Elliot´s Trackside Diner August 2010

[blownout cylinder]

Good Evening

I'm just about done this weekend shift--I'll be able to actually get some RR stuff done tomorrow!

Chloe, I'll have the 32oz rib dinner with all the trimmings--and a coffee as well please i'll be at the corner booth with RAY here--

[Packer]

Hey guys

Well my father has a trip planned for next month to go to Austin. He said while we are there, we'll do this: http://www.austinsteamtrain.org/ That plus going to an NHRA race should be fun, and I'll be back in Texas even if only for a few days...

Trains, turns out on my SW10 I didn't have to go and buy a decoder that had BEMF. Turns out I had one in my parts box all along. A DH165IP, never used it because it didn't fit my SD9; or any other locos I tried to get it in. fit right in this SW10. I'm doing some planning with it and intend to add a bunch of weight like I did with the bluebox one I had. I do want to get another one and stick a sound decoder in it

Ken, from WPF: yes, the sw1000 was a 1000 hp switcher. BTW on the athearn SD50 is the fueltank a seperate piece? Curious for a kitbash I'm thinking of.

Teen Steam Fan: usually the first 2nd language is the hardest, and the rest go easier. Unfortunately you have to keep the second languages in use or you'll forget. I used to know German, Spanish, and Tagalog (mon's phillipino) but now I only know a few words out of each.

Garry and Rob, I agee with you both about those government agencies. Frankly the only one that has worked is the military; IMO (the post office has lost 5 packages for me in one month last year)

[tcwright973]

Evening everyone,

As it was a very pleasant 74 degrees here in Pittsburgh around noon today, we decided to do a little railfanning on Norfolk Southern's main line. Caught 8 or 9 trains in about two and a half hours. The most interesting one was a westbound mixed freight headed toward Conway Yard which had 8 locomotives at the head. 4 SD40-2's, 3 GP38-2's, and a GP40-2. I suspect that this was a redistribution of power. 1 SD40-2 and a GP38-2 looked like they only recently came out of the paint shop as even the trucks still had a shine on them.

As we were leaving, another mixed freight came by with a lot of unique cars such as 3 or 4 flat cars with new John Deere tractors, a flat car with very large tires, and a couple of boxcars from different roads that looked like they had been repainted lately. Sorry Robby, no rust or grime on those guys, but there were plenty of others that reminded me of your work.

Hope everyone has a good week coming.

Tom

 

[der5997]

 Thought we'd better try to keep Barry at bay while other enjoy that Prime rib. so, here goes

and just to round things out

...and Ulrich, "This Mug's for you"

Goodnight all, and God Bless. Prayers continuing for those  in need.

 

[TMarsh]

Good even...... What in the world? Look at all the food! My gosh I should have eated (post past present tense of eaten) here!!

Spanish, ah like a second language to me (ahem) Maruaweka. Unha hakai nuu***?

Charlie- GIVE 'EM YOUR BEST SHOT tomorrow! ROFLMAO!!!!

Welp, tired and I'd best hide from CNCharlie for a while after that one. (snicker) Besides, Forensic Files is on and the dog wants to watch it. Spoiled fat thing.

Noo nu puetsuku u punine.

Prayers for those in need.

[Cederstrand]

A large fruit smoothie, please.

***Garry, "U. P."....good one!

***Ken, very nice covered platform you have going there.

***Teen, My brother could teach you German, but he lives in Hong Kong (he speaks 9 languages, or at least did many years ago). I took spanish in HS and have since forgot 99% of what I had learned, so no help there. Good luck!

***Lee, nice pics! Like those box cars, and the crane car.

Have a good night y'all. 

Cheers! Rob

[Anonymous]

 Good Morning Everyone!

Flo, I´ll have my regular French breakfast, with cafe au lait in a big mug and 2 croissants, please.

Talking of languages, here in Europe you need to be fluent at least in one other tongue than your own. Within a few hours drive, you change from German to Dutch to French, or to Czech, Polish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian. English is a must for just everyone, although the largest group of people in Europe speaks German. 

Aside from German, I speak a little English , French, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch, which is not so much different from the local dialect of my area. I started out with Latin in school, and English and Greek were added later. My knowledge of the Greek language is now down to maybe one or two words, but that appears to be not much of a loss.

Petra is out in the GULAG, the same stuff I had to do last year. I now have to work down the HD list - not really my favorite!

Have a good one!

