Well...Gooooood Evening...
I had a great ol' day of doing not much of anything but muck around with my layout..I actually got to run some trains today....
Chloe, I'll have a platter of wings and a please....I'll be at the corner booth for now...
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
I got the Stewart/Athearn/Proto 2000 kitbashed Conrail U25B done finally. It tested well on DC then went back to the shop for a decoder. It's been programmed and test run with no problems. Now I know I have another Bachmann decoder laying around here somewhere that can go in the P&LE Stewart/Kato U25B.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
Today I received two Stewart/Kato U25B's from a friend. One is in fine working order. The other was in ill health. It had a dead motor and a Proto 2000 motor I had laying around wasn't going to work in it. So after a little head scratching and a little measuring I got together the parts I would need. Now I almost have the dead U25B ready to go. You wouldn't recognize the drive line if you saw it. The body and frame are Stewart, the motor, shafts and worms are Athearn, the trucks are Proto 2000 AAR trucks from an old FA. I still have the wiring to handle and a Bachmann decoder will be going into it (also laying around). I couldn't believe how easily the Athearn motor mounts went into the frame. The mounts and the motor just dropped right in as if the frame had been made for them. The same with the trucks. I didn't have to change anything to mount the Proto 2000 trucks. Why change them? The Kato trucks proved to be incompatible with the Athearn worms. The trucks just popped right in. The only thing I had to change was one drive shaft. It was a bit short so I cut the end off it, pulled the coupling off the worm shaft and joined the two shafts with a flexible piece of heat shrink tubing with a drop of super glue gel in each end. A lit match did the trick for shrinking the tubing. When I finish the only outward appearance that something had been changed will be the trucks and if you're not looking close they'll sneak right past you.
Strong coffee in a SUNNY SOUTHERN mug, please.
Seems my pic didn't work. Here are links to the type of truck we're looking for in HO scale, to represent our friend and farrier on the wife's layout. Anyone know where we can find a similar truck in HO scale?...
http://hastingshoofnipperrebuilds.com/TRAILER.jpg
http://www.hawesfarrierservice.com/Guy_Pix/GuyPix_720/Guy_intoTruck.jpg
Gave my wife her valentines day gift early, because she'll be working that day next week.Already had it programmed, so she now has a U30B CSX with sound roaming her layout. Just need to get use to DCC so as not to have it collide with her steamer. Came close once already. The diesel has track cleaning & logging duty. Her steamer is dedicated to pulling a circus train.
Must compliment Miller Engineering who makes those animated signs for their good customer service. Replaced a discontinued sign that turned bad at cost.
Going to head down to the train room for a while. Need to install a fence around a swimming pool.
Cheers! Rob
All this excitement about taxes. Well I'm fortunate in one one way in that I don't have to pay any income tax.
Just a sweet tea for now.
Ugh!!! That's how I feel today. I went out and got Jessica a exercise machine, and finally finished putting it together. After I had to fix a few things. Seems like I don't know my left form my other left . Between that, and sneezing 1,000 times!!
Taxes, that time of the year. We haven't had to pay in a looooong time. We keep our dependents at zero, and I have a additional $7.00 taken out of the pay checks. I think Jessica has $10 taken out. Doesn't really matter. This year the whole check went to pay off a credit card. I'm glad its gone thou!!
Find something to eat, and battle this small cold!!
"Rust, whats not to love?"
Mornin' everyone!
Zoe, I'll have a breakfast bagel w/ cheese and a a cup of dark roast coffee in a FGLK Mug.
What's everyone all stirred up about here this morning Zoe? What? Oh...... taxes! I haven't even given a thought to THAT yet. Ain't gonna worry about it for at least another month. I am pretty sure I will owe some this year.
Nice sunny day outside here in the Finger Lakes Region. Currently 21°F here after an overnight low of -5°F. I see Barry beat me to the tune THAT always have in my head when discussing Winter Weather..... Ah, Barry? Those guys are taking the tempo a bit fast aren't they? We actually get above freezing for a bit by Sunday. Talking 35° for the high then.
Have a few odds and ends to keep me busy today. May even get brave and disturb some dust THAT has fallen as a protective coating on things... Time to get out the vacuum cleaner...??? Waiting on a package from Walthers Out of Stock early next week to do more on the project for the layout. Also have to get a short agenda written up for the NMRA Division Board meeting tomorrow.
Catch you all later!
