Elliots Trackside Diner IV, Under New Management!

[LSWrr]

Good morning all,

Cleveland / Cuyahoga Lat: 41.58   Lon: -81.48   Elev: 902 Last Update on Jun 6, 6:45 am EDT

Partly Cloudy 79°F (26°C) Humidity: 74 % Wind Speed: SW 7 MPH Barometer: 30.05" Dewpoint: 70°F (21°C) Heat Index: 82°F (28°C) Visibility: 7.00 mi

 

They say 88F, hot & steamy for today.

Lee

[sleeper33]

afternoon all

just a quick coke please

getting hotter overhere nice sunshine

oh well got to dash

[JimRCGMO]

Good Morning, Zoe - I'll have a cinnamon roll,

and a cup of coffee, please.

Thanks! Oh, yeah, and it's Friday and payday!

 

 And if any of tho other Diners would like one, the rest of the cinnamon rolls are fair game...

Nice pics on the weathering, Jeff. I would agree that if I'd know earlier (and if Don Z had transition era freight cars), I would've liked some of those, too. Good additions to your KCS's freight fleet!

Ryan, you have my mouth watering already with your menu - I'm sure Monique will enjoy that meal tonight.

BridgeTom, I'm glad our pollen doesn't (quite) get to your levels out there. I don't have major hay fever like my older brother does, but sometimes I get the sniffles and runs, and I know it's that ol' pollen, likely.  How's that newly painted loco of yours running, by the way?

JR, keeping you and the adjusters in mind and this morning. Good to hear your layout didn't sustain major damage. Will you need to move any of it out while they're rebuilding (So nothing gets something dropped on it, or nothing comes up missing, etc.)? 

Duke, nice photos of the 'Caged Dragon.' It's  been a while since I was around the real thing (up at the Transportation Museum in St. Louis County), and it's easy to forget how huge those steam locos were (even the 'smaller' ones besides the articulated ones).

Gav, hope you have a quiet day (and night) with the dear ones...

Lee, hope you get your switch/wiring problem figured out. I may have some of those things (once I get the layout wiring in, that is...).

I got the next 2' X 4' plywood sheet and my turntable template paper out last night, and started trying to figure placment for the mainline and turntable. I also got out a couple of Peco turnouts I have, to try placment for where the passing track ends and the cutoff to the turntable goes. I'll see about posting an image of the design tonight after I get home. One thing I'll have to figure out is, on the current layout, I have a track next to the (2-stall) enginehouse for a RIP track/work train car storage. With where the turntable will be on the adjacent 2' X 4' section, I could connect that to the turntable for a second entry track, but then I have to find somewhere else to put the work train cars. Hmm...

I'll be at the corner booth, chewing on my cinnamon roll. Hm, Zoe, let me get a second one of those, please. Thanks!

 

Blessings and prayers for those in need of them (wouldn't that be all of us?),

Jim in Cape Girardeau

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I've been out working with my father this morning. He was cutting down tree branches and small bushes and I'd come along behind with a tractor and trailer and load them up. We had to stop just before nine. It was starting to get too hot to keep up that kind of work.

[sleeper33]

just dropped in quickly before i go off duty and go out boozing

because

 

        IT'S FRIDAY

jIM DOING ROOM CHECKOUTS ON THE LITTLE CHERUBS SO THEYRE BEHAVING THEMSELVES

SEE YOU ALL MONDAY NIGHT

Gav

[last mountain & eastern hogger]

Especially for Gavin	English Patient
	An English guy was very ill and his son went to visit him in the hospital. Suddenly, the father began to breathe heavily and grabbed the pen and pad by the bed. With his last ounce of strength he wrote a note, dropped it, and died. The son was so overcome with grief that he didn't remember slipping the note into his pocket. At the funeral, he reached into the pocket of his coat and immediately felt the note. He excitedly read it thinking it might be something he could recite during the service. It said: YOU slacker -- GET OFF MY OXYGEN PIPE!!!

Have a great week-end

Johnboy out.....................

[markpierce]

I'm planning for an overnight road trip into California Gold Country.  Several spots I want to hit are Columbia, Railroad Flat (where there was never a railroad), and Martel.  (I've got the $100 cash for the gas.)  Does anyone have any recommendations on other sites to see in the area, or can recommend a good Bed & Breakfast in the area of Railroad Flat -- West Point -- Pioneer area?  Thanks. 

Mark

[twhite]

Mark--

Though I haven't been there in a couple of years, the State Railroad Museum at Jamestown, near Sonora is a pretty interesting place to visit.  I believe they still have the roundhouse tours, where one can see the restoration of Sierra Railroad #3 in progress.  It's not that far from Columbia--which is kind of 'touristy', but still pretty fascinating. 

