Elliot's Trackside Diner V, at the diamonds

[GMTRacing]

Good Morning All,

     A regular and a blueberry bagel to go please Zoe.  Back at the shop and back at it with all the cars from the last month to clean and prep plus some more extensive upgrades on others to complete. Watkins Glen went well even though we took 15 cars. A few minor problems were fixed and with one exception (first time out with this car and we lost the water pump belt) they all finished the weekend.

   A bit of bad news, the tarp on our roof ripped open during the remnants of Hanna and we got 5-6 inches of rain in the house. The parts of the downstairs that had survived unscathed got soaked and the kitchen and train room took the brunt of it. I need to go in now and rip out everything that was on the floor and ceiling of the layout room and may end up tearing out the whole setup. At least the actual layout is fastened to the walls not the floor so I can do the demolition with minimal impact beyond what the water and soaked falling ceiling tiles already did. f course I had also placed all my LP records in there as well (cool and dry - couldn't put vinyl in a storage container or they'd all have warped) so that needs evaluating as well.

   The worst of it is that the rebuild on the house is pushed back again. I'll keep you posted as we go along.  Catch y'all later............. J.R.

[wetidlerjr]

Good Morning from Tipton IN ! 

[Paul W. Beverung]

Evening Gang: Well John finished the cutting the hay and guess what? It started to rain. I don't think that we got enough to ruin it but it depends on how fast we get some sun to dry things out. He used the new tractor.

Daisy is really being hard to keep quite. She will run up the stairs if I'm not watching her.

I had to put a set of new tires on the ranch pickup. That's another $500+ that we haden't planned on spending. OH WELL, It's only money.

Time for bed. I got another 100 ft of the UP right of way cleared. Only a couple thousand feet to go.

Good Night All

[der5997]

Morgan:  I did do a factory reset, but the decoder is a Digitrax, and the system NCE.  Normally (on other locos/Digitrax decoders) that doesn't make any difference, but maybe it does in this case, as the decoder is a bit odd ball in any case. The only bit of reset it seems to have picked up was the short address 3 under which it responds to the headlight and interior light (F1) commands. Maybe it will have to go back. Fortunately the LHS from whence it came has a great returns policy, and as it happens, we are due to go to Town (Dartmouth) on Wednesday. Maybe I can stretch that to crossing the bridge and make it a trip to The City (Halifax). At least I can pick Mike's brains on the subject.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[LSWrr]

Rob the DVR is fire and forget.  I tell it to tape something every time it comes on and I get suprised when I get home.  The recent voyages was about whale boats :( so no trains there.  Check your listing for your PBS station is all I can tell you.  I'm hopeing TRACKS AHEAD will be aired in January with the new season.  Right now it's on the Chicago PBS but niether one of my stations carry it, maybe they have it on DVD?

I see IKE is a CAT 1 right now, maybe it will remain a CAT1 or drop to a TS.

Format C:/u is more powerful but not as powerful as DELPART C: (See I do remember my DOS a little bit).

Lee

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I've been working on my GP40 today. It's a modified Bachmann body on an Athearn GP60 chassis.

This morning it looked like this:

Now it's in the black and white freight scheme of the MGRy and has some light weathering:

[Flashwave]

hey Guy, about the RDC, I hate to say it, but you may just need to do a factory reset, or worxse, take it to a good hobby shop and have them do the equivelent of a "format c colon" on it.

[der5997]

Good evening Diners: A medium JR Regular please, and the last bit of the blackberry and apple, with some nsa icecream, thanks Sawyer.I'll go and bug Rob in his corner booth.

Glad you liked the Starlite Diner pics. There wasn't a real "corner booth" there un fortunately, but you could see where they had been!  It's a pity the juke box wasn't up and running.

What was left of Hanna passed to the north of us yesterday, meaning that we got a bit of wind, and not very much rain.  Today we shared with Dick in a pretty nice sunny Fall kind of a day.  All the rain we have had made digging a hole for the highway sign for our local museum (better late than never) this evening far easier than I had feared.  At least the job's done, ready for next year.  The post is actually vertical, which is more than can be said for the "Highway ends in 1 Km" sign nearby.