73
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
Good Afternoon/Evening,
it´s not been a good day for me today. First, my migraine came back - violently, putting me flat on the sofa for the better part of the day. Second, my partners get "cold feet" on that bank issue and are trying to find a way without any funding. This is not a bad thing as such, but it would exclude me, leaving me without a job and even less hope. Again, this pops up right when I was about to order the few missing track parts I need to continue my work on the modules, not to mention the DC power pack I need.
Seems as if I just lucked out again
Flo, a mug of hot chocolate, please, and would you please "spice" it up generously?
I´ll hang out here at the RC for a little while.
Good Morning All...Its sunny and up near 30 hear this morning...I'll have coffee and a chunk of pecan pie please...Thank You..
I was asking you all about the Jiffy rerailer yesterday..I found the web site and got alittle better look at it..Last nite the idea came to me it looks alot like a Atlas rerailer track..I cut one apart and did alittle sanding and the darn thing worked...Only problem is you have to hold it down with your finger as you roll car into it...I still plan to pick up a Jiffy but this will work till I find one and you can't beat the price..
You all have a good one..Jerry
Good Morning!!
Today: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 29. Wind chill values between 5 and 15. Southwest wind between 10 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.
Looks like this maay be the last below freezing day for awhile. Maybe for the year? I hope so. Temps will be in the mid thirties tomorrow, then they say forties all week until about Thursday we should see mid fifties. With temps like that and sun, the snow should be all but gone next week and my sump pump running like crazy if it will even shut off. Not looking forward to THAT however.
Yesterday when I left here I did go down and lay some cork roadbed and a couple pieces of track. I’ll bip on down there this morning before I shag out of here and check on the solidness of the thing.
I did discover I made an error in wiring. No biggy, I ran my buss wires and attached the negative side of the track on the upper level to the same buss as the lower so I can’t cut the power and isolate the top from the bottom as I want to do. I’ll need to run a separate buss for that long a stretch so I can isolate the feeders. Of course you all know that already. I don’t know what I was thinking at the time. Just glad I caught it before I had it complete and was running a train and when I flipped a switch to kill the track it wouldn’t. Thinking I did things right I’d probably scratch my head looking for some short that keeps the track alive and never notice the glaringly obvious.
Oh well…….
Ya’ll have a Great Day!!!
Todd
Central Illinoyz
In order to keep my position as Master and Supreme Ruler of the House, I don't argue with my wife.
I'm a small town boy. A product of two people from even smaller towns. I don’t talk on topic….. I just talk.
Good Morning All,
9F out this morning. Still coo coo in the shop so it's another to go morning for moi. Did get the lower half of the walls in the train room up last night so a bit of progress. Now for another big cleanup before I final paint the walls and start some benchw..k.
Ulrich - I saw the other thread about dilapidation and can only say if you run the norhteast corridor of Amtrak, you'd be appalled by what you see. Trash feet deep, run down, semi collapsed, derelict buildings, abandoned cars, you name it. And this on the busiest passenger route in the nation. In the years leading up to the mass bankruptcies of the railroads, a lot of the rolling stock was only cleaned occasionally. The New Haven is the example I know best and was just like that. The passenger cars were kept washed but the insides were a disaster from lack of rebuilds, the air conditioning rarely w..ked and most of the locomotives looked like escapees from Garrys' junk yard. CUL. J.R.
cudaken H&R did my taxes today. Good news is we get a little back from the Fed's, $250.00. Bad news is we owe the state $350.00. They will be waiting for that for a while. Ken
H&R did my taxes today. Good news is we get a little back from the Fed's, $250.00. Bad news is we owe the state $350.00. They will be waiting for that for a while.
Ken
EEERRRGGG! taxes!
Well, Jackson Hewlett Has done MOH's taxes for several years now. Beacuse my other half earned twice as much as last year {a whole $11, 300 this year}, MOH is magically now in a higher tax bracket so MOH is now getting less than half what MOH got last year. SO we get a little from Federal in refund and a WHOLE $4.00 in State refund. WHy? because of the low paychecks, they don't take out enough for taxes as they should, erroneously assuming the Earned Income Tax Credit will make up the difference.. MOH has a part-part time job also {only 1-3 days a month and earned $1k there last year} That only took out $2.00 in fed taxes and $1.00 in state so MOH actually OWED taxes to both on that as it should have been more like $100.00 taken out for taxes.
