will fit int eh narrow shell.

[laz 57]

BUCKEYE, rice coal is a grade when broken at the breaker comes out looking as the consistancy of rice hence the name rice coal. There is also pea coal and chestnut coal that is mined in here in Pa.
laz57

[ben10ben]

Chief,
They're can motors. The powered unit has two truck mounted can motors. Once the E-unit was removed, I had the whole space inside of the shell to work with. You could probably get TMCC in a pullmor one, although Railsounds would be stretching it. I had a hard time fitting both TMCC and Railsounds in these.

Clearances within the shell are tight. You have to make sure the boards are exactly centered, or they won't fit. The DLX board from Digital Dynamics, though, is perfectly sized to fit in the back part of the shell where the radiator flares are. I put it in the back on these, and put the Railsounds more toward the center, above the fuel tank. I drilled holes in the frame above the front truck to form a speaker grill, and mounted the speaker above this.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by FJ and G

The cooler Wisconsin weather would be good for BB the beagle's rabbit chasing. The recent heat wave here has her panting.

Its very hot here also! (BB would be panting here too)As I speak it is 92 in the shade and 98 out in the open, with a 94% humidity.

[IronHoarse]

Afternoon all,

As I suspected the UPS truck came yesterday with my TMCC gantry crane. Now this is big fun, I just love playing with this thing!

[image] http://www.moranweather.com/trains/cranew.jpg [/image]

[Buckeye Riveter]

QUOTE: Originally posted by laz 57

BUCKEYE, rice coal is a grade when broken at the breaker comes out looking as the consistancy of rice hence the name rice coal. There is also pea coal and chestnut coal that is mined in here in Pa.
laz57

Next question, what is a breaker? [?][?][?][?][?]

[Roger Bielen]

Just had a strange happening with TMCC that I thought I'd pass on case anyone else comes across this in the future. Was running my Hudson on one loop and switching with my 0-8-0 on the other and in the yard. All of a sudden the 0-8-0 stops, sounds still work, couplers open, only problem it wouldn,t move. Did a reset, engine acknowledged, no luck. The Hudson was working ok. Shut down the layout, moved the 0-8-0 to the Hudson's loop, powered up, no luck, did a reprogram, engine acknowledged, no luck. Tried the other CAB-1, no luck, though I knew that one had almost dead batteries . Changed out the batteries and all seems to be working now.

What's puzzeling is why did all the other functions work other than the dial and why did the Hudson respond. Aren't electronics wonderful?[%-)]

[1688torpedo]

Hello Buckeye! A Breaker is a huge Building several stories tall. The Coal enters the breaker at one end in large chunks and comes out of the other end in smaller sizes & bits.Scranton had several of them at one time and this is where Anthracite Coal was originally mined. Laz lives near the tail end of Anthracite Coal Country in Millersburg,Pa ..........Keith

[ben10ben]

Roger,
When the batteries begin to die in the CAB-1, the throttle is the first to stop responding. Why that is, I don't know, however that's how I've always known it to happen. Typically, throttle response first becomes somewhat erratic, then stops completely, and all other functions follow shortly afterwards.

[Buckeye Riveter]

[#ditto]

I've seen this same thing happen on my layout.

Thanks Keith. Is this the big tall silo that I see at so many coal mining operations?

[IronHoarse]

Hi everyone,

Things are looking up. I just checked FedEx tracking and my truss bridge is supposed to be delivered tomorrow. [:)] Now if only my switches would get off back order. Looks like more layout work coming up. All this wiring and what not sure can keep you busy. The Detroit Pistons are playing tonight in the finals so It is going to be another late night for me. I am not really a big basketball fan but it is the finals so I guess I am going to be sucked in. I sure wi***his humidity would go away for awhile. Have a good one.

[ChiefEagles]

Ironhorse, great to have that. Buckeye, stay away from the breaker. [;)] Ordered some more grain cars. My CN is going to have a long grain train. Might install the lights in the dummy. Got what I think I can may the smoke unit connector with. Rested today with meetings and lunch with oldest. Did some gardening for a short while. All County task force meetings cancled. Might just get the dummy finished. If not tomorrow, Saturday [wife riding with friend to NC mtns and back, no honeydos]. Later

[Anonymous]

Hey Laz, Did you get my email asking abour the SD80 NS in the black diamond set?
Will it run on 031? Thanks..Tim

[ChiefEagles]

Pigseye T, I can answer that. Nope. I've got two. Big long jokers. In fact, I have a 45 or 54[???] Lionel switch and they scrub the switch stand. Had to take that one off too. It'll go through K-Line low profile ones.

They are on the siding to the right. The SD60 [on the left] will run through 027 most of the time with the switch stands removed but really likes 031. The SD60 is a lot shorter than the SD80's.

[ben10ben]

Chief,
I can get my SD-80 to run through my O22 switches provided that I remove the lantern and bulb. It does look absolutely horrible, but it will go. Here's the photographic evidence of it running on O31.



I couldn't find any of it going through an O22, but may take some.

[underworld]

The throttle function most likely uses the most current. Like when you have a low battery in your car.....the starter won't turn or turns too slow....but the lights, radio, horn etc all work. Dog gone current hogging throttles!!! [:p]

underworld

[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

[spankybird]

Good Morning from NE Ohio

where the temp is 75 deg at 6:00am and partly cloudy skies.

We had be T-Storms during the night, lots of rain and lighting, but thankfully no damage.

T G I F

This has been a long hard week at work, really looking forward to the weekend.

On the Cab-1, just my own thought, maybe it’s by design to shut down the throttles to prevent run away trains when the batteries are going dead. Or maybe it is just by luck that it happens that way.

Nice pics Chief and Ben.

Pick of the Day


all be safe
tom

[1688torpedo]

Hello Buckeye ! A Coal Breaker is very tall, Square in shape and has a conveyor that carries the coal to the top where it gets crushed & broken into smaller bits and pieces.The Lionel #97 Coal Elevator is actually a model of a Coal Co Breaker and is a approximation of what they looked like except that the real breakers were dark colored and had vents on top.whereas the # 97 did not. Hope this helps.................Keith P.S. At www.undergroundminers.com they have excellent photo's of coal mine breakers and some railroading pictures also.