Really liked the videos.  Got me to thinking that I could maybe try one or two.  That got me to thinking...I really should carve out some mrr time...that got me to mixing up a better batch of ground cover paint and getting busy...that led me to ripping up the container dock (not the tracks, just the "concrete") because when I laid it I miss-measured the height from base to railhead, and the bodging I had to do to make the container cars run there just did work well enough...see what you started Garry?  Anyway, I'm not using foam-core this time around, but that coloured spackle stuff that dries white and can be sanded and painted. I put the first layer on last night, and by this morning it was a much paler pink, not yet dried out.  I experimented with it a bit at that stage, and found that you can trowel it smooth more easily at that stage than when it's first applied. I want to end up with the concrete just below the railheads, not flush, to avoid any possible hang ups with the trucks and running gear; and to make track cleaning easier. This not-completely-dried plastic stage will help a great deal in being able to get that, I think. BTW, once the old foam board was up, it was fun to run that little yard again!

CapeJim:

Have you talked with Luc & Gloria in a while?

... No Jim, but I get emails from Luc quite frequently(like this morning!), so he's still around. 

Trainsrme1:  My current (pun intended!) DCC frustration is a Kato RDC that refuses to do anything but respond to headlight commands. It was running fine on its own.  I consisted it with another Kato RDC, ran fine there too. Now I've killed the consist, one of the pair runs OK, but this one has decided it doesn't want to play. "Cannot Read CV" comes up on the programming mode, but the lights work, so power and commands are getting through to something in its tiny brain. ...Now Rob, despite all that, I don't think I'd want to go back to DC, and all the block toggles, and not being able to leave a loco on "live" track while you do something with another one, etc.

Terry: Thanks for the walk through on your station construction. Great stuff!  Not "average" at all. I'd say.

The eye of the storm came right over the house it was A truly wierd silence

...The last hurricane eye to come directly over here was about a year before we moved here. Our neighbours told us that the strangest thing (apart from the heat) was the smell of tropical flowers inside the eye.

Looks like I'd better get going, Midsomer Murders is on in a bit.

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

[Cederstrand]

***Lee, give us a holler next time one of those train shows airs, please.

Rob

[LSWrr]

I found another program to keep on the DVR: "Voyages" on the PBS stations is a train and toy train program like the discovery channel or History channel programs. Last week was how the toy train evolved, yesterday was how locomotive speed increased over the years and the rivalry between the NYC and PRR systems.

Jim, I have a sure fire cure for gophers! You let my dog stay in your yard for 30 days and you'll never see another gopher.  Your yard will look like a WWI movie when she is done, but hey no gophers.

Lee

[C&O Fan]

Hi All

Lunch Time

How about one of those Cheeseburgers I dream about

and a root beer float ?

Spent some time  working on The Station at Cotton Hill

I posted some progress photos @

http://cs.trains.com/forums/1522969/ShowPost.aspx

 

 

[JimRCGMO]

G'Morning, Zoe! How about a ham and cheese sandwich, pickle spears on the side,

and a glass of Dr. Pepper, please,

and a chocolate frozen yogurt concrete, too.

Thanks!

Lee, glad that site helped, and Tom may be about right on the year approximation. I sure couldn't prove him wrong!

Morgan, not a bad haul for a small train show, huh? The work train sounds interesting - I have a couple of three work cars, and am in process of picking which crane car I want to go with my boom car. The handouts/articles on operations and switchlists sound good, too.

TrainsRMe, I think a lot of us can relate to feeling that way (even if it was about something other than DCC wiring, a joy I haven't experienced yet...). All Zoe and Chloe ask is that you put the stuffing back in that old punching bag in the back shed after you finish pummeling it. I'm kind of with Rob, about wondering if my electrical skills are up to DCC's requirements or not. Hopefully, you'll get it (re-)wired up all correctly this time, and not have to do it again.

Paul, you tried (I'm sure) to tell your son to take the better tractor. Guess he's more used to that other tractor, perhaps? On Daisy's improvement, you might need those tranquilizers to keep her subdued enough to finish healing up. I do recall that Daisy's been kind of energetic all along, right?

