The Coffee Shop (a place to chat) Est. 2004

[fec153]

Mike- Just finished the roll this morning. I'll get them developed later today or tomorrow depending on T.S.'s.
Also took a couple of my mess. Don't care if Fergie T.M.ed his RR, mine is older. And one of a heck lot MESSIER. Teffy posted a couple of pixs over a year ago. Hasn't gotten better.

Wish ya'll a pleasant week.
Flip

[pcarrell]

Good one inch!

[Anonymous]

Good afternoon all!

About the garden salad and a coffee, please Chloe. Thanks.

And I guess lunch and dinner are on me.[C=:-)][dinner]

Not complaining about picking up the tab since my car passed state inspection today. No one here can do the financial damage the state can do if they fail your car. If your car is too bad, it can be salvaged on the spot!! That's right, you get to walk home and the state totals your car.

Taking a break from studying. Can't explain how rotten it feels to be going to recurrent while the National Train Show is going on just yards away from my front door.[V]

Well, back to the books. Have fun.

[Anonymous]

Good to see I didn't miss the train. Ya'll have a good thing here and its good to be welcome in. I run n scale me and the grandson have started it up finally and we are having a ball. right now we have a 3 by 7 layout trying different things to see what we want.I have a garage basement we are cleaning out so we will eventually hope to have a rather large layout..This web site and others are a great aid to beginners.Ryan ,I live in Gastonia. Have you went to the spencer muesuem yet use to be the hub for southern.I like my coffee black, beans, taters cornbread in milk all a man needs.Well this is my stop see ya"ll later.
pat


[tup][tup][tup][tup][tup]

[CSX_road_slug]

Good afternoon club dwellers,

Things were a bit crazy here at the Lab this morning, since the main data center [where all the 'server' computers live] got flooded during last night's downpour. Services are restored, but the soggy weather is going to be staying here for the next few days.

Inch - Excellent joke! But I couldn't help wondering, if the surviving guy is in his 90's and probably in poor health anyway, the news might not be so bad after all!

Jerry, thanx for the W.B., the clinic is geared to an audience of steel industry modelers - a PowerPoint 'show-and-tell' photo essay of my garage layout, and little 'gotchas' I encountered during construction.

Flip/T-Rob - Stop torturing us please![(-D] That stuff doesn't belong in glass cases, but on a layout [preferably mine]

Gumby - That's really scary what you said about the State 'condemning' peoples' cars[:O] - do they have some kind of formula they apply [e.g. estimated repair costs over 75% bluebook value of the car, etc.]?

Later

[fec153]

Well darn! I seem to have lost my manners. Rob, thankyou for posting the 'photos. Even though I am a " *** Yankee " , I have lived here in the south long enough to have learned better.
Thanks again.
Am off to get the film developed.
BTW- I am on vacation this week. Something to do with turning 70 tomorrow. CFO has something in mind.
TTFN
Flip

[egmurphy]

QUOTE: Jerry: Any progress on the layout?

Not much. That's probably why i haven't posted much lately. I'm too embarrassed about the lack of progress.

QUOTE: ez175th: I run n scale me and the grandson have started it up finally and we are having a ball. right now we have a 3 by 7 layout trying different things to see what we want.

Join the crowd. We can always use another Normal scaler in here. My layout, such as it is, is also an N scale 3' x 6'-8" layout built on a hollow coor wood door. It's trying to see what it wants to be when it grows up (if I ever get any more space, that is).

Best regards

Ed

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CSX_road_slug
Gumby - That's really scary what you said about the State 'condemning' peoples' cars[:O] - do they have some kind of formula they apply [e.g. estimated repair costs over 75% bluebook value of the car, etc.]?

Most of the time, if a cars fails inspection, you just need to get repaired the item that failed and you get 30 days to get it done. Sometimes it's cheap (new gas cap) and sometimes it's expensive (emissions).

"Condemning" is based on road worthiness. If the state feels your car is a hazard based on certain benchmarks (emissions and shocks and brakes, etc. It's takes more than one item.), they will impound the car. At that point, the state lists the required repairs needed to get the car back on the road (which is 99% of the time about 3X the value of the car). If you don't comply the car is scrapped.

Inspections are always a stress point in this state. One gentlemen today described it like waiting for your child to be born. At least now it every two years instead of every year.

[JPowell]

QUOTE: Originally posted by egmurphy

QUOTE: JP: I wanted to let you all know that I have yet to find out what type of motive power I was seeing the other night while 'train watching' And since I can't find the info, I'll ask here... HCLX #'s 6307 and 6141

HCLX is Helm Leasing.

