Elliot's Trackside Diner V, at the diamonds

[Cederstrand]

[Rob ... do you know when you can move into the new house?]

***When it's done! Seriously though, we are living in my studio/workshop/guest quarters, as the addition (master bedroom, extra living space and train room) are being built/added. Every day when the crew leaves, we climb out a window into the new addition to see how things look. One of the last tasks will be removing that same window and installing a door in it's place.

Forgot what else I was going to respond to. Oh well.

The creek is now a steady trickle and if it keeps up, perhaps by morning it will be a full fledged stream again. HURRAY!

Rob

[Cox 47]

Afternoon all..its a great day here sunny and cool...I'll have a ham sandwitch and a diet Coke please ...thank you and put that on Rob's tab...Rob glad to hear construction is going well..You will be in that new train room soon!...I'm sure you can use the water now that the crick is running again Hopefully the back of the drought has been broke...Garry I hate to tell stories on myself but it has been some time since I saw the top of the work bench!! My son called a few minutes ago He had a good day He was promoted to Rig operator with a nice raise and He found a house with 3 bedrooms ans 2 baths and can move in next week..Its out in the country alittle with a big yard for the kids to play in...You all have a good afternoon...Jerry

[jeffrey-wimberly]

One Dagwood special please.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Howdy ..

I failed to mention today is my Mom's 89th b'day. Ww had to cancel our trip to Alabama to particpate in the party, but I hear it's ben a good day.

I was wondering how Dick's veggie garden was doing, and I see he already mention ut's doing well. I noted he's been busy with other non-mrr stuff too.

Jerry...that's great news about your son. Glad he got a nice house. I think it is a buyers market, and people should take advantage of that if they can.

Fergie .. another nice loco! Winning brass is better than winning gold medals. Right?

Jeff. Your kinda hungry, eh?

Cheers, everybody!

[Fergmiester]

Fergie .. another nice loco! Winning brass is better than winning gold medals. Right?

Oh ya! And without Blood Sweat and Steroids

[galaxy]

Hi guys and gals

Been away from the forum for a few days, need to stop in and spend some time catching up on what I missed.Thought I'd stop in and say hi!

I have the country fried steak, extra gravy, and double portion of steamed veggies.

We have grape tomatoes out our preheater here from that ONE plant- franken-mato. The other two plants are giving us big huge ones out our boilerplate that are bigger than softballs.

Planning another trip to Steamtown with an excursion in Sept. for my b-day. Steamtown is a stones throw away. Would like to go to Strasburg again, but it is out of the budget. We wanted to go to Cass railroad but gas prices and vehicle repairs soaked that right out of the budget.

Well, evenin' all

[Paul W. Beverung]

Evening Gang: Just a quick drop in for a night cap. I woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn't fall back to sleep. I finally got up and watched TV untill the rest of the family got up. I did catch a nap this afternoon so I'm not dead tired.

Lee your girl friend has a sence of humor. Yea right.

Well my best to everyone and healing thoughts.

Time for bed and I hope an uninterupted nights sleep.

Good Night All

[Cederstrand]

***Paul, how's that uninterupted nights sleep working out for you?

From the Snoring Valley RR, where trains seldom run, except between lunch and dinner. Even when they do, the male crews are often waylayed by the girls at Petticoat Junction, or influenced  by the irresistible aromas eminating from The Whistle Stop Cafe. Back to bed here. Night all...again! Rob

[wetidlerjr]

Good Morning from Tipton IN ! 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

good morning.

It's 76 and mostly clear. The high will be in the lower 90's with a chance of thunderstorms later.

I spent part of yesterday rebuilding an old Athearn F unit from the workbench up. New gears, new wheels, new motor and an updated hex shaft drive to replace the old spline shaft drive. I also cut off the metal coupler pockets and replaced them with plastic draft gear boxes to avoid hot frame issues after I install a DCC decoder. I tossed the old rubber motor mounts and substituted plastic mounts which are held in place with screws, thus assuring the motor is fully seated. Everything is in place for a DCC conversion. Installing the decoder will take about 5 minutes.

Today's Weather for:
Sundown, LA  71446-6114      8/26/2008

Heat Index:  78°F
Humidity:  86%
Dew Point:  70°F

So Far Today
High:  76°F
Low:  74°F
Rain:  0.00"
Rain Rate:  0.00"/h
Gust:  6mph NNE

Today  High: 92    Mostly sunny early in the morning then becoming partly cloudy. A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the lower 90s. North winds around 5 mph.

Tonight  Low: 72    Partly cloudy until late night then becoming mostly clear. A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Lows in the lower 70s. Northeast winds around 5 mph in the evening becoming southwest after midnight.

[C&O Fan]

Morning All

Hey Tom I hope your wound heals up a little before school starts

I'll be in the back booth having my Tea

[OzarkBelt]

Morning All!

I'll have a big stack of pancakes!

The train show was very cool! I got lots of pics and some videos of the layouts they had on display, including one that was 3"x6"! Very cool! Also found some goodys, I'll get pics of them soon. I need to upload the pics on to photobucket still...

I'll drop in later, hopefully.