[wetidlerjr]

[blownout cylinder]

Good Morning

I'm typing this with the little Spring between my arms--and a little siamese kitteh on my feet----the little siamese kitteh is another rescue kitteh from our drainage ditch behind our house--found him all wrapped up in a plastic/cloth bag in the ditch---we've been having a few of these "finds" now-a-days----grrr Yesterday night I came across or neighbour who told me that just yesterday morning he came across a couple of kittehs that were left abandoned--looked like they were not looked after at all---by his driveshed The one looked to have been burnt at some point with cigarettes---

Today is hurry up and wait day for our neighbourhood as they start to redig our street up------again I thought they finished messing around with it but---ohnoooooooo---something came along and has to be replaced--apparently we don't make pipes like we used to----

Oh well---Flo--I'll have a big ol' stack o' pancakes with maple syrup--no--not that coloured stuff!--and a coffee please--I'll be at the RC for now

[Robby P.]

 Good morning.  I love this weather!!!!  The high will be about 70 degrees!!! 

 Most of the day will be spent in the basement.  I have a  Railbox about ready, and a long ways to go on the MRL. 

 DerJohn......You had to show the lobster tail .  That's one thing I've never eaten.

 Tom......Thanks for looking thou .

 Barry.....Good ole' busted pipes.  Nothing like 2:00am and all you hear is the jack hammer .   Seems like that's when they like working on the pipes here.

[LSWrr]

Good morning all,


John, that Dagwood sandwich, A&W float, and the death by brownie and fudge looks real good!


Thanks Rob, those brass boxcars only need running boards. The owner of the LHS sold them because they were duplicates in his collection.  Nobody bought them because of the missing or warped running boards.  The KayDee couplers are old curved pin types (not sure how much longer they will last). All of them have wood bottoms so ne couplers will be easy.

[cudaken]

 CN Charlie Good luck with Pippa. Tiff stayed in the family room with me while I had dinner wanting her share. I know I should not give her table food, but with her all most being 16 (Feb 2) I can't see stopping now. But, she was not having any problems standing so again a good sign.

  John Just what I needed, pictures of Food, have not had breakfast yet.

  Vincent Glad you brought up the fuel tank, the Rio Grand SD 50 is missing it's tank. I am sure it is in the RIP pile or the box. So the answer is yes, it is a separate piece.  

  Lee Boy that is a big Freighter you have on the shelf! (background shoots) Is it HO scale? Did you build it for the layout, or did you build the layout for it?

  Rob To tell you the truth, I am not real sure how I got started on the Passenger Platform. One night I was watching NCIS on the computer here in the train room. (think I was doing coal loads) and started playing with the match sticks and rubber bands. Well, I had the deluded white glue there, and tried some to see if they would stick together. One thing led to another and it became a passenger platform.

  Got the base in lite gray primmer last night. Today I will paint with a darker gray, then sand so some of the lighter color gray and wood shows. Then will try a dark wash. I am going to use sand paper for the roof. Still need to come up with a way to make the end caps. 

 Train Front SD 50 I have not gotten any ideas of the motor noise from my posting on the main page. So today, I am going to pull the drive shafts and just run the motor till it is quite or dies.

 Layout Still have 15 foot of track to lay. When I am done, I will be officially out of track! To finish it I will need to use a section of track I use to program my Big Boy on using decoder pro. I even using a few sections of Brass Track to get it done!

 I installed some brass track this last March just to see how bad the stuff really is. It stays as clean as the rest of the track?

                 Ken   

[TMarsh]

Good Morning. Coffee please.

You MONSTERS! Mean, mean MONSTERS!!!! Showing these great photos of your layouts and here I am. Stuck with no time to work on mine.

Seriously. Lee- Layout looks great!

Ken- I (ahem) had an amount of brass track on my previuos layout in th e "original" area. Yes, after what, 30 years leaning against a wall in the garage behind a bunch of plywood, it needed some cleaning. A lot of cleaning, but after the initial clean, I noticed not much difference in cleaning problems or loco function. Of course, I only had that version for a couple years so I can't say how long it would go without a real good scrubbing if it does at all with normal maintenance. I do know when I had it in the seventies, I don't recall any problems with non conductivity problems. But, brass being brass I know it eventually will have problems. However, with normal cleaning that would be done on NS, I don't know if that would be sufficient to keep it up for more than a few years. What I do know is, from about 1972 til 1977 or 8 I never cleaned the brass track and had no problems and the track was handled alot also because, except for the last couple years, I had no permanent setup. 

Gotta go to the Church and do the bookwork, then off to Mom's house for more of the remodel thing. My Mondays at w**k have changed to Tuesdays so I have tonight off.

Have a Great Day!!!