#6307 is an SD40-2
#6141 is an SD40T-2. If I'm not mistaken, that's a "Tunnel Motor". Not exactly your most common type of locomotive. Congrats on a good find.

You can check the Helm Leasing roster here:
http://www.thedieselshop.us/HELM.html


By the way, how 'bout them Boston Red Sox !!!


Best regards

"The Answer Man"

Ed -
Thanks for the info. Someone else emailed me over the weekend about these as well.

Ed, *** -
As for the Sox, they are currently winning the make-up from yesterday; 5-0, bottom of the 6th, 2 on (2nd and 3rd), 1 out!

Well all -
Time for me to get ready to leave for the day.
Take care!
JP

[james saunders]

Just a quick pitstop...


Jerry No, The kit is fairly straightfoward I didn't have a problem...



Thats all...[:o)]


OzJim

[rtraincollector]

Anybody trying to email me please do so thru the web site here till I get my new email out to some of you . I have been having problems with to much spam

[der5997]

Mike:

QUOTE: glad I could help you with the details.

..check out the gunshot wounds on that relay box![:O]

Ryan: Let Ben know we’re proud of him, so long as he’s cool with your sharing about him, that is!

Pat:

QUOTE: I run n scale me and the grandson have started it up finally and we are having a ball.

YES!! The more Normal people the merrier! [tup][(-D]

QUOTE: By Ed…My layout, such as it is,

This from a chap who’s mock up buildings would put many of our “proper” ones to shame! [:I][8D][bow]

Flip:[bday][bday][bday] Enjoy the break.

That’s about it for me for today. DVD won out over mrr last night, and today has been too full of other stuff as well. Oh well, there is, God willing, always tomorrow. Good night all, and God Bless. Prayers continuing for all in need of healing, comfort, and peace.[angel]

[grayfox1119]

Good evening gents, the rains moved to the west today, and it was mostly cloudy here with a few peeks of the sun, but very humid. After being gone a week, and all this rain, 22" since May 1st, the grass is growing an inch every three days, so I had to get the ride on out. I had just about finished when the gear shift came out in my hands. This is an old but very tough, 1980 Wheel Horse, 1100 Special ( 11HP ), 3 speed manual xmission. I had to pu***his mower all the way back to the garage to work on it. The dust boot had all worn apart, and the set screw had backed off after 26 years of hard work, hence the shift rod out in my hands. So tomorrow I have to see if someone has a dust boot in stock, this should be fun !!??%%$#
Then, as I was trying to open the garage door, the key pad would not work. It seems that one of my sons told his wife who was taking care of our cat while we were away to pu***he 4 numbers and then hit program instead of open, so now I have to reprogram the door. Another "hello" on a hot steamy day to help my attitude already shaken by the broken mower.
Soooooo, then we tackle the rototiller which is still grinding when the dog clutch is engaged to drive the tiller head. Everything look normal inside. I did find that the engage/disengage lever and rod assemby had a set screw stripped, so I retapped the hole and placed a new 1/4 -20 screw in the bracket to lock the shaft in place, and so far no grinding. So we will give it a test under load to see if this is the fix. If not, I fear the tiller will need to go to the repair shop, I have done all I can with the tools that I have.

Train stuff: I had little time since getting back from Maine to do anything with the trains and layout, but I did manage to get all the new purchases onto my Microsoft Xcel spreadsheet, and in so doing, I discovered that I had a duplicate B&M box car, so, son #3 who is also into MRR'g will get this for his BD next month.

RYAN The new VISTA OS is quite nice, especially ver 7 of IE. You can open several web pages as windows and go back and forth, other nice features too that I am trying out. As for the OS, the security is really beefed up. You can no longer go in under ADMin to change certain features. THis is to control the hackers from getting into the system and raising h.. .I am working with MS on some bugs, but otherwise some nice new features. One thing is the use of the mouse. Vista allows you to just pass the mouse over certain things to make it happen, this is to eliminate key strokes and clicks on the mouse left button. Many other nice things. If you send me your email address, I can send you a MS info page with more detail if you wish.

INCH53 Nice BD part and Grandma has real talent, that is some cake design !!! Look like you didn't have any rain either, that was a blessing after all that is falling east of the Mississippi.

9 pm already!!! That's it!!! I'm headed for the TV room and Jack n Coke, see all you fine people tomorrow, prayers to all who are in need continue....

bon soir,

[grayfox1119]

Ohhh OH, I forgot a couple of things ( so what else is new at 67, the mind is the 1st the go )

ED & JP The

RED SOX

came back in the 12th to win the game....and guess who drove in the winning run? BIG PAPPY again !!!! The place went nuts !!!

