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

[Blueberryhill RR]

[code]Good Morning from Blueberryhill[/code]Looking at 62 degrees, and cloudy. Going up to 70 and
possible rain. NEED SUNSHINE !!!!
Well, today we have some small jobs to do. Very un-exciting.
I wonder where Buckeye is???
Chief is feeling better. That's good.
Jerry..Always wanted to be a bat boy !!!!!!!!!!!! CONGRATS.
Well, y'all have a great day and be safe.
Chuck

[cnw1995]

Morning from a sunny and warm Chicago. Went from the thickest fog I've seen in years at home to this nice-ness. Too bad I'm indoors all day. Saw two interesting sights on the way in: a Rio Grande (the Action Road) hopper in the Blommer Chocolate siding and a triple-headed Metra train (3 F40s).
Jerry, you will enjoy the experience of being a batboy. Congratulations!

[Jumijo]

I received the new Williams flyer in the mail on Friday. I noticed that several of the locomotives will go nicely with what Lionel is offering in their new catalog. The Southern F3 will look just right with the set of Lionel's Southern streamliners, and several other F3s will be perfect motive power for the Lionel California Zephyr streamliners. The motive power Lionel is offering for both consists are FTs.

Jim

[Brutus]

Hit pretty hard, but just by the tail end of the storm last night about 3:30AM - went out and looked 'cause it sounded like more hail, but didn't see any. My wife noted that there are dents in the coachlights from the last storm, so I'll take some pics for the insurance guy and email them asap. Otherwise, just more of the same. Did get started on the castle for the layout and it's already looking pretty cool with a working portculis (? - the part where the iron bars come down behind the big doors). Need to dust the Polar Express and put it up for the year - kids lost interest already. Of course, all I have is the oval of track on a temp table now.

Anyway - gotta take some pics then get to serious work - TTFN

[ChiefEagles]

Morning gang. Home to the great beautiful day in the 80's. Low last night was higher than the average high for this time of year. Cooling later this week. Got things to do before raiding into OHIZO Friday. Visit WV for a couple. Then back into Ohizo on Sunday. Did not have to mayke the trip way up Nawth, Nawth to Alaska, errrr, I mean NH. No difference in MASS. and NH than Alaska. [;)] Got lots to get done. Pond needs to be fished too. [;)] Well, I'll share this with you:
The crew: [all GRITS lovers]


Dennis and the Chief:


Don't know how all these mangey old guys get such lovely wives. [:0]

Got to get busy. God bless.

[1688torpedo]

Hello All! Laz- Sure was nice talking to you on the phone last night. Will have to try & get over to Millersburg sometime for a visit & we can show the 800lb Bruin how to derail Grits Boxcars without causing a Hazardous Waste Disaster![;)][:P][:)] Jim-nice talking to you on the phone also.Will call you later this week/weekend? Hope you feel better soon. Jerry -Congrats on becoming a Batboy for the Timber Rattlers Ball team. Maybe you can paint their logo on your Dodge Truck? Good advertising for the team anyway. Hope you have been driving carefully in that truck. As I posted about a week ago there have been a series of car wrecks lately with quite a few teens getting hurt/killed around here & all over the country. Just drive safe & don't take chances that are not worth getting killed for. Take Care all.

[Jumijo]

I'll look forward to hearing from you, Keith. Call my home number, not the cell phone, ok? You'll have a much better chance of me answering! I only keep the cell on an hour or so each day.

Jim

[cnw1995]

Keith, I thought of your earlier posts this weekend - there was another accident here over the weekend: two teenagers (who were grounded) left their house with a friend while the parents were out to drive to a Baskin-Robbins. Lost control going too fast in the rain - two dead - what a tragedy!

[1688torpedo]

Doug- It seems that some teens never think first about speeding,drinking, or not using their seat belt. They need to be more careful in all situations especially this time of year when the weather can change so fast in a couple of hours time. Sask,Ben,Jerry,& Colin. I Hope you guys pay attention to what I've posted here about driving. Just be very careful and everything will be fine for you. Chief- Nice photo's of Dennis & his family. Dennis- if you still need those 1689E Parts, Let me know. Take Care all.

[1688torpedo]

Jim A- I'll use my Shoe Phone when calling your home![;)][:P][:)] Always thought Maxwell Smarts Shoe Phone was a neat idea.[8D]

[wrmcclellan]

Morning all!

Cooled off here. 60's this am. Going to 70 today. Should stay in 70's for most of this week with a couple of minor cool fronts coming through. Still no rain.