Rob, I'm sure you do not want to have to get at that phone line. Hope you kept that from the weather and that you don't get any

 

hungry gophers in your yard.

Terry, got your bags packed, just in case? Hopefully, Cuba will take Ike down to a Cat-2 (or less), so the impact will be less on Texas and Louisiana.

Sunny here today, and s'pposed to hit the 80's (F) around here. I'm okay with that! Yesterday was fall type weather - low humidity, sunny and the light quality is shifting to fall color/mode lately. Of course, we have the fair in Cape G. this week, too. 

Yesterday and over the weekend, I got my music files backed up to disc, and next need to hook up the external drive to back up everything else. Got some more CDR's over the weekend so I can make another music CD for the car. Also watched DPB vol. 4 and some of vol. 5, which I'd borrowed from one of our MRR club members (who has a lot of them, though not quite all). Will need to take them back tonight and maybe see about borrowing another one. I might find out if he wants to sell off some of them (depending on my funds and his price).

I'll be at the window booth, having my lunch and looking to see who else comes by.

 

Blessings and prayers,

Jim in Cape Girardeau 

[Cederstrand]

refill, thanks.

Tonight 6:00pm EST "Trains & Locomotives" on RFDTV, PRR 1361: "The Pride of Altoona" Documentary 2008.

Roofers are here and making good progress.  With 30% chance of showers tonight, 50% tomorrow, I hope they work all day on it.  

Rob

[Cederstrand]

in a Southern Pacific AC-12 mug, please & thank you.

Guess my relatives down in FL won't have to evacuate from Ike. I wouldn't mind if they did, because I haven't seen them in many years. Looks like potential for it to become quite nasty as it heads across the Gulf. Mother Nature can stir things up pretty good when she wants to.

Wife wanted to sleep an extra half hour so in my half-asleep stupor, I messed up the alarm which never went off. An hour later, she shot out of bed, late to take her Dad to see his Doctor. She was so tired, too. Hope they make it to his appointment and that is all goes well.

Put away all the train stuff that was sitting on the door/table/layout, in anticipation for the heating & air, plumber and electrician, all of whom will need access to the workshop ceiling. Nobody has showed yet. Not even the roofers, which would be mighty nice before the next rain hits.

Sure am looking forward to having that designated train room. And what makes it even better is the enthusiasm my wife has been showing towards working on them together (at least in the case of her HO layout).

Feel pretty spent today so might need to give my joints a day of rest. Will be in a corner booth awhile working on my coffee.

Rob

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Good morning.

It's 74 and mostly cloudy here. The high is expected to be around the upper 80's and there's a chance of thunderstorms.

According to the 5 day forecast Ike will make landfall close to the Texas/Louisiana line west of the Sabine Pass as a cat4 hurricane.



I put together a couple more of my creations yesterday. A Bachmann GP40 shell on an Athearn GP60 frame and a Bachmann GP50 on an Athearn GP50 frame. There wasn't anything 'simple' about either one. Both are quiet runners with premium motors, hex shaft drive and nickel silver wheels. They're both in line for DCC decoders.

Today's Weather for:
Sundown, LA  71446-6114      9/8/2008

Heat Index:  78°F
Humidity:  83%
Dew Point:  69°F

So Far Today
High:  75°F
Low:  73°F
Rain:  0.00"
Rain Rate:  0.00"/h
Gust:  0mph NNE

Today  High: 90    Partly cloudy. A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs around 90. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph.

Tonight  Low: 72    Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Lows in the lower 70s. East winds around 5 mph.

Modified Bachmann GP40 shell on Athearn GP60 frame. It's now my long haul GP40.

[C&O Fan]

Snip

IKE is rather impressive at a CAT4, but the weather guessers say it will drop to a CAT 2 after passing over Cuba with a final destination of the TX-LA border.  C&O FAN, I'll leave room in my transfer yard if you need to bug out of TX!

Lee

I just might take you up on that

We'll know by Tues if we have to make a run to Galveston to pick up the boat

My house is 70 miles due north of Galveston

And the worst danger is Tornados

Last time we had a major storm come thru was in the mid 80s

The eye of the storm came right over the house it was A truly wierd silence

and even though I opened all the doors and windows it still sucked the screens out

of the house and blew them down the street

It took Houston almost a year to clean up after that

[LSWrr]

Good morning all.