TROLLEY ROB Ohhh man, those are some pictures!!! What a nice display of brass locos!!!! I want one, a berkshire , get one for me FLIP. THanks for posting these beauties Rob !!

[egmurphy]

QUOTE: ***: The RED SOX came back in the 12th to win the game....and guess who drove in the winning run? BIG PAPPY again !!!! The place went nuts !!!

Yeah, I know, I was "watching" on the computer. I couldn't see the place go nuts, but I can imagine. I thought after they had squandered all those men on base in the late innings that they had lost their chance. Got to give credit to Youkilis who drove in the tying run with 2 outs. Ortiz gets the big credit, but if Youk makes an out he doesn't even get a chance to bat.

QUOTE: derJohn: This from a chap who’s mock up buildings would put many of our “proper” ones to shame!

That's because I only show photos of the 'good' mockups. The 'foamies' don't make RailImages.


In two weeks we leave for our trip to Canada. It will be a busy summer, with that 3 week trip. We just get back and change suitcases and we're off for a week+ to Oaxaca (in southern Mexico) for the annual railfan and model railroad convention.

Retirement is tough.

Regards

Ed

[pcarrell]

Happy Birthday Flip!!!!!

[inch53]

Evening all, Barley pop please Cleo,
Been out weed eaten on the hill next to the road this evening, that hard on me, but got no one else to do it right now, and you can’t hardly see to get out of the drive way. Me n the kids worked around outside in-between naps, got a little done.

PC , know what you mean bout waiting for a train, happened to me many times. You’re close enough to hear the whistle, but to far away to get a photo.
The gathering was at J Birds, that way I don’t have the mess to clean up, works good for Mother n me.

Jerry , think there was a story on that water pickup a few years ago in MRR. If I remember right there was several companies tried it, don’t think any had any real luck with it.
I’d heard the same story over there on the mailbag

Gumby , don’t think studying was ever a reason for not making a train show, but either not enough time, or not enough money is what happens here.
With the price of parts and labor, I’m guessing they could condemn a lot of cars, at least the prices here. Some dealerships are $80 per hour.

Pat

QUOTE: I like my coffee black, beans, taters cornbread in milk all a man needs.

Sounds like a good meal to me

Grayfox , we had rain that morning, but it cleared bout 11, Mom was having a cookout and so was J Bird’s party, so we lucked out big time.

Well time for bed

[ngartshore350]

Flip,

Happy 70th Birthday!!!! Hope you have a great day and get a few gifts for the Model Railroad?! They are always the best.

Regards,

Nigel

[fec153]

Phil- - Nigel Thanks. Every day is a Birthday. A re-newed gift of life.
I celebrate my b/d next tuesday with parades and fireworks and picnics. lol

Phil

[wetidlerjr]

Good morning ! from Indiana. [:D]



06-27-2006

[:o)]

[james saunders]

Hey guys,

Phil - Happy belated Bday!

Also just a quick plug for a forum I'm a member of We've just added a MRR Section to the forum.... It also has A general discussion area and some sports sections... Would you care to join? It's a great place to talk or whatever... just a little warning... There isn't much in the way of Word Censors.. so if you want to talk a bit more freely this is the place for you...

http://s12.invisionfree.com/Sportzcorner/index.php

Anyway enough plugging.... No modelling done tonight [:(]

Got to go...

OzJim

[inch53]

Mornin all, coffee please Zoe,
Thought I’d stop and wish Flip a [bday][bday]
Mother stayed up late last night making you cake



Skate Board Bob



Have a good one feller. [bow]

inch

[fec153]

Sir John [der] , OZ , Mike , Thanks.

***- I have 15 different numbered B-M cars. Only one is not blue/black. It's tuscan red.
Last month got a GP-38-2 L-L P2-K . Runs nicely and is quiet. Good slow speed. I have on order the the Athearn special paint job GP-38. It's red-white and blue with stars on the doors.
My CFO is very understanding. Boy, am I lucky.
Mowed lawn saturday, and has been raining here since. Went to get paper and looked at lawn- needs mowing.
Ya'll have a good day. Prayers said for all.
Flip

[fec153]

O.K. It's on me. What ever ya'll want.
Zoe says the tent will be up around noontime. Band said they would get here by 2.
B-B-Q and open bar will be ready about then but hotdogs and burgers and soft drinks about 1.
YEAH- PARTY TIME.
Flip

[Anonymous]

Good morning all!