How far north on State Route 49 are you planning to travel?  Old Town Placerville is pretty interesting, and there's also a fascinating stone-arch former RR bridge across the North Fork of the American River between Cool and Auburn.  And if you head further north, there's always the Empire Mine State Park in Grass Valley and the restored 'Victorian' down-town area of Nevada City--which now has a railroad museum devoted to the Nevada County Narrow Gauge, and also their restored #5 locomotive.  Some good bed and breakfasts in that area, also.  I'd definitely recommend the "Red Castle" in Nevada City, but you'd have to phone ahead for reservations, since it's really popular.

Enjoy the trip.  The 'transitional' country between the Valley and the Sierra can be very pretty this time of year.  And the further north you go on 49, the more spectacular the scenery gets.

Tom  

 

[markpierce]

Thanks Tom.

The trip is my girlfriend's birthday present to her, so I need to keep that in mind.

I've been to the Sierra RR facilities at Jamestown already.  I'll only be going as far north as Jackson.  I think the hard-rock gold mine tour there would be interesting.  Also, the St. George Hotel in the village of Volcano would be a nice overnight setting. http://www.stgeorgehotel.com/pages/home.cgi

Mark

[twhite]

Mark--

The St. George is pretty fascinating, and Volcano is in a really pretty setting.  And if you want a really good dinner--and LOTS of it--try the restaurant at the Jackson Rancheria Casino.  GREAT rib steaks--a little 'pricey' but worth it.  There's also a little railroad running between Jackson and Ione--inactive, but the tracks are still there--and it has some pretty stiff grades and interesting trestles.  It largely parallels State Route 88 on the 14 or so miles between the two towns. 

Tom

 

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Californina ?

We had a neat ride on behind a narrow guage Shay in the redwoods south of San Francisco a few years back. I think it was Roaring Camp RR or something like that.

 

 

[twhite]

Garry--

It was the Roaring Camp and Big Trees in Felton, outside of Santa Cruz, probably.  My old college buddy and his wife live in Santa Cruz, every time I go down there to visit, Mike and I sneak away and ride it.  His wife, who is a Social Science prof at the University down there says it's "Time for the guys to go play with the train,"  LOL!  

These days, you can catch a train at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and ride up the San Lorenzo River canyon to Felton and catch the Big Trees RR.  They time the trains pretty well.  Really pretty ride and lots of fun. 

Tom

[ModelTrainLover]

Alex you lucky son of a gun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

9 days left of school! aw man I wish I could speed up time! To got me out of school! a weeks worth of snowdays has put us this far into June. Not too menchion that I've been working on my layout and not running trains has put a damper on the clenlyness of my track. and the cleanest thing in my room is usually the track.

[markpierce]

Garry,

You mean the Roaring Camp's "Dixie Shay."

Engineer-for-a-day Mark because of a retirement gift from co-workers

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

WOW! .........Mark ......thanks for posting the exciting Shay photos! Amazing.

[markpierce]

More Roaring Camp....

We had a student "fireman" on the Dixie Shay that day.  Thanks to that, I had the experience of seeing and hearing the safety valves blow.  I think the job of the fireman is more challenging than an engineer.

I had been hoping to drive the Heisler instead.  I climbed on it as a kid when it was still in Tuolumne.

Mark

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

That's great, too, Mark! Do you have a shot next to the huge redwood trees? That would impress some of the diners who have not been there.

[markpierce]

No, but here is a link to Henry Cowell State Park (which is adjacent to Roaring Camp) showing the size of trees over there.

http://www.virtualparks.org/scenes/ZkbuaC3yv3MY-QFaoXK07CA.html

Mark

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

I scanned some from our trip of about 5 years ago. Loco looks like a little live steam model next to the tree. People riding in gons look like midgets.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

What happened? Did everybody decide suddenly to go on holiday? I found this on page 2. We can't be having that.

[Guilford Guy]

Alex you lucky son of a gun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yepz I am speshul!

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Alex is buying! I'll have a ham sandwich.

 

[grayfox1119]

Good evening gents.......cloudy, foggy day today after rains in the morning, but.......a heat wave is fast approaching. Forecast is for 90's on Saturday through Monday, with record temps on Monday. Life is full of extremes these days, heating oil is $4.15 a gallon, gasolene is $3.99 a gallon, and a barrel of oil was up $10 more today.

COLBY: Remember all those snow days last Winter when you were all excited here in the Diner???? Well this my lad is called "payback"....I hear you get out on June 30th in Maine....

I hear they are looking for people to work on the RR up in Alaska, railcamp is open. You have to demonstrate your abilities by using a spike hammer, the DIME end!!!

J.R. : Many of the codes have changed over the past several years. Get ready for a few surprises. However, from my personal experience, they are all for the better safety-wise.

DUKE: Sneak over that fence and fire up that boiler on the locomotive !! Congrats on the RED WINGS !!!!! What ever happened to the Canadiens ?? Ay?