Morgan, If you still want these cars I need an address to send them out. Those work cars it depends on what RR you'll be modeling.  PRR a 0-4-0 with a slope back tender would be good.

Jim, that website did the trick! My mystery box cars were built by BOWSER/MDC. I found them in their red catalog, however there wasn't a date.

IKE is rather impressive at a CAT4, but the weather guessers say it will drop to a CAT 2 after passing over Cuba with a final destination of the TX-LA border.  C&O FAN, I'll leave room in my transfer yard if you need to bug out of TX!

Lee

[wetidlerjr]

Good Morning from Tipton IN ! 

[Paul W. Beverung]

Evening Gang: Our son John started cutting the hay today. He insisted on using the old International tractor even though I had the new one in the barn. It has a cab with AC. So he got one field cut and did about four rounds on the beg field when he quit and wasn't felling well. Mary Ann took him to the house. On the way the left front tire on the truck blew out. so they had to walk. I got the new tractor and hooked the swather on it and did about half the field. The AC was so good I had to turn it down. Anyway he is feeling better. His wife came and got him. Kids don't listen to old dad.

Now that we have about half the hay cut there is rain predicted for Tues through Friday. Sometimes I just want to scream. It won't do any good though.

Ike is still heading for Cuba. If it hit's there it will loose a lot of it's punch.

Well I'm going to head for the shower and then bed. Daisy is doing too well. She is trying to run around and jump up and down the stairs. I may talk to the vet about the tranquilizers.

Good Night All

[Cederstrand]

***trainsrme, sure glad I'm sticking to old fashion DC. That fancy DCC stuff seems to present lots of folks with headaches. Glad you decided against selling all your trains off on the-bay. I have considered trying DCC, perhaps one day, but would stick to a separate, single, isolated loop of track around all my DC layout stuff.

***Jim, I ended up wrapping the cable in some scrap TyVek, taping it closed and then pouring the cement. Only took 200lbs (2 1/2 bags) to fill the hole. That post isn't going anywhere. Sure hope we never need to dig up the phone line. 

Tomorrow I'll start on the joists for that section of deck. This will make it easier for the builder to install a storm door on that end of the screened porch. I'll have some hand sawing to do sinse my last Milwaukee 18volt battery decided to give out. The sawzall sure would make the cutting easier.

Rob

[TrainsRMe1]

 Hey all, wat hapinin',

   I just finished having a nightmere of a time tyring to wire up up the classicfacation tracks in my UP yard, After what I thought would work, it did for a while than as only DCC can do I had a short somewhere , after three hours of work this happens frasutration sat in I tell ya, so after a deep breath, I'm just going to do the work RIGHT this time and not try ant short cuts!!!!!!!! OKOKOK I'm cool now, I didn't pop a aorta or nothin' like that, I did get so angy that I thought about taking all my trains and sell them on E-bay, ( I did'nt though) I feel better now, Flo I'll take a Arnold Palmer please, that's all, I just needed to vent, as a modelrailroader your leran to not take short cuts and have patinece. Whew, Now that's off my chest, how's everybody doin' tomorrow is the start of another work week,so I gotta get enough rest, take care and I will stop by tomorrow

             Clear tracks and Happy smiles (all the time)

                                                                  ----trainsrme1    

[Flashwave]

Evening all. Did you kbnow there was a Train Show in Danville? Neither did Dad or I until today. Walked in to find about a half-dozen booths,  mad a comment about this being a bust, and proceeded to walk out later with info on two clinics (working with styrene ((Ugh)) and on Operations: waybill and/or switchlists) an Athearn RMC 40th Anniversary, a Trainline Tracks Ahead advertising Boxcar for 23, a free kit steel Gondola of an obscure maker handed out so kids get uinterested in building models and trains and probabl;y retailed at about 15, and a set of 6 beautiful N&W worktrain cars by IHC (Kitchen, Bunk, Tool, Engineering, SpikeRail, Tie), plus a Wells Fargo Old Tyme combine, Plus a Palace Car kit in B&O coloros, but letters for Pullman for 40. The Work Train alone was 6 each, for 36. What kind of steamer would look good with them?