Bugs me that they take so little out of smaller paychecks for taxes on a poor person with 1 exemption, and then the poor person could end up OWING taxes they can't really afford to pay. MOH will have to change to 0 exemptions to have more taxes taken out. IT was a simple return, no deductions save self, no itemizations, none of that crap. A whole $4.00 in state tax refund. I'm tempted to send a letter to GOv. Cuomo and say here, here's $4.00 more dollars towards balancing the failed state budget that is in Billions of dollars of deficit. BUt I don't think $4.00 will help much.
At least we didn't OWE anything to either. Of course the idea when they changed all the tax codes some years ago was so that one would pay in in taxes exactly what one owed, and would neither owe any taxes OR pay any taxes, SO the Gov't didn''t have to deal with raking in lots of dough from people putting off paying all year and more importantly so that the gov't wouldn't have to PAY OUT so much in refunds each year. Doesn't work well, IMO.
So now that I got that off my chest.
Have a great day everybody! MAy your taxes be less taxing on you too!
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
Good morning.
Didn't do much yesterday but cough and sneeze. That feels like that what the plan will be today . Just don't have much energy.
I will stop back in later.
Good morning. It's 22° and clear. The high will be 52° and sunny.Unless I'm interrupted the plan today is to get more stuff off of the layout. There are several dozen vehicles and a bunch of small loose detail pieces to be collected and put away for now. I wouldn't want to break or lose any of them while I'm working on the layout. As an early morning project today I got the Athearn F7-B Hi-F body fitted to a modern powered Athearn chassis. It took a little drilling and a little filing but it ended up being a snap fit. Unfortunately I did break one of the end ladders in the process. The chassis is the one I fitted with AAR trucks and it stands out rather well. After all, how many F7-B's have those type of trucks. In the two photos below you can easily tell the Hi-F chassis from the modern one.
Good Day Folks!
Cup of coffee please.
Well, hopefully this is the last of the below freezing temps, it's looking like 40's by Sunday!
Have a great weekend all! and Happy Modeling!
Steven
Rob: I've found nothing of that sort...yet...
Good Morning..
It is -2F out there right now going to high of 17F....tomorrow we will go up to 34F...we're having a heat wave...tropical heatwave...
I'm having a little Spring up here all cuddled up...and I'm trying to type over him...
So, today will be a day of doing not much but working on my buildings...
Flo, I'll have a coffee and a breakfast croisant, please...I'll be at the RC for a bit...
Anyone know where I can find a truck set up in (HO) that resembles the pic below? Preferably all silver. Wife is looking for one to represent our farrier on her layout. Have been searching with no luck thus far. Thanks! Rob
Good Morning ! from Tipton IN.
Bill Tidler Jr.
Near a cornfield in Indiana...
Wonderful stories, Ray. Especially about her old mechanic. Priceless!
Tonight, while watching my wife help with her decrepit parents at the Assisted Living Facility (had a big shin dig there), along with all the other folks there, I felt some mixed emotions. Wondered about the lives they all had all lived and what they had seen over the years. A side note, there were two old ladies there who could probably out dance most younsters. My word, when the band played "The Twist" song, I feared the one lady (92 years young) was going to break her hip bones. Wow!
Rob
Cederstrand ***Ray, didn't see any black exhaust on startup? Thought there would have been some. Nice sound as she came to life.
***Ray, didn't see any black exhaust on startup? Thought there would have been some. Nice sound as she came to life.
Yeah I noticed THAT too....! She most always puts out a huge cloud of smoke (still thinks she is an ALCO) on start-up. I'm wondering if out videographer dubbed in the sound from another time. The sound is definitely LV 211 though. I know that sound very well. I just sent the guy who does our videos an email asking him what going on......
Last summer there was a teenage kid at the museum one day when I was working as a docent. He asked me some questions about how Diesel Electric work. I was more than happy to oblige. Since the cowling was opened up on 211 I showed him the EMD 567B prime mover and how it was attached to the Generator. Then explained how power is fed to the electric motors. We were both leaning on the front of old 211 when all of a sudden she began to whine. They had opened up the petcocks and were rolling her over. I suggested we move a bit away from her, and walked him through the start-up process. When she finally started to come to life, she belched a huge cloud of black smoke and they continued to roll her over until she started running on her own about a minute later. The teenager's mouth was about 3 foot open by that time and he had the biggest wide eyes I have ever seen. We may have another volunteer out there in a few years!
We also had an elderly man who, walking with a cane, climbed down from the caboose that brought him to the museum. He turned and looked at our Kodak #9 RS1. Then he began to tear up and cry. He walked over to her and patted her deck with tears coming down his cheeks. He was many years ago her mechanic. He thought she had been scrapped. He stood there just touching the old girl and staring for the longest time! I do like volunteering out there!
