Good Evening Coffee Clubbers,
It's been a busy couple of days recovering from the trip, which is why I haven't found time to check in for a bit. Yesterday was truly a beautiful day down here in Paradise, with temps in the low 70's, partly cloudy, and a light breeze. We took advantage of the nice weather to put in a long shift out at the orange grove. While we didn't cut a lot of fruit (we have to be out there again tomorrow) we did bring back a variety, including 4 different types of oranges, limes, papayas and a stalk of sugar cane. Thought we'd bring back some bananas too, but none were ready for harvest.
Today was even nicer (from my point of view) as it stayed overcast all day, with temperatures in the high 60's. No a/c needed! I took advantage of the cooler temp to do a strip down of my barbeque grill. As I suspected I had a number of blocked gas holes in the burners. While I could unblock them, I found I have several spots where the burner has actually rusted through. Corrosion is a real serious problem down here, especially so close to the water. So it looks like I need to get replacement burners when we are NOB next month.
I didn't get around to catching up on all the pages I missed. But I did get back a short ways.
RT - good luck on the job interview / search.
Rob - I agree that a hollow core wood door with a layer of foam is a good way to go. I suppose I'm a bit prejudiced because that's what I have. I don't know what the cheapest approach is for legs, but I have mine sitting on an old dinette table. I'd like to have the folding metal legs, but couldn't find them when I was looking for them.
Fergie - Back to "The Rock"? Enjoy the trip. We'll probably be going over in late September this year.
Gav: saw on news tonight that the weather over there is pretty bad is every state affected by the snow? |
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That's Global Warming for you....
Now me, I'd be more of a believer in GW if I didn't think that living down here in the tropics had a lot to do with how hot it is here most of the time.
Garry - the backdrops look nice.
I finally got a few of the photos we took on the trip uploaded to my album in Rail Images. Here are the first few, along with a play-by-play of what we were doing. I'll post more tomorrow, I hope.
Last weekend we went on another of our trips with the group of railfans from down here. This time 50 of us headed out Saturday morning from Mexico City in a chartered bus. We headed for Toluca, Acambaro and Celaya, which are all west to northwest of Mexico City. Here are a few of the more interesting shots from the trip.
First, my usual disclaimer. I can't recognize one "diseasel" from another. All the locomotive types that I mention here I found through various on-line roster info sources. So if I mistakenly refer to an SD40-2 as a PA-1, feel free to correct me.
The line from Mexico City to Toluca is a secondary line for KCSdeM. Their north south mainline heads northwest from Mexico City. This line has much less traffic, and mainly services the large industrial corridor around Toluca. By the way, Toluca is the capital of the state of Mexico. And, at 2,679 meters, or 8,790 feet above sea level, is the highest state capital in Mexico.
Here we see one of a series of novel crossing signs located along the industrial corridor just east of Toluca. These are made of concrete and are somewhere between 12-15 feet high (+/-). In this area the tracks run between the highway and the frontage road. So there are a whole series of spurs that turn off and cross the frontage (service) road at almost regular intervals.
We had some permission letters for the visit, but as usual down here, final interpretation is up to the locals. At the Toluca yard we were allowed to wander around (within limits) but were very restricted in what we could photograph. But here are a couple of shots. First is a new SD70Ace, #4066, in the "Retro Belle" paint scheme.
Fran got into better position and snapped one of #4066 together with #4083.
Heading away from the yard in the bus, I grabbed a quick shot of this old consolidation stuffed and mounted in a traffic circle. NdeM #269 is a 3'-0" narrow gauge loco, built by Baldwin in 1921. I believe that she is a sister to the #279 that still operates down here in Cuautla.
Just a bit farther on, we stopped for an unplanned foto op as we saw TFM GP38-2 #1104 doing some local switching.
From Toluca we pressed on to Acambaro, in the state of Guanajuato, still following the KCSdeM secondary line. Just before reaching Acambaro, we caught up with a train of autoracks and containers. It stopped a couple of kms short of Acambaro awaiting clearance. Taking advantage of the stop, a couple of guys from the group headed back to chat with the crew, while the rest of us waited for the train at the next crossing.
Finally the train started up again, and here she is starting up the grade towards Acambaro.
As she got nearer we could see something different on the front of the locomotive. Yup, the crew had allowed our guys to ride the front of the locomotive, displaying the club banner. By the way, the locos are KCSdeM #3359 (C30-Super7R) followed by #3456 and 3416 (both C30-Super7N's).
Not exactly a photo roll-by, but a nice shot as the train slow rolled the last half mile into Acambaro.
That's about it for this evening. Catch up with you tomorrow.
Hasta mañana,
Ed