Coffee and bagel this morning, please Chloe. Thanks!

Well just stopping in to say Hi before I have to run off to Virginia to help my parents. Wednesday they close on their house. Bad to see the old house go, good that they will be in a house that take less work.

Like rain?? It feels like the sun left us for good here. Still we feel blessed, none of the floods like have been having in Delaware and DC.

QUOTE: Originally posted by inch53
Gumby , don’t think studying was ever a reason for not making a train show, but either not enough time, or not enough money is what happens here.
With the price of parts and labor, I’m guessing they could condemn a lot of cars, at least the prices here. Some dealerships are $80 per hour.

It's not the studying that will keep me from the show but the reason I am studying. I go to train on Friday morning and don't return until Sunday evening.

I do have two days off in the middle of the week but I can't find find registration information on whether one can just go for one day.

Well I'm off. Have fun.

[SilverSpike]

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Coffee, give me coffee, and lots of it! Early morning in here today, I am leaving work early today to pick up relatives from the airport. This is the third visit of a relative in the past four weeks, it has been very busy this month.

Here is another cartoon for your viewing pleasure:



I worked on putting down more of the 1:1 track plan on the sub-roadbed last night, so I am starting to get a feel for how the layout is going to look. I still need to take a few photos and post them soon.

Man O man is that a lot of brass Trolley Rob and Flip !

QUOTE: Originally posted by pcarrell

Morning all!
Ryan,
Thanks for the kind words. I did find out this morning that my cousin had come to know the Lord recently, so that eases my mind a great deal.

Glad you enjoyed the pics! No, I don't juggle. You should have seen all the pics that I threw out. Man, I had pics of everything but trains on there from that experience. I got pics of grass moving at 60MPH, trees, my car's mirror, road, oncoming traffic, the door pillar, you name it! Those were just the ones that actually had trains in them!

It was great to just get out and chase trains though. Very relaxing! I'd recommend it to anyone!

PC, I know what you mean about the photos. Driving and taking photos at the same time is quite the challenge. In a related story, I can remember getting some prints back (before the digital camera) and there were a few of the ground, the floor, and someone’s shoe. Then it dawned on me that our 3 year old must had gotten a hold of the camera and was pushing the shutter button… we had a good laugh that day!

Hey Inch, thanks for the baseball story! Kind of reminds me of the movie “Field of Dreams.”

QUOTE: Originally posted by ez175th

Good to see I didn't miss the train. Ya'll have a good thing here and its good to be welcome in. I run n scale me and the grandson have started it up finally and we are having a ball. right now we have a 3 by 7 layout trying different things to see what we want.I have a garage basement we are cleaning out so we will eventually hope to have a rather large layout..This web site and others are a great aid to beginners.Ryan ,I live in Gastonia. Have you went to the spencer muesuem yet use to be the hub for southern.I like my coffee black, beans, taters cornbread in milk all a man needs.Well this is my stop see ya"ll later.

Pat

[#welcome] Pat, I have not been to the Spencer Museum, but it sounds like a day trip if you ask me. I see that Gastonia is just to the west of Charlotte, looks close to the Smoky Mountains too.

QUOTE: Originally posted by der5997
Ryan: Let Ben know we’re proud of him, so long as he’s cool with your sharing about him, that is!

John W No problem at all! I was just telling him again last night how proud I was and I will be sure to let him know, even show him your post, I’m sure he would be happy to see it! Thanks!

Happy, Happy, Happy [bday] [bday] Birthday!!!!! Flip!

QUOTE: Originally posted by grayfox1119

I had to pu***his mower all the way back to the garage to work on it. The dust boot had all worn apart, and the set screw had backed off after 26 years of hard work, hence the shift rod out in my hands. So tomorrow I have to see if someone has a dust boot in stock, this should be fun !!??%%$#
Then, as I was trying to open the garage door, the key pad would not work. It seems that one of my sons told his wife who was taking care of our cat while we were away to pu***he 4 numbers and then hit program instead of open, so now I have to reprogram the door. Another "hello" on a hot steamy day to help my attitude already shaken by the broken mower.
Soooooo, then we tackle the rototiller which is still grinding when the dog clutch is engaged to drive the tiller head.