The House Special, please.
***Barry, that's a neat old photo. Cool layout pics, too.
Picked up the March issue of MRR tonight. We should really re-subscribe, it would be cheaper.
Evenin' folks!
Flo, a piece of that Apple Pie over there with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream on it and a decaf for me tonight.
Today has been almost a complete waste of time due to the fact I have not done much of anything... Did go over and get my allergy shots and paid a couple of bills. Otherwise, I have just sat here at the computer and fed the wood stove today. Probably needed a day to just rest. Parts I need to continue with the engine house should arrive early next week so wasn't much I could really do on the current projects downstairs.
For those of you that have never heard an EMD 567B in a Alco RS3 start up, try this on for size...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnEURR_mZMU&NR=1&feature=fvwp
She's a sweet old girl.
Gonna be a cold one here in the Finger Lakes tonight. Latest prediction is 1°F.... Think they need to revise THAT as it is -3°F out there right now. Woodstove is cranking, and it is still chilly here by the computer. Both cats have taken up places about 3' away from the stove and seem to be very content and happy right at the moment.
Hope you all have a good night and stay wrm!
evening folks.
Jeff, sounds like a nice find.
Not much new from me. Been working on the layout installing another road and a damaged barn. A few reused trees are now planted and awaiting ground cover.
Oh yeah, DerJohn and Urlich. I looked at that picture again, more closely. I think that picture was taken around 1968-69. The reason I think that is Mallard is painted in LNER Garter blue with red drivers. It's too new to be from pre-1949. And then all engines would of had British Railways on the tender in early BR. In the 1960's, all British Railways express engines were painted in Brunswick Green. That is honestly my best guess. I could be wrong though so don't quote me.
If you can read this... thank a teacher. If you are reading this in english... thank a veteran
When in doubt. grab a hammer.
If it moves and isn't supposed to, get a hammer
If it doesn't move and is supposed to, get a hammer
If it's broken, get a hammer
If it can't be fixed with a hammer... DUCK TAPE!
Been doing some searching online and it looks as if my old F7-B is definitely an Athearn dummy unit from the Hi-F era. It's a Southern Pacific Black Widow, #8220. It still has the original three piece trucks though three of the four plastic wheelsets have been changed out with metal ones from an Athearn GP30. The ladders are all intact and there are no cracks in the shell. The couplers have been changed out with Kadee #5's.
Edit: It looks like I have the tab this time! YIKES!
David Parks I am the terror that flaps in the night!
Good Evening ...
Ulrich: I have some good guitar strings that can be used...
Well...I found all my styrene at a dollar store...yay!!! Now I get to see how far I get on finishing these things up...
Chloe, i'll have a stack o' ribs and a pile of coleslaw please...oh..and a coffee as well...I'll be at the RC for a bit...
cudaken Jeffery, Make sure you keep reminding me about the ground foam, my memory sucks theses days. I won't get mad either, but it is easy for me to forget stuff.
Jeffery, Make sure you keep reminding me about the ground foam, my memory sucks theses days. I won't get mad either, but it is easy for me to forget stuff.
Afternoon folks.
Flo, Big Boy Sub, tender of Fries and a Pitcher of and a frosted Monon Mug.
Work Front They shorted me $100.00 on this last paycheck. I was told it would be mailed out Saturday and should have it by Monday. Here it is Thursday and I still don't have it. Unfortunately the payroll department is the owners wife. I have had 4 check so far, only 1 has been right.
Train Front.
DT 400 must be the problem. Used it today on a UP 5 while Tony was here, was still acting up.
PR 3 and Decoder Pro Installed (or should I have say I tried to) on the new computer, not working.
Tony s Visit While installing LED's on his Atlas GP 38's went well, was not a lot of fun like last visit. Tony has a impacted tooth (boy I know that feeling) and lets say he was not chipper.
Tony s Atlas GP 38's While they look good and have a good looking motor I was not impressed. They have only a few hour run time on them and 1 has a broken motor mount all ready.
See you all later.
I hate Rust
LSWrrRAY, those cars saw service in Ohio until about 1947 as commuter trains between cities on traction railroads. Thanks JR.
Interesting! I didn't know that before... Wonder how many remained in service on some backwoods shortlines into that time period as well? They evidently had a good long service life! Wish more had been preserved.