Elliot's Trackside Diner November 2011

[gear-jammer]

Good evening, Chloe.  I will have a RBF, please.

JR,  Yes, I am an early morning person.  I have been up at 5:00 for so many years, that my biological clock is set.  I still have not totally adjusted to Standard time as well.  To top that off, Larry gets up at 3:00 to be out the door at 3:30.  He is on the Canada run, and that early time gets him past Seattle before the traffic comes to a screeching halt.  Sometimes I don't get back to sleep after he leaves, so I hang out with you guys.

I hear him now.  Time for dinner.

Later, Sue

[Cederstrand]

Hamburger patties with BBQ sauce, please.

***Curt, that track video is fascinating. Gets me thinking that in the movie "The Train", if Von Waldheim had not been going so slow that train might have traveled fine.

-Rob

[Curt Webb]

Evening All,

It's getting to jacket weather here. The low tonight is supposed to get into the 40's (pretty darn cold for here).

Rob- I know you wanted to fix the drain, but you were smart to know when to stop. That track video was unbelievable. I found this WWII  research video a couple of months ago and it shows how hard it actually is to derail a train. It's a little long but interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-8gV4DJZUw

Everyone have a good night.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Cederstrand

Been watching some train vids on youtube. How does a train remain on tracks as bad as these?...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g11qWro1LzQ&feature=related

Rob

They slow down and trust to extreme good luck or divine intervention and fervently hope that nothing wants to go walkabout.

[Cederstrand]

Been watching some train vids on youtube. How does a train remain on tracks as bad as these?...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g11qWro1LzQ&feature=related

I would like to see someone model THAT in any scale.

Rob

[LSWrr]

Good Evening,

Jeff, I bought the same paper CHAMPS once used from England, and I’m running an ALPS MD-1000 Printer.  The invoice for the couplers was on the bottom of the box.  If you look real hard at the top of each page it will tell you what the data marks go to.  I did a lot of online research to get those numbers so they should be correct.  If you want CAB numbers let me know.

Ok, I’m going back to stamping and licking Christmas cards….

[GMTRacing]

Good Evening All,

   If Ken can hate rust, can I hate mud? At least drywall mud. It's right in there with Bondo for me trying to get the basement wall flattened, feathered and primed.

    Ready to head out home, finish packing and then off to the museum. We'll leave the shop at 4am tomorrow to get the flight out of Hartford.

   Nick - good to see you. School is way more important than hanging here or the layout for that matter. Northeastern is a good school - one of my cousins went there. Downside is it's full of RedSox fans but nothing's perfect. I have similar stacks of pink foam in my basement just now.

   Jeff the cars look great - can't wait til you're done. If you plate the inside of the stock car it might make a good MOW tool car or track side shed.

   Rob - glad you reconsidered trying to shovel things by hand. Koi can be replaced, you - not so much.

I'll try to check in tomorrow.    CUL, J.R.

  

[ns3010]

Afternoon all!

It's been a while, but I'm back. For now, at least... I'd like to be in much more frequently, but my schedule simply doesn't allow it!

I've been busy with the whole college thing still. Since I last stopped in, I visited Northeastern and absolutely LOVED it! It's my new first choice. It's a great school, I love the idea of the Coop program, and the location in the middle of Boston is great! The only downside is the cost, so I can only hope that THAT can be worked out.

No other news thus far. I should be hearing back from the rest of the Early Action Schools (Northeastern, Villanova, and Catholic) by Christmas. Also, Northeastern will give me my financial aid package at the same time, so that will avoid any further waiting.

Hockey started two weeks ago, and is good so far. The last two days, we had our first two scrimmages, and we won both of them! Granted, neither team was anything special, but, it's still not a bad way to start off the season! Friday is our first real game, so we'll see what happens!

Other than THAT and school, there's not much else noteworthy going on in my life. Modeling time is basically nonexistent, and this is about all I've gotten done in three weeks:

EDIT: The awkward moment where I post the wrong picture... Here's what I really got done in the past three weeks...