Getting ready for ski trip today. Boys are excited. They are all going to snowboard. My friends son according to his wife has all his stuff laid out in his room. Will be fun except for the drive - 900 miles.

Have to decide which route to take - uo through Kansas and then west or through the TX panhandle. There are two wildfires in the pan-handle (one has burned over 100,000acres and the other over 200,000) and I haven't been able to establish where they are in respect to the drive. Important as they closed the highways yesterday due to smoke - but they didn't say which ones??? A call to TXDoT is in order.

Leaving at 6 am tomorrow. Will be back for a forum check next Sunday.

LAZ - do you think we can use those funds on an Acela??[:D]

Have a great one all!
Roy

[mickey4479]

Well, MO got hit pretty hard in some places. My house had some rain, hail and high winds, but no damage. Just a few miles south and they had a hook echo and some damage. I recall a few years ago a tornado hit KC. My house is in a little valley. Just 5 or 6 blocks away, homes were destroyed. I was visiting a friend about 30 miles south when this happened and watched the whole mess unfold on TV. The weather folks had live radar showing the path and called out my neighborhood. When I returned home all was well with me, but about 30 or more homes were destroyed or severely damaged in the neighborhood just 5 or 6 blocks away and there was a trail of damage in this area.

I can’t run trains for the next week while the tile man comes and replaces some cracked floor tiles in the kitchen. I had to cover the doorways from the kitchen with plastic to keep the dust down. Last time he was here, I had dust everywhere. I can’t fish for another week or so either. I guess I will resort to chores.
Steve, still praying for you.

[laz 57]

ROY, after we buy the ACELA, we can have lunch.
laz57

[wrmcclellan]

LAZ - excellent! [dinner] We'll use the leftover funds!

[Jumijo]

Roy,

Great videos of your new suburban! I love the sounds. Best of luck with it.

Jim

[jonadel]

Roy,

We were in CO a week ago skiing and it's the most snow we have ever seen. We hit the runs at Steamboat and Winter Park, both have had over 30' of snow this year with the base being at 70" and the summit's having MUCH more. Have a great time and take LOTS of money.

Jon

[cheapclassics]

Good morning all,

It is cloudy and warm (for now) in SE Indiana with temps in the 60s today. Cold front tonight is supposed to drop temps to the 40s tomorrow. I ran the Alaska set on the back porch last night while the weather put on a light show. It was quite impressive. We had quite a bit of water in the crawl space Sunday morning, but the sump pump took care of it. I think we have to drain the entire yard as we check a few hours later and it has more water in it. I hope everyone has a good day.

Keep on training,

Mike C. from Indiana

[wrmcclellan]

Jon,

We are going to ski at Copper Mountain (great ski school for the kids and excellent - i.e. long -beginner runs for them to play on).

Yes - lots of $$$ required.

Mike C - My mother in law's house had that problem up in Sherman, TX. All that moisture under the house caused a lot of problems.

[dwiemer]

Mickey,
Hope y'all stay safe with the storms. We've had our share of tornados and floods, but our house never got damaged, just had a number of trees get sheered off. As for when the tile guy is there with the dust, if you have plastic up, you can cut a hole in the plastic and duct tape it around the hose for a shop vac. Then most of the airborne dust will be sucked out of the house. We use this technique for when we clean out our chimney.
Dennis

[dougdagrump]

Mornin All !
Glad to see the Chief made it back safe and sound, sound of body at least the jury is still out on the other. [(-D]
Jim A, We may not all live in the same city but when playing with trains you will discover that we all live in the same state at times. CONFUSION
When we scraped the popcorn ceilings we covered everything with plastic and cut out for a window where we put a box fan to suck out the dust. It won't get it all but it sure helps a lot.
Off to the real coffee pot for a refill.
[|(] [:o)]

[Roger Bielen]

Sure is difficult keeping up with the coffee pot, 2 pages since I checked it yesterday evening and a third turned over while I was reading the two. WOW talkative group.

The day started off preety good around here but the ski has gotten realy cloudy and is darkening to the west. The bad weather should reach us later this afternoon. Last I saw the weather report at 5:45 this morning they were saying the worst will pass to the north of our area.

Maybe I can get a bit more outdoor work done this afternoon if I don't linger here too long. Be back later.

[ChiefEagles]

Out the door to do some outdoor work. OOW my head. Pollen everywhere. [:(]

[tmcc man]

Good afternoon everyone,
Well, I was suprised that today was fine, and nothing bad happened, so that was good.

Buckeye, you know about DCC, right. Well, if you do not, here is a little over view of what I want to do with my LGB diesels, and steamers.