(Peeks head back in door and tosses a blowup donut onto the booth seat) Here. CNCharlie may want this.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Lee .. I looked at your layout photos and was very impressed. I also saw the ship model on the shelf. Nice!

 

Here's a similar photo to the one I posted in WPF. I did a few minor things to improve it. Any thoughts?

 

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

 Good morning. It's 75 and partly cloudy. The high will be 100 with a heat index of 107. There's a 20% chance of showers and thunderstorms.

I got an automated call from UPS yesterday telling me that there's a C.O.D. package coming in today. I got some more work done of the layout. Spreading the joint compound can be messy but it's fairly easy. There's more layout work on the schedule for today.

[Robby P.]

 Here's some update shots of the MRL.  I still have to do the wheels, couplers (not on the car), the underneath, and add some detail work.  Its coming along slowly.

 

[howmus]

Mornin' everyone!

Zoe I'll have a breakfast muffin with cheese, a side order of home fries, and a dark roast coffee in a R&GV RR Mug.  I'll go sit at the rivet counter for a while.

We have had a slight "official" name change at the museum, BTW.  We used to have the call letters NRHS which had to be used at the beginning of all new radio communications.

Robby, great weathering as always, sir!

Jeffrey, at 100°F, the snow in the photo should melt off pretty fast I would think........

Mornin' Bill!

Mmmmmmmm!  Lobster Tails!  Are they pre-blackened fresh from the Gulf.....?  Oh-oh Zoe has her frying pan!

Later!

73

[blownout cylinder]

howmus

Mmmmmmmm!  Lobster Tails!  Are they pre-blackened fresh from the Gulf.....?  Oh-oh Zoe has her frying pan!

I thought the same thing with the maple syrup this morning--oh oh--here she comes with the frying pan---see ya bye ----ZZZZZZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!

[Wisconsin Railfan]

 Good Day Folks!

BLT and a Dr . Pepper please!

I have the day off today, going to stop at one of the LHS, and maybe hit a few thrift stores and see what I can find. Later I plan on watching the Cass Scenic RR DVD to get some ideas for a project.

Have a good day everyone

Steven

[Cederstrand]

Columbian coffee in a UNION PACIFIC mug, please. 

***Garry, neat layout pic. Like the look of those tracks.

***Jeffrey, I see the reconstruction progress is coming along quite well. Sure beats the earthquake aftermath look.

FIL had a seizure last night, long overdo and no surprise. My wife met him (the ambulance) at the hospital. Probably caused by a sinus or UT infection. He was released last night after the usual tests. (his head must glow at night from all those scans) My wife is taking him to his regular Doc today.

Have a good day y'all.

Rob 

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

 Here's a pair of videos. Bad head on collsion. BNSF.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LpCIiwarOk&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BC3qzm41e8&NR=1

[Robby P.]

 Well its raining now.  That gave me a break in the basement, kinda had to run around the house closing windows.

 Ray.....Thanks.  Its been a loooong process on this car.  Sand and paint, sand and paint.  Its about 90% done now.  I did the trucks, couplers, underneath, since lunch.   I hope to get some good pictures tomorrow.

 Rob......I hope the FIL gets better.  

 Garry.....That is a bad wreck.  When I went to a get together (train guys), a guy at the party works for CSX.  He's one of the safety guys.  He had some WILD video.  He even had some pictures of a house that was near the tracks, with a "piston" through the wall.  The engine blew a piston and it went through the roof, the ceiling, and then stuck in the wall of the house.  

[cudaken]

 Self Medicating  Well that is not going well. I stopped taking one of my blood pressure med's last week. I had been very tired, gum's hurt and was a little sick to my stomach everyday. With out the med I feel better, gum's don't hurt and feel a little more active. Today I checked my blood pressure 148 or 89, then my wife came over (we where at K Mart) and I checked again. 155 over 92, I knew she was killing me!  So back to the evil pill and call the doctor.

 Jeffery Why do you plaster your entire bench? I know it is to add ground detail, but is there a less messy way? If you don't mind, would you post some pictures of a bare section then a step my step so I and others can see the benefits? I have a 5 gallon bucket of the stuff from when I did my first hills with foam. I stopped using it after watching a U Tube video on how to work and paint bare foam.

 I guess your Home Depot does not carry the foam like they do up here. Tip If they do and you can find a damage piece, they will give a 75% discount.

      Ken

[galaxy]

Been raining now 2 days here. I can only stand to stay in the computer room for short periods as I can't open the window if it's raining. Mouse smell much much less but still lingers. No more mice caugh in the traps the exterminator set so we may have gotten rid of all we had..but I hear Oct/Nov is whne they like to come in from the cold so to speak, so we could have a reinfestation.