[LSWrr]

Good morning,

Today: Sunny, with a high near 74. East wind between 11 and 15 mph. Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 61. East wind between 10 and 15 mph.

Nice enough to shut off the air and open up the house!  I hear Taconite Harbor area is under a freeze warning for tonight.

Need to call my LHS today; I need some of those clip on draft box covers so I continue swapping out couplers.

Lee

[JimRCGMO]

Good Morning! Zoe, I'll have a glass of Ed's OJ, two eggs (scrambled) with bacon and toast (and blackberry jam, of course) and cup of coffee, please. Thanks!

Sorry for not getting into the Diner yesterday - got sidetracked over lunch, and MRR club ran a bit long last night. Think I may have been a bit tired, too. But today's a new day, and it's only 71 F now and sunny. S'pposed to get into the low 80's F today, and the humidity is to be lower than it was over the weekend, so that's good.

Jerry, hope you get things moved/cleared away for your inspection. Simplest method might be to shove all the workbench stuff into boxes and move the workbench to the other side of the room, as you said.

Jeff, that SD-9 looks good - hope it runs as good as it looks. You sure get a lot of mods and remakes done - now, if I could do half of that... (Guess if I got more time off my keister and off the computer, and started working on my MRR stuff, that'd be more likely, huh?)

Rob, hope your creek gets its wet back (more than a trickle). Sounds like your work crew is making good progress on the house. I'd guess that your wife's resetting the alarm is because she wants to get up but feels too tired. (Maybe, perhaps...)

Fergie, another really nice loco there - is the MESS(tm) changing over to all-brass? Keep picking up those long ones, and you may need to add more room for the curves in the train room.

Colby, best wishes on that Olympic dream - as Fergie said, you're a better man than us. Think about us, when you're doing laps at 5:30 a.m. (but don't call, please..)

Belated , Charlie's wife!

OzarkBelt, sounds like your train show was a good source of new ideas for your layout. Didja pick up any specials while you were there? And 3" X6"? Must have been ZZ scale!

Lee, I figure that Dorothy might not realize that you hear the alarm just as well as she does. Y'think?

Galaxy, maybe you need to start canning the extra tomatoes (tomato paste, tomato sauce, etc.) - at this rate, Franken-tomato might still be producing those grape tomatoes by Christmas! 

I got razzed at MRR club last night - apparently, I put the nails (holding the roadbed down while the glue dried) in 'a bit' into the plywood on Saturday's work session. They were saying they were having trouble getting them out. I just got the angled pliers and started pulling them out (didn't have any trouble except for maybe a half dozen of them). We got almost all of the masonite up for the backdrops last night - there's maybe one section (about 4-6') left to put in, but otherwise it's ready for sanding and painting. More roadbed gluing (I let our ballasting and roadbed guy, Ken, do that). I was busy getting all the nails out that I'd put in on Sat., plus I helped some with the backdrop crew.

Ah, convention week... and the other one is a couple/three weeks later, huh? That's all right, I'll probably get more done on the layout that way. Besides, tomorrow my DVD drive for the laptop should be coming in, and I'll be wanting to get that up and running.

I'd better get back to my breakfast now; OzarkBelt's almost done with his pancakes, and he's been eyeing my plate...  Prayers for the healing and in need of comfort. (Tom, how's the leg coming along, by the way?).

 

Blessings,

Jim in Cape Girardeau 

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Jeff, that SD-9 looks good - hope it runs as good as it looks. You sure get a lot of mods and remakes done - now, if I could do half of that... (Guess if I got more time off my keister and off the computer, and started working on my MRR stuff, that'd be more likely, huh?)

The SD9 is an ongoing project. I had wired it last year in preparation for a decoder installation. Soldering the decoder in took about five minutes. The loco came as an incomplete kit. All that was in the box was the body shell and the chassis. There weren't any couplers, window glass, horns or railings. The LHS let it go for $10 because of all the missing stuff. I've been piecing it together with parts I scrounged from old locos that went out on the trashcan express. That explains why it has a hand rail from a GP38-2.

[Cox 47]

Howdy All...Its sunny and cool with a north breeze keeping it real nice here..weather guesser on TV says a good week-end for the big Pop corn Fest over at Casey..Well we got thru the inspection this morning and they didn't say anything about my work bench so looks like we are OK..I glued a couple of pieces of sidewalk stock together for the base for my Piggly Wiggle and looks like I got a good joint on it..

Jim....Sounds like your Rail road club is making good progress hope we can see some photos sometime...How many members do you have...

Galaxy..Glad to see you back....We have just one Grape tomatoe plant but a bumper crop with more still coming on...

Colby..Go for it!! All of us here in the dinner will cheer you on in the london Olympics...

Jeff...As I remeber those Athearn SD 9's would pull the paper off the wall..I picked up one when they first came out and was surprised how much more powerfull the where than my older Athearns..

You all have a goo one...Jerry

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Jeff...As I remeber those Athearn SD 9's would pull the paper off the wall..I picked up one when they first came out and was surprised how much more powerfull the where than my older Athearns..

This one is like that too. It's one of the old wide-bodies and has a bit of room inside it being that it has a new motor. The old one just sucked up too much power.