Tom and all: While your laid up, you might look up a book called Merle's Door by Ted Kerasote. It about a dog, but Lowell's personality through all of his ordeals reminds me of the stories he told of Merle. It's a good read, but I skipped all the history of the evolution of the species and how they intertwined with early Man

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Here's a couple of items I worked on today.

A Bachmann GP40 shell on an Athearn GP60 frame.

And a Bachmann GP50 shell on an Athearn GP50 frame.

These were both shotgun weddings. I like the look of the ALCO trucks.

[JimRCGMO]

Evening, Flo - I'll have some beef stew, please,

and a root beer float, too. 

Thanks!

I see that DerJohn was in - and I missed him! Oh, well, good to see you were in and that you've been working on the scenery, Der. I like your rocks, even if you still have some greenery to go.  I loved your Starlight Diner pics, too. Have you talked with Luc & Gloria in a while?

Rob, what'd you end up doing with your quickcrete and phone cable decision? And how about your gun-happy neighbor kids? One thing that should help you is, your layout'll be in iNvisible scale, so you have less square footage to get covered up (with plywood, foamboard, plaster, scenery, etc.) and it should go quicker for you. You may have to hide the MR issues from your wife until after Christmas, at the current rate her list is growing.

Garry, your layout's going like a (ahem...) blast furnace afire! That is awesome, given that you're using DC. Do you have speakers and tapes hidden under the mill complex? You give me hope that some amazing things can be done with 'lowly' DC. I'd have to agree with you and Lee, that there are times (more than one or two) when I wonder how I'll get the funds together for a 'basic starter' DCC setup (not counting decoders for all the locos I have just now).

Does anybody know anything about early MDC/Roundhouse rolling stock?  Trying to put a date to some old box cars.

Rob/Jerry, what CHAMP decals are you looking for?  There is a guy east of me that is a retired CAMP dealer and has thousands of decals in his closet.  Most of them he sells for $5.  Problem is you would need to know what stock number you wanted.

Lee

Lee, you might check this site: (HO Seeker)

http://www.hoseeker.org/

It has a lot of Roundhouse and other instruction sheets, etc. which may help you put a date on your stuff. If someone else hasn't already told you by now, that is... You're making excellent progress on your laundry room (and moving toward the layout 'expansion'...)

For Jerry - and others, here's the Champ Decals site, which is still up and running:

http://www.minot.com/champ/

They have online ordering of what they do still have in stock. The last I heard (and that they have posted), they are trying to trim down their stock, but they keep the website updated close. If I recall correctly, on a lot of their decals you can see images of them online, too. I ordered some decals from them last year (for passenger cars and for my CAW locos). They ship 'em right out pretty quickly, too.

Tom, listen to your lady-friend! It does sound like Lowell's feeling better if he's 'on the hunt' again. Do you have your cabeese hidden away, since you can't move around as quickly? Being as how Lowell's feeling that spunky...

Jeff, I hope Raul's little island gets the main whallop of Ike, so you and the rest of the Gulf Coast don't. Besides, I think it'd be fitting for a hurricane named 'Ike' to make a mess of one of the last Communist dictatorships... (but that's just my ...)

We've had nice weather here today, reaching to about 79 F this afternoon. I was able to have the fans on and windows open for a while. Then went over to a single friend's house to finish getting some of her (ancient) WordPerfect files transferred from her old Mac (Performa) to her newer iMac (the flat-panel one that looks like an overgrown Tensor desklamp). I was just doing it because she's a fellow Mac user, and then as I'm heading out the door, she gives me a (nice) check. Heck, I would've done it for free - now I feel like I should've been wearing a mask, but she won't hear of taking the check back. Okay, I guess I can find some bills or maybe some MRR stuff to apply that toward, right? (Now, if I could get her more interested in me...)

'bout time for me to finish up my dinner and head out, Diners. See you in the morning. Prayers for safety along the east coast, and for Ike to near empty itself on Cuba instead.

 

Blessings,

Jim in Cape Girardeau 

 

[Cederstrand]

A tall glass of lemon water, and grilled salmon with garlic mashed potatoes, please & thanks.