Have to see eye Dr. tomorrow and reg Dr. on Wed. for more pain killers for my back. Don't see the CPR until end of Sept. so need some relief before then.

I guess that's it for now, later guys.

HAve a great evening.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

 The steering column for my van came in today. My nephew says he'll be on hand to help change it out tomorrow. If he shows up I'll pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming.

 

cudaken

 Jeffery Why do you plaster your entire bench? I know it is to add ground detail, but is there a less messy way? If you don't mind, would you post some pictures of a bare section then a step my step so I and others can see the benefits? I have a 5 gallon bucket of the stuff from when I did my first hills with foam. I stopped using it after watching a U Tube video on how to work and paint bare foam.

 

Ken: The only part I do the entire surface like that is the extension and very front area of the main part of the layout. For the rest I just put the plaster around the track base. This holds the track in place and makes an embankment that's less steep than the EZ-Track provides. It's also great for filling in holes or rough places in the foam.

[bjdukert]

[howmus]

Nice Duke!!!  Even used the old crossing whistle signal (2 longs and 2 shorts)!  Yes!

Evenin' folks!

I spent most to the afternoon down at church checking out the board on the sound system.   As you might remember it got nailed by the lightning strike a couple months ago at the church.  It was repaired, checked out, and sent back to us.  Last week a friend and I reinstalled it and checked everything out, made sure it was set up and running well.  Well.....  All was good when we checked it as it was at the place that repaired it.  Except............ Half way through the service yesterday one of the radio mikes suddenly went bbbbzzzzzzzzzzzzz, pop, click sissssssssle brbbbbbbrrrrrrrrp, and died.  This was followed by the podium mike going POP, click. click. click bbbzzz, click, POP! Of course everyone knows THAT if something like THAT happens, it is the fault of the guy operating the sound (must have messed up) ya know.  he is also the financial officer of the church so he was NOT happy!  All the insurance stuff is done, but he has not signed off on it yet.  He will have to try to have the $$$ figures revised......

Of course we turn it on today and everything is OK!  I started a systematic diagnostic to see what I could find and everything seemed OK for about a half hour.  Then it started up again.  This time 3 channels were involved (may have been that way on Sunday as well....) So!  I started unplugging cables and removing equipment.  Problems still there.  It is in the channels on the mixer and is evidently an intermittent problem caused when the mixer starts to get warmed up.  You can see the pops on the channels even when they have nothing going into them and the channel has been muted and the trim pulled all the way down.  So it is all boxed up and will be sent back with the installer for the store (He will be in Geneva doing an install at Hobart and William Smith College tomorrow).  We also have to completely remove the hearing assist units as the problem with that is more than just in the receiver on the rack.  We didn't take out the infrared sending unit mounted up in the organ chamber about 20' off the ground before.....  This time it will be sent back with the other unit.  We will also have to check continuity of the wiring for it when it is out to be sure there is not a problem with THAT!!!

So much for any layout time today! 

Flo, how about a cup of decaf for me?  Thanks!

73

[teen steam fan]

Hey guys

Ray, that must really bite. The sound system at my church started acting up, but I don't know how its doing now. Haven't been to service in a while.

I think I found out why I am doing so bad in Spanish class. I have a southern draw, and that's not helping me at all. Basically, if I mean to say 'you all', I sometimes say 'y'all' on accident. Strange part is, I have no idea where my draw came from. I was born and raised in Illinois and have no relation to anyone down south. Well, I'm not worrying about it. I may transfer out at second semester.

see ya.

[Robby P.]

teen steam fan

I have a southern draw, and that's not helping me at all. Basically, if I mean to say 'you all', I sometimes say 'y'all' on accident. Strange part is, I have no idea where my draw came from. I was born and raised in Illinois and have no relation to anyone down south.

 

 Its a southern thing.  I was born and raised in the south, and I have a HUGE accent.  My wife was born and raised in PA, and moved down south a few years ago.  She was as bad as me (when she lived in NC).   Southern is very very easy to pick up, and hard to lose.   Believe me.  I've lived in Pa, four years now, and sound just like the South......Still !!!  Plus I still get people confused up here when I talk

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Robby P.

 Its a southern thing.  I was born and raised in the south, and I have a HUGE accent.  My wife was born and raised in PA, and moved down south a few years ago.  She was as bad as me (when she lived in NC).   Southern is very very easy to pick up, and hard to lose.   Believe me.  I've lived in Pa, four years now, and sound just like the South......Still !!!  Plus I still get people confused up here when I talk

Same here - and I've lived in 8 or 9 different countries!