I did, however, take advantage of Walthers' sale prices on a few items I need, as well as free Black Friday shipping, so I'm expecting a package within about a week or so.

Well (filling with r**n), I've got homew**k (groan), so I better head off.

Catch ya later,

-Joe

SEPTA 70 sits in front of the Overbrook shops with the wire train during the first blizzard of the year.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Cederstrand

Yup, it was hopless. Perhaps 10 years ago, maybe even 5, I might have stood a chance. NO WAY now. Left a message on a neighbors machine so hopefully he will be available before all the Koi have washed away downstream, that is if they haven't already. Next summer I would like to have the front of that pipe surrounded by concrete instead of dirt. There is nothing else I can do about it now, so just need to let it go.

That's a good idea for now Rob. You shouldn't try to tackle that alone.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Here are two early release (likely mid 80's according according to the HO Scale Trains Resource) 51' plug door boxcars that I recently converted from truck mounted horn hook couplers to body mounted Kadee couplers, The conversion was easy and required only very minor modification of the cars. Each car took about twenty minutes and that does include the time required to change from an abrasive disk to a drill bit on the Dremel. I thought about removing the roof walks from them but they're  molded in and would require quite a bit of work to remove. I tried it on another car some years ago and totally botched the job.

[Cederstrand]

Top off my cold coffee, please.

***Ray, congrats on getting the heater going.  

Yup, it was hopeless. Perhaps 10 years ago, maybe even 5, I might have stood a chance. NO WAY now. Left a message on a neighbors machine so hopefully he will be available before all the Koi have washed away downstream, that is if they haven't already. Next summer I would like to have the front of that pipe surrounded by concrete instead of dirt. There is nothing else I can do about it now, so just need to let it go.

Now that I'm done outside for now, I'll have some hashbrowns with onions & scrambled eggs, please. Rob

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Cederstrand

I'm losing the pond. Pipe is completely undercut now with ZERO water flowing through it. My attampts with the little tractor are futile, so I'm fixing to try tackling this by hand with a shovel. Dang!

Good luck with that! In my younger days (preteen and teen years) I helped with undercut overflow pipes on irrigation systems on a relatives farm. Usually the best answer involved a complete dig out and rebuild. That's lots of work and the owners tried to avoid it if they could. But there always came a time when the little fixes didn't work anymore. Because of the nature of the areas where these failures took place getting heavy equipment to them was problematic at best. There was more than one time when a ten ton piece of equipment was parked to the side because the ground couldn't support it. The bulk of the heavy work was done by a beat up rusty antique John Deere Model D steel wheel tractor, it's two cylinder 20hp engine (a "popper" engine as one of my great uncles called it because it often made a popping sound under load) straining as it pulled a two man slip to dig out the ditch and pull the pipe out. At times that all had to be done by hand and that was very heavy work. That old tractor got a lot of praise.

[howmus]

Afternoon folks!

Chloe, just a cup of hot chocolate for the moment...

Rob!  You be careful ya hear!  Anyone you can call over to help you?  Doesn't sound like a good job for someone with your health issues.....

The furnace guy has been here and left.  Turns out both the thermocouple and the pilot nozzle were problematic.  He tried to light the pilot and after one attempt took the pilot line off, removed the nozzle and cleaned it good.  Got it opened up and working and reinstalled it.  Still couldn't get the pilot to stay on, so he replaced the thermocouple and.....  i now have a very old, but working furnace...  One funny thing was after the pilot stayed on, he told me to turn on the furnace at the thermostat upstairs.  I did and went down to check to see if everything was working.  Nope!  He was sitting there scratching his head with a puzzled look on his face.  Checked out all the wiring connections, made sure the fan blower switch was on... Nothing.  Suddenly we both said.. "OH!" at the same time.  The On/Off switch on the furnace was set to "pilot".  He turned it to run and immediately got an explosion out of the old offices in the furnace.  It rumbled like crazy.....  He was reaching to shut it down when I said, "give it a second..."  She quieted right down like it always does...  He adjusted the flame for best performance and gave me an invoice.  Came to just over $100  Worth every penny!  The last bunch that replaced the Thermocouple were here all of about 15 minutes with 2 guys, charged me for both of them for labor (one just sat and made dumb looking faces the whole time.....).  They charged me $200 to install a $7 thermocouple...  Didn't clean or adjust anything.  This very likely the last time I will have it repaired as it is likely to be over 40 years old and showing signs of getting towards the end of its usable life.