The decoders (1 for the motor blocks, and 1 for the sound activation) are used exactly like the DCC systems, as they act as an address for a single unit of for a lashup. This is unlike TMCC, because in TMCC, the entire engine components have to be swapped. In this, the only thing I have to do is plug in the decoders, and set the switches in the engine to "MTS" ( Multi-Train System, by LGB) and then I put it on the programming track. In order to have the MTS system properly working I have to buy the entire system. This includes the reciever (like the Command Base), and the transmitter ( like the Cab1) and a seperate power source, which is set on a certain amount of voltage, like the TMCC "Bricks." When you think about it, it is a really easy process. I hope to get this, but it is a big investment.

[Anonymous]

Well, all I can say was that nothing very bad happened today either, Maybe it's because of the Ides of March. It's all good then a bucket of water splashes on your head or a 5000 pound anvil, stress, a common desease. Soon I hope ill remember to post another one of those "signs of 40" thing". Sorry i didnt do one yesterday' too busy. Although i dont even think anyone read it. Time to help my mom with something even though i just sat down

Have you ever gotten a "What do you think? wanna go walk the dog" or something from your mom or wife? AKA she asks for your opinion and you say well not really; shell then say Too bad your doin' it. That is what hapened to me two secs ago. Well see ya!

[Anonymous]

It is about 4:PM and I heard on clap of thunder.

I was west of here at the meat factory (VA Med Center) and raced home to beat the weather.

Now no weather....yet

It may blow around us here in Western W Va.

I am about to box up all the RR stufff and put it away starting today.

I have boxes and boxes of stuff here.

I am still working on the K Line S2 dummy project then it get packed up.

I am going to find my pipe and set in the Door way of the garage and watch for the forcasted storm.

You gentelmen have a safe and entertaining eveing.

[Buckeye Riveter]

Blueberry, I'm here, but very busy!

Thanks, TMCC.

Roy, skiing sounds like fun. More fun than dodging the bad weather that is heading our way.

Dennis, don't believe everything the Chief tells you about us in Ohio.

[dwiemer]

Buckeye,
After having met the Chief in person, and finding him to be a true gentleman, I would believe anything he had to say, though I think he was still on the medicine when he paid you a complement, but I digress, it was fun though[:-^]. Just kidding, we had a good time, though my daughter was a bit distracting, I guess she wanted to be the center of attention.
Anyway, hope to meet up with more of you guys in the future. This is a great group to be associated with, at least the southern division. Hope y'all have a great day, and if you started out with a bowl of grits, you know it will be.
Dennis

[Anonymous]

All this grits talk....although I eat grits too on occasion. The weather here was quite warm today, in the mid-50's. Wind though is really cutting up though, very strong winds blowing today. Had quite a time keeping the semi I was driving today in my lane. Strong winds are still going on now as im typing this.

Tomorrow morning I got a run to the Detroit area....actually very close to Chesterfield, the home of the Big "L". If time allows, I may just swing by there, just to see what the building looks like. May even take my camera for pics just in case.

@Tom, the other bad part of the MTH RR-Track version of the software I have is that its the 16-bit version which was written for the earlier versions of Windows. Not certified for XP, which is what I am running. So apparently I will have a tough time making any updates for this program.

Hope everyone else is have a nice day!

Chris

[Brutus]

Chris, use the XP compatiblity wizard to tell it to tell the software that it is Windows 95 or Windows 98 etc. Use help to find it or email me and I'll see if I can help you. You end up with a separate shortcut to the program that allows it to run in XP good as new. I used this for some old games that are real system hogs like Quake II etc and it worked very well.

Things are looking up! Got a call from the insurance and Siding Match couldn't match my old siding, so getting all new siding for the entire house along with a new roof, gutters, etc. I think the only thing left will be old downspouts and a couple of pieces of trim, which I might kick in for anyway and get replaced as well. Then all I have to do is fini***he basement and sell my house for an obscene profit and buy a new house!

[Roger Bielen]

Had a bit of a start this afternoon as I was going into the barn and to the trainroom. As I opened the door to the garage/storage area and before I turned the light on, out of the corner of my eye I caught something dark and long on the floor. As I asked myself, what did I drop there last night, I realized it was a snake. Luckily it was black snake, and not a copperhead, or timber rattler. It was better than 4' long. Must have wandered in there looking for mice, or maybe it spent the winter in there. Opened the overhead door a bit and didn't see it around when I came out of the trainroom awhile later.

Looked like it was going to storm any minute this afternoon but the sun came back out and we had a nice afternoon. Guess we'll see what happens overnight, should be getting colder tomorrow.