RYAN The new VISTA OS is quite nice, especially ver 7 of IE. You can open several web pages as windows and go back and forth, other nice features too that I am trying out. As for the OS, the security is really beefed up. You can no longer go in under ADMin to change certain features. THis is to control the hackers from getting into the system and raising h.. .I am working with MS on some bugs, but otherwise some nice new features. One thing is the use of the mouse. Vista allows you to just pass the mouse over certain things to make it happen, this is to eliminate key strokes and clicks on the mouse left button. Many other nice things. If you send me your email address, I can send you a MS info page with more detail if you wish.

***, Sounds like you were getting a little frustrated there, I would be too! Funny how three or four things can add up to one heck of a day! Sure thing on the Vista OS, I will email you later! Thanks!

QUOTE: Originally posted by egmurphy

In two weeks we leave for our trip to Canada. It will be a busy summer, with that 3 week trip. We just get back and change suitcases and we're off for a week+ to Oaxaca (in southern Mexico) for the annual railfan and model railroad convention.

Retirement is tough.

Regards

Ed

Ed, You really are getting to be a jet setter huh! Seems like you just got back from your other trip! The OJ supply is getting low again…..

Hey Inch, That’s one fine looking cake for Flip!


Cheers,

Ryan

[pcarrell]

Morning All,

Since Flip is buying, and it's his birthday, we'll take it easy on him. Coffee, black please,....Thanks Zoe!

Ryan,
Didn't have any pictures of shoes, but then I didn't have any three year olds either! I did manage to get a pic of just about everything else in eyeshot though. I even managed to get a few of the train! [:P]

Oh, and whats the big attraction in North Carolina, I mean besides your dazzling personality?

inch,
Is Flip a big Spongebob fan? I had no idea!


Later all! Prayers for all those who need them.

[SilverSpike]

QUOTE: Originally posted by pcarrell

Oh, and whats the big attraction in North Carolina, I mean besides your dazzling personality?

PC,
Well, if you insist..... personality aside.

It's all about location, location, location.....

Location #1: Where we live in central North Carolina is about 120 miles from the coast, and that should be enough buffer zone from any strong hurricane winds coming our way from the Atlantic.

Location #2: Again we are about 120 miles from the Atlantic coast, so the beaches are only a 2 hour drive away. Did I hear you say "beach bum?" Yep!

Location #3: We are about a 4 hour drive from the mountains. We love the Smoky Mtns. we even had our honeymoon there.

The cost of living is not as high here either. Post-Katrina, prices for everything are out of sight in New Orleans. For example, homeowners insurance in New Orleans for our 2,100 SQ FT house was going to be at $2,400 per year if we had stayed, and that does not include flood. Our same insurance here for a bigger house is less than half that amount, and we do not need flood here.
In New Orleans the public schools are so bad we had to put our kids in private school, at $5,000 per year for grade school. Here in Wake County the public schools are great and it only costs us a few hundred for activities and supplies.

Oh, I could go on.......

[pcarrell]

Ryan,
Oh, OK! That makes perfect sense!

Those are some of the same reasons that I'm in Indiana. We don't have a lot of beaches (the surfing really stinks!), mind you, but our cost of living is fantastic! I just bought a 3000 sq. ft. home, brand new with all the bells and whistles, built to my specs, on lakefront property, for $150,000. Plus, we have some pretty decent races around here in the summers. You might have heard of some of them, like, the NHRA Summer Nationals, the U.S. Grand Prix, The Brickyard 400, and, oh yeah, the Indianapolis 500. Down south they have Unlimited Hydroplane racing in Madison, Indiana as well. Chicago and Lake Michigan are 2 hours away, and so is Louisville or Cinncinatti and Dayton.

I can relate!

[inch53]

Morn again, coffee n one doughnut Zoe, was going to eat a late breakfast, but think I’ll save room for the party later.

ED, hope you leave plenty of shipping orders for the OJ with all that traveling, don’t want to run out here. Hope the trips go well.

Gumby , know what it’s like to see the home place sell. Mom and Pop, sold ours 4 years ago there in Clarksville [been there since 57], but it had changed to much since they dammed up Mill Creek and made a big lake. To many city folk ideas, high taxes [they got taxed for a patio, which was a 3x3 septic tank lid], and to many people in general.
Glad you get some time at the train show, enjoy.

PC.

QUOTE: Is Flip a big Spongebob fan? I had no idea!

Don’t know if he’s a fan, but he might want another hobby, you know 2'nd childhood.

Ryan , the reasons for livin there, sounds kinda like the reasons for here, but without the ocean or mountains, but we have some big hills and lakes and rivers close

Here’s link to CSX web site. Lots of good info in there,
http://www.csx.com/

Need to get back ta chores
inch