Gee, I have the rest of the afternoon to get other things done...  Guess I'll go do something!

73

[blownout cylinder]

Rob:  The pipe is completely undercut? Wow. I don't think shoveling it by hand is going to work now...

Dennis:  We are kind of lucky up here that St. Thomas Dragway is still here..as well as Cayuga and Grand Bend..all are within about an hours drive from us..plus Delaware Motor Speedway...BTW...who owns Pomona now?

---------------------------------------------------------

Good Afternoon from RainBucketsVille...

Wherein we are now at 3.5" and counting of rain be falling on our'n heads...it has just started to let up a wee bit now...

Going back into the trainroom for a bit of fun running some choo choos..there I said it again

Chloe, I'll have a coffee for now please..I'll be at the RC for a bit.

[Cederstrand]

Quick veggie plate and a coffee TO GO, please.

I'm losing the pond. Pipe is completely undercut now with ZERO water flowing through it. My attampts with the little tractor are futile, so I'm fixing to try tackling this by hand with a shovel. Dang!

 Rob

[Cederstrand]

Coffee in a BURLINGTON NORTHERN mug, please.

***Jeffrey, nice looking Weyerhaeuser car. Post another pic after your weathering treatments. UP & SF are my two primary lines, but only in N scale. The HO here is primarily Southern.

It's freezing downstairs here. All bundled up and think it's time to start looking at wood stoves one day soon. Burrr! This whole week is going to be cold.

Haven't gone outside yet to see if the quick repair worked on the pond outflow pipe. When I do, will also go visit the "canyon" and see how much it has grown. Can't do anything to fix that with what I have to work with.

Have a good day all. Rob

[Curt Webb]

Morning All,

At w**k again today. High today is supposed to be 73 F and getting slightly cooler through Thursday. By next Monday it is back up to 80 F again. You have to love FL in the winter. MOH just let me know that she just made the last payment on her car. My son will have his paid off in February. Unfortunately I still have a couple of years to go on my truck.

Rob- Hope your farm survived without any further damage.

Jeff- If you keep going you are going to need a separate building for all your rolling stock.

I plan on putting in my small  water feature Friday hopefully it goes well. I have never worked with water before.

 

Everyone take care.

[howmus]

Mornin'!

Zoe, I'll have a short stack of buckwheat pancakes with lots of NYS Maple Syrup and side order of bacon, and a few cups of dark roast coffee in a FGLK mug please.

It appears to be morning here in the Finger Lakes...  Dark, gloomy, but it is 54°F outside and going up to 62°F later this afternoon.  Along with the nice warm temp will be some liquid sunshine.

J.R., Thayne, and others...  I too like the Brown Truck folks the best and use them every time a send out a package to people of any size.  Their drivers and employees have always been top shelf!  Good service....

I have a pile of stuff THAT has to get done today so I best get moving!

73

[jeffrey-wimberly]

GMTRacing

Jeff - hope you enjoy the cars and if I find more are you interested? I always liked the paint on them but never got into changing out couplers, trucks and frames as you do.

I'm always interested.

 

Good morning. It's 36° and sunny. The high will be 61° and it will be mostly sunny.

Yesterday I received a box with ten freight cars in it. Six Bachmann, three Tyco and one Life-Like. All had truck mounted couplers. This morning eight of them have Kadee couplers. Two of the Bachmann cars (Two 4 bay hoppers) proved very difficult to mount coupler boxes to so on those cars I mounted the couplers to the trucks using Kadee gear box covers and 1/16" brass screws and cut off the excess length of the screws. The three Tyco cars were very easy to convert to body mounted couplers. Two Bachmann Middletown & New Jersey boxcars and a Life-Like Weyerhaeuser boxcar were easy conversions. All that's left is a Bachmann UP gondola and a Bachmann SF stock car. The stock car is a toss-up as I have no use for it.