[Paul W. Beverung]

Hi Gang: I was going to set for a bit but Mary Ann just stuck her head in and said we need to go and take a look down by the pond. There are a bunch of buzzards circuling around. I'll be back later.

[SilverSpike]

Howdy fellers!

What's happening around these parts?

...now that we have had a nice spell of dry weather, projects are in full swing to get completed before Fall arrives....see you guys at supper.....cajon spiced Char did I hear RYAN ?

Got that rite Dick, dry as a bone, but a little rain to wash off all the dust around here this morning!

And now by request....for some char.....

Howdy ..

I failed to mention today is my Mom's 89th b'day. Ww had to cancel our trip to Alabama to particpate in the party, but I hear it's ben a good day.

And wishing a belated Happy Birthday to Garry's Mom!

We have grape tomatoes out our preheater here from that ONE plant- franken-mato. The other two plants are giving us big huge ones out our boilerplate that are bigger than softballs.

What kinda fertilizer you been feed that monster? Time to eats some of em....

Hi Gang: I was going to set for a bit but Mary Ann just stuck her head in and said we need to go and take a look down by the pond. There are a bunch of buzzards circuling around. I'll be back later.

Oh, that don't sound good!

[Fergmiester]

...now that we have had a nice spell of dry weather, projects are in full swing to get completed before Fall arrives....see you guys at supper.....cajon spiced Char did I hear RYAN ?

Got that rite Dick,

And now by request....for some char.....

Hi Gang: I was going to set for a bit but Mary Ann just stuck her head in and said we need to go and take a look down by the pond. There are a bunch of buzzards circuling around. I'll be back later.

Oh, that don't sound good!

Funny you should mention CHAR!!! I'm flying to Nain Labrador tomorrow, where they have, you guessed it a Fish plant that processes... wait for it... CHAR! Hopefully I can get myself some nice 3-5 pounders

 As for the Buzzard... can you stew it?

Anyway not much else on the go gents whatz Up? 

Yes Jim The MESS is bringing in Big power for her new right of ways We're going to be hauling major tonnage when this is all said and done!

Dick: Phewww you smell Skunk? Oh That's right Toronto played Boston the other day... Oh how the odour lingers Kinda brings a tear to your eye doesn't it

Fergie 

[Flashwave]

I keep hearing Char and wind up at a Decepticon HQ in another part of the hobbyverse... Let's try Raman Noodles.

Afternoon all. Dad;s gone back to work. He's talking with the Oncologist today, haven't heard the latest yet. We've decided to open up another office room into my bedroom, Downstairs and run the upstairs ENTIRELY to choo choos. 

Still trying to decide between Madison RR and a Western RR. Oh the possibilities. The bed goes though, so the back of the room will go to Half Moon (city) and maountains that will transition into open prairie and wind about Tehachapi style if we head west or become part of Jefferson Proving Grounds if we stay put.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Flash..... Great news about your Dad getting back to work. 

Hi Gang: I was going to set for a bit but Mary Ann just stuck her head in and said we need to go and take a look down by the pond. There are a bunch of buzzards circuling around. I'll be back later.

Nah.........It was just the usual chow hounds circling the diner.

Ryan posted the chicken on the BBQ grill. Can I make a fowl joke?

Happy Model railroading.

 

[bjdukert]

Nah.........It was just the usual chow hounds circling the diner.

Ryan posted the chicken on the BBQ grill. Can I make a fowl joke?

Garry's back to himself!!!! 

[ModelTrainLover]

Hey everyone.

Thanks for the support for my Olympic dream!!! 4 years is a long time to train but I'll give it my best shot at it! Though my HS swimteam is missing one big peice. a head coach.

love the brass model.

[Packers#1]

Man O' man is football a lot of work. Least I've been playing where I want to: Defensive End, or the equivalant of one on coach's d-line.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I've been doing some light layout work today. The evil 'S' curve at the front of the layout is fixing to go away. As the photo below shows I've already got the deck that'll hold the new track section in place.



After I've marked off the areas where the ends of the new section will marry into the existing track I'll cut out the offending section, trim the ends, put a piece of half inch foam down on the new deck and install the new track section. Here's a photo showing the new section set in to show what I'm going to do.

Any lovers of 'S' curves speak now or forever hold your peace.

[Flashwave]

It looks nice, but does it cause a lot of derailments?

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Only occasionally with some of my stiffer locos.

[Fergmiester]

Jeff

I'll be honest with you... I like what you have. Looks more prototypical, just have to straighten out the stretch between the left and right hand curveswith a single straight length. Meandering is very good... It's your friend Seriously you have made some excellent progress.

Fergie 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

The new track section is in place. Now for the ticklish part. The areas where the rails were cut is fairly difficult to get at to cut under the rail ends. So I'm having a spot of bother getting rail joiners in there. What I'm going to do is simply this. I'll clamp the rail ends in place so they line up precisely with each other and solder a piece of iron wire across each rail joint on the outside edge of the rail. After the area is ballasted it'll hardly be noticeable. Have I done this before? Yes. How many times? Twice, and that was many years ago.