***Sawyer & Lee, speaking of a fence: I went out (while they were shooting) to work on the fence on our side of the creek, digging new post holes. Also put my old video camera in an obvious location, just for good measure. Right before dusk one fella came over to let me know he was just shooting at doves and he wouldn't shoot in my direction. (((Gotta get this guy on video when he doesn't know he's being filmed))) I gave him one stern warning, "Don't mess with my animals". Then added, "and don't shoot at anything you don't want the DNR to know about". Thought I heard a slight scoff at the mention of the DNR, which makes you wonder if he's had others report him before. ps: I took his photo, too.

Got a lot done today and am completely spent. Will be in a corner booth, perhaps nodding off.

Rob

[LSWrr]

Tom, not a problem with what coupler to use since I have a few of each here (just finished car #155 coupler swap since July).  The interesting trick will be the posts.  The car body is one piece of die cast metal.  The couplers are mounted on die cast posts that have been mushroomed to hold the coupler in place.  I'll have to grind off the metal mushroom post then mushroom it again.

If you have the 2008 Walther's catalog page 275 ish is a complete comparison chart for Kadee.

380-11 Kadee #5 couplers, 20 pair $25.75.  280-140 Whiskers are $79.50 for 50 pair.

Rob, look for the 1-800-poacher number for the DNR in your state.  It's an anonyms tip line anyone can call.  Try to do a Disc Check on your hard drive.  Might be a hard drive going bad or a loose connection on the Hard Drive.

Well I just won 2 piggy back flat cars.  Looks like this guy is selling his father's complete collection off on the bay.  I see locomotives starting at $12 for proto 2000.

Ok back to work, LOL

Lee

[Packers#1]

Rob: starting a war w/ a nieghbor, while you'll want to pull your hair out at how they can sometimes act towards you, is really easy to solve: put up a fence. We had a war, or nieghbor still doesn't like us, but putting up a fence helped a lot.

[twhite]

Lee-- On those MDC cars--Kadee #5's will pop right into those coupler boxes with no problem.  I don't know about the new Kadee 'whiskers', but they look as if they might work, also.  I replaced the wheelsets in mine with P2K 33" rib-back, and they roll right nice, by golly. 

Tom

The whisker (#148) will work anywhere the #5 will. Kadee has a 25 pair bulk pack of the #148 for $39.95.

Jeff: 

Thanks for the information--I've been thinking of trying out those Whisker's--I've heard really good things about their 'centering' capabilities.  Have I heard correctly that Kadee offers them also in a shorter-shank version for close coupling on diesel cab units and passenger cars?  That would be good news. 

Tom

[Cederstrand]

refill, please & thanks. 

***Lee, sounds like progress on your laundry room is coming right along. We can't wait to move ours into the new build where the hot air exhaust can go right out the back of the structure, instead of through a very long duct I had to put up across my workshop. It will be soooo much more efficient, too.

Shot an e-mail off to the DNR Wildlife Resources Division with an explanation of what I have witnessed with those two teenagers. Will wait to see what they suggest. I would not mind getting them on camera again. Caught one of them on video last year, holding up what looked like a migratory egret, but lost that tape in the house fire....gurrr! Wife is torn between reporting them and just turning a blind eye so as not to start a war with a neighbor. I understand her point, but personally I would rather put some heat on them and deal with them as need be if they become more stupid than they already are. Tough call. Any thoughts?

Got the ledgers loosely up and the 6"x6" post set for the deep end of the new porch. Wasn't too hard considering it's just me.

Oh, having computer problems. "Disk Boot Failure" came up several times. Ordered a new power supply (long overdue). Not sure if that could have anything to do with it or not? I finally opened up the case, blew all the dust out and it started normally again. Whew!

Rob

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Lee-- On those MDC cars--Kadee #5's will pop right into those coupler boxes with no problem.  I don't know about the new Kadee 'whiskers', but they look as if they might work, also.  I replaced the wheelsets in mine with P2K 33" rib-back, and they roll right nice, by golly. 

Tom

The whisker (#148) will work anywhere the #5 will. Kadee has a 25 pair bulk pack of the #148 for $39.95.