Now I must get ready to go to my parents place to have breakfast with my father. He probably has something up his sleeve.

[GMTRacing]

Good morning All,

    57F and cloudy with intermittnet showers today. Trucks got off to Sebring all right. Today we sort and tidy up from the thrashing and reorganize so we can get after our winter projects.

Thayne - don't take it personally now. We use Buster Brown for the majority of our shipments out and the folks who do the deliveries here have been great over the years. One learns quickly that some companies are better than others at some aspects of shipping.  We use one air freight company for large items (crates with engines or chassis) because they are fastest for the most reasonable price with the least frequent incidents of damage, We use Federal for shipments to Canada because UPS really doens't offer a true "overnight" service to Ontario yet. UPS to and from England always as it's most reliable, etc. The vast majority of you brown clad folk do a great job. When it comes to rural or remote places (your terminology, not ours) USPS is usually better for our smaller hobby size packages as they go there everyday anyhow. We had a war with the postmaster here over one of his carriers kicking our little rat terrier (all6 pounds of her). Consequently they won't deliver to our door and we have a mailbox out on the street where said carrier has tried to crush packages to size to fit rather than leave a pickup tag. So I criticize when I see fit, but the comment to Jeff wasn't criticism of UPS, just a statement of fact.

Jeff - that was all stuff from my first return to HO in the 70's. I had a cottage with track all over the floor in the living room and used to get all my stuff at K-Mart. Didn't know any better and the hobby shops I frequented were all the ones where we raced slot cars (GMT Racing actually started in 1968 as  my brothers and I with our semi-pro slotcar team - it all just got out of hand). Anyway hope you enjoy the cars and if I find more are you interested? I always liked the paint on them but never got into changing out couplers, trucks and frames as you do.

Sue - as early as you're logging in I am surprised you have any energy at all. Are you trying for the Galaxy nightowl award?

Rob - Hope the floods pass you by. That supply pipe sounds like a bigger deal than you made it.  I assume it needs to be dry enough long enough for you to excavate around it and see what's left?

   Time to get back to the shop. Need to get up on the roof and see what the apprentice morons from the roofing company have done this time. We now since they re-roofed have leaks all over and in places they never were before. Sheesh.    CUL, J.R.

[gear-jammer]

Good morning, Chloe.  A quick coffee before heading to the pool.  If I get my laps in before work, I will have more energy.

Johnboy,  Thanks on the video.  The wreath party was fun.  I still haven't done mine.  Maybe later in the week I will have time.

Sue

[TMarsh]

Good Morning!! Coffee and the Brakeman’s Special please. Over easy thank you.

A chance of rain before noon, then a chance of rain and snow. Cloudy, with a high near 42.

Well, I’m home and Floor Wars: Williamsville commences today.

As you can tell, Google Chrome would not post yesterday. It was fine day before, but yesterday, well you see.  Think I'll stick with IE. No issues.(actually the wife had me gagged so I couldn’t sit an visit)

Like I said, we’re home. Got in about eight (2000) last night. Rained the whoooole way. Started about 20-30 minutes out of Texas and never quit all the way home. Why go to Texas for just a day? Don’t know. We just like it and well just wanted to get away. No, she needed to get away even for just a couple days and that’s about as far as we can get in a day. Stayed in Texarkana, the most wacked out road system I have ever seen, then drove to Marshall and went to the T&P Museum which was closed. (Will have to post the couple outside pics I got) then headed over to Longview and back up. Pretty much killed the day just driving through some beautiful scenery. I tell you what, East Texas is about as pretty a land as you’ll find anywhere. Brenda and I’s plans were to retire to the Hill Country around the Fredericksburg area, but our Mothers’ health issues kinda squashed that. Oh well, long as she’s with me I don’t care where we live. Besides, if we lived in texas, where would we go for vacation? Would have liked to stayed a couple days, but I have to get things done here and I made no w**k arrangements.