GUILFORD GUY: What camp are you going to ?

JEFF: Nice job on the box cars, I still say you shold consider a business, you do nice work!

GAV: Warm suds??? How do drink that pee??? When it's 90F outside, I want a nice cold one.

Later guys, I'm hungry and thirsty now...

[der5997]

Quick drop by before bed. I'll have a tea please Chloe. I really came in to say that I've been able to get a couple of Kato RDC cars to replace the ConCor clunkers I had before, and the decoders will be mailed to me on Monday. Let's hope they are truly PNP.

 

GAV: Warm suds??? How do drink that pee??? When it's 90F outside, I want a nice cold one.

...we've been down this road before in the original Coffee Shop.  It's all a matter of brewing technique and design of the final product. North American beers tend to be lager based, and designed to be consumed cold. At room temperature they are as you describe, pee. Cold, especially on a hot day, after mowing for instance, they are hard to beat. Brit beers, by contrast are, generally,  brewed quite differently from lagers, and are designed to be consumed at room temperature. As such they are IMHO, and probably Gav's as well, without paralell.

BTW, I had a message from Krump today, for those of you who would remember him from the Coffee Shop. It was on his Facebook site, and he sounded kind of low.  Why not drop over there and cheer him up? If you can get in, here's the url I used. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=581040648

Goodnight all, and God Bless.  Prayers for all in need of healing, comfort and peace.

[Guilford Guy]

Dick: I am getting a small scholarship to Railcamp.  Click Me To Learn More!

[grayfox1119]

ALEX: I see they have an adult summer camp also at Nevada RR, I wonder if I can get a Senior Citizen discount, or ARRP, or AAA, or ORF discount???

[NittanyLion]

Well, one of the stupidest mistakes one can make, I have done.

After months of hemming and hawing (I think this is a regional term so bear with me), I finally managed to creatively reference a trackplan I liked and turn it into something I liked.  Space for my layout had been granted as "half of the garage."  Of course, other factors prevented me from immediately envisioning something that devoured the entire space, as a significant fraction of that is otherwise devoted.  It really works out to about a third of the garage.  The space my car would occupy.  Given that its spent the last eight or so winters sitting outside, a few more probably won't kill it.  In this space is an old counter/shelf thing that can be best described as preexisting benchwork and storage space.

The wiser among us may already be starting to see the thing I have done begin to coalesce.

As one of the millions of people recently told to leave college because we had amassed enough credits and the university was no longer interested in taking our money in compensation of education (now they just want it outright with no return on my expenditure)(for being some with a fancypants book-learnin' this passed run-on sentence a long time ago; clearly I am not a shining beacon unto my alma mater), what was I talking about?  Oh yeah, various factors have caused me to seek refuge in the ever embracing arms of mother.  The rest of the family conspired into tricking me into thinking I needed a hobby, which brings us here.  Now, ideally, I'll be able to find better work and move out within the year, so any layout I constuct must be small and portable.  Able to fit in the spare bedroom of an apartment, as it were.  Which bring us back to the shelf.

The top of the object is 32" deep.  I cut this off to 30" in my planning phase, as I assumed two inches would provide suitable space at the back of the layout for a backdrop and its supports.  After printing out the fullsize plan this very evening, I was quite happy as I noted the industrial spurs were as long or longer than I predicted.  One that I projected to be suitable for one 60' boxcar could likely support two, albeit tightly.  My runaround track turned out to be a whole car longer than projected too.  Everything was coming up roses.

Until I looked at the sheets of paper on the garage floor and noticed "this seems awfully long."  The consultations of a tape measure were employed, and it was indeed 120" long as my measurements of the top of the shelves had been.  The crafty of you may have already begun to have a sly grin.   Somewhere between the garage and the computer, the shelves grew two feet in length.  But only in my head. 

Now I am faced with attempting to negotiate modifications to the shelves.  I'm sure grafting the needed extensions will be permitted, as it does not exceed the bounding box of my land grant.  Oh such folly.  Fortunately it was caught before any sort of construction had begun, as I clearly would have failed at "measure twice cut once" because I failed the measure part at least three times. 

[egmurphy]

Brit beers, by contrast are, generally,  brewed quite differently from lagers, and are designed to be consumed at room temperature. As such they are IMHO, and probably Gav's as well, without parallel.

It should also be noted that what is considered "room temperature" in the U.K. is below, quite a bit below, 90ºF.

Now drinking room temperature orange juice is something altogether different.

Regards

Ed

[wetidlerjr]

Good Morning from Tipton IN !

[jeffrey-wimberly]

JEFF: Nice job on the box cars, I still say you shold consider a business, you do nice work!

I've thought about it from time to time. Hmm, it seems my thread got the axe due to trolling.