Gotta get the bookwork for the Church early today then the Groceries for the Restaurant then start ripping up the old flooring. Best get a movin.

Ya’ll have a Great Day!!!

[blownout cylinder]

Good Morning

We are getting rain..and lots of it...about 3" expected by this afternoon when we will see another inch of it before it turns to wet snow...which will then freeze over so that by tomorrow morning all kinds of ice will be around...

Today is a do everything in my trainroom kinda day...so I'll be in and out of the forums here...heeheehee

mmmmm...I found a Lumitex fibre-optic 1"X3" panel just big enough to place a water slip decal over as a billboard sign....it is already sealed and is ready to use..this oughta be fun...power rating? 2.0VDC at 20-50mA...

Flo, I'll just have a supersized breakfast bagel and a coffee please..yeah...the 5lb size will do just nicely...I'll be at the corner booth here...

[thortenney]

Hello everyone!! I made it through Monday with no exciting stories to tell..Lee  and J R That was nice of you to send Jeffery a surprise! The UPS crack stung a little J R...  lol.  I hope Todd is having a great time in Texas? Maybe he can go to one of those steak houses I see on T.V. You know the ones where if you finish the 22lb steak you get a T-shirt and your picture on the wall of fame?? Well It is time for me to kiss snoopy (my dog) good bye and go see if the old GMC wants to start. I will see you all later. Take care! Have fun with your new toys Jeffery! 

                                                                                       Thayne.

[galaxy]

Good Morning!!!

Today is Tuesday, November 29th 2011!!!

Only 26 more days of Christmas Shopping left!!!

Be SURE to send Santa your list of train items!!!

[wetidlerjr]

 

Good Morning ! from Tipton IN.

 

 

[howmus]

Evenin' folks!

Janie, just a decaf for me right now....  I'll be in the back booth by the stove getting warm.

Tried to light the main furnace down cellar this morning.  No dice, pilot light won't stay lit.  Most likely the thermocouple on it.  I seem to go through one every 3 or 4 years....  Repairman will be coming tomorrow afternoon.  It is not really a difficult job to do, but I'd rather know it was done right and saves me crawling around on the floor on my hands and knees.... 

Had a bunch of things I had to get done for the MLK Committee...  Still have a bunch of things I need to get done for the MLK Committee.  We meet tomorrow night.

Found some modeling time today which was spent running a new switched 16v line over to the area right under the powerhouse.  I also started putting together a large coal fired boiler that will be inside the building. 

Hope all of you have a great night!

73

[blownout cylinder]

Good Evening

Well, that was a pretty fast day here..now to get ready for about 3" of rain be falling on our'n heads by tomorrow evening. Got the new sumps put in..and all are working as we speak, the backyard floating dock ready ot be deployed, and the driveway, front curb and gutter cleared of leaves done..yay

Chloe, I'll have a coffee and a cinnamon bun please..I'll be at the corner booth for a bit...

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Heartland Division CB&Q

Jeff .... Sundown, LA must be quite a place. Clean trains arrive, and soon they look like they need a wash. Remarkable. ... Seriously, nice work.

My stuff looks clean compared to many of the cars KCS hauls through this area. They're dirty beyond belief and have obscene amounts of rust.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Howdy everybody.

Still busy with family stuff. The Cincinnati family (son, DIL, 2 grandkids) went home. Tomorrow, we head to Nashville to see the family there. There is more stuff later in the week, too. Hard to get a layout done with all of these things to do. I did find time to put together some resin vehicle kits. (2 1948 Ford dump trucks and 1 1938 GMC flatbed) The flatbed was just a chassis and I made the deck from Evergreen plastic.

Jeff .... Sundown, LA must be quite a place. Clean trains arrive, and soon they look like they need a wash. Remarkable. ... Seriously, nice work.

Stan ... Good to see you.  The B&O Pacific should be a fun project. Perhaps some day you will have photos of the finished locomotive.

Cheers