Morning guys
Well I couldn't sleep in like I wanted to again. I have no plans for today, again. Now that I have time to do some work on my trains, I don't have the funds to get parts to do the work. On my GP38-2 I want to buy an SMD for the beacon, and I have a beacon and decoder in my parts box. The thing is I'd like to do all the work at once, because taking it apart is kind of a pain.
Ken, I know the feeling about bosses and taking time to train people.
Vincent
Wants: 1. high-quality, sound equipped, SD40-2s, C636s, C30-7s, and F-units in BN. As for ones that don't cost an arm and a leg, that's out of the question....
2. An end to the limited-production and other crap that makes models harder to get and more expensive.
GOOD MORNING!!!
Today is Friday, May 4th, 2012!!!
Its Friday, Got my car fixed, new bumper, new tailight, its Friday...
Have a GREAT day!
-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.
Lunchtime in Germany!
I just had a couple of Petra´s pan cakes and feel like taking a nap - it is raining outside, with cold northerly winds.
I hope you are enjoying our trip to the mountain of all mountains. Well, you better do. At about 95 $ for a return ticket from Zermatt to the Gornergrat ridge, it is not a cheap trip. But I think it is worth every single cent!
Tomorrow, we will take the famous Glacier Express from Zermatt, which will take us to Oberwald. The train follows the Matter Vispa Creek down to where it meets the Rhone river in Visp, follows the mainline to Brig, and then ascends into the Upper Rhone Valley. We will pass over some breathtaking gorges and wind our way up through a couple of spiral tunnels.
We will leave the train at Oberwald, where we will take the mountain route over the Furka pass, instead of going through the tunnel. Motive power will be one of the original steam locos, in service since the opening of the line in 1916.
Some more impressions from this line:
At Realp, the end of this line, we will change trains again, and the Glacier Express will take us to Disentis, end of the line of the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn. If we arrive on time, we´ll have a chance to visit the Benedictine monastery of Disentis, which was founded in 720. Today,s building are from the late 1600´s/early 1700´s.
Disentis is a serene place, so there is not much else to discover. Disentis also marks the starting point of the Rhaetian Railway network of the Grison region.
Enjoy your day.
Garry,
I was surprised to find out that there are hardly any web pages for renting a chalet in Switzerland, which are in English. A German search gives me tons of pages!
The most important issue is to find out where you would like to stay, just to select the proper location, which must have a train station. Basically, there are two regions I´d suggest - Valais (around Brig) or the Grisons area (around Chur).
Here is a link I found in English:
Homelidays
Interchalet
If you can give me an indication on when you´d like to come over and how long you intend to stay, I can certainly help you finding a proper accomodation.
Happy Friday! Well maybe.
Ken
I hate Rust
Evening Fellow Late Owls!
Flo, Beer Please.
Gary I sure do like the PRR M1a that is in the last picture. Little surprised Curt did not chime in. But he was busy with his turntable.
Ray I have tried to go to HP web site, but they no longer have the one I have on CD. I tried one of the free ones and I did not like it. Kept asking me if I wanted to buy this or that.
Work Front On the way home I was thinking about what to post about work, and there was real nothing worth talking about. Call from Dave at 10:00 PM took care of that for me! I have asked Dave 3 or 4 times to show me how to do Fleet Accounts! He nor anyone else has taken the time to teach me.
Today he told me there was a Fleet Account car coming in and all I had to do was cash it out. Again I told him I did not know how! Again he told me "everything is entered in the ticket and all you have to do is cash her out". Work was done and I tried to close the ticket. New screen to me pop up, entered the information as best as I could, would not take? Tried 5 times, same thing. Called Dave at 7:45, no answer, there is a shook. Gave her the key's and let her go, after all we have all the information right?
10:00 PM, I just got home, phone rings. It was Dave, "What problem did you have with the fleet account?" Told him what happened and what happened when I did it. Dave "Did you call anyone besides me?" To be fair, I did not. She had been standing there for 10 minutes or so and I had people waiting behind her. Dave "Fine, I will fix it like every thing else!" and hug up.
Yes, I know it is a pain to find time to train people. I just wonder if Dave realizes If he took time to train me and others, that in the long run his life would be simpler? Well I think I know the answer to that question!
Evening guys
Have the next 2 days off, and no plans. May as well try to sleep in...
Garry, Strange that none of the Q F-units made it to the merger. Looks like most of the ex-NP, GN, and SP&S F-units had Dynamic brakes, except for the units with the pilot plow (which I like). What would I look for in the prototype photos to determine if the diapragms were removed?
Evenin' folks!
Janie, just a cup of decaf please........
This afternoon and evening I did a bit of cleaning up of the layout.... Found the pond at Cooleys Ice had gotten a coating of dust on it from the new backdrop i had put in. That, even though I sealed the old room as best I could, told me I didn't do as good a job as I should have. I just vacuumed it off. Cleaned up well. Also found a bunch of cobwebs up near the ceiling so I removed them while i was at it.
Found a spot on a bridge had the safety rails out of place slightly and were what caused derailments there when I brought the coal train to the new yard. Removed the rail and reinstalled it with a wider gap next to the main rail and now it operates fine. Started another turnout this evening and did some measuring to see if what I want to do will actually fit..........
Have a new NMRA member coming to the house tomorrow afternoon to see the layout. I guess i best get myself off to bed.
Prayers for all in need!
73
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
Curt: Glad you got the bugs worked out of the turntable. The last one I had (somewhere back in the stone age) was turned manually with a crank at the edge of the turnout. The crank moved a small roller chain fashioned from a bicycle chain that turned the turntable.
Time for me to call it a night. This morning I helped my father clean up scrap metal debris in the backyard from where the burn pile was moved. Wheel rims, mattress springs, metal fittings from old furniture, etc. Rather he picked the stuff up. I just drove the tractor pulling the trailer he was tossing it all into. It was a lot of work but it'll make it easier to mow that part of the yard. Oh, what happened to the burn pile? It was dumped into a low spot at the edge of the marsh to help build up that part of the yard. Afterward we went to Wal-Mart to get some shopping done. Going with him saved me from using my own gas. No layout work today. See y'all tomorrow.
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
Howdy ... Good to see everybody. What's on the menu?
Ulrich ... Your gorgeous photos of Switzerland are tempting. I just looked up flight schedules out of curiosity.... It would be neat to see both Switzerland and Germany by rail ... You said a it is cheaper to rent a place in Switzerland. Where does one find one? ...
Vincent .... .I have several Stewart F units, some Kato and some not. I don't have problems with any of them. You can find out what they sell for if you click on completed listings in the left hand column after you searched for something. ... You can ask Jeff or somebody else about removing paint with alcohol. Almost no CB&Q F-units lasted into the BN merger. They did dynamic brakes. As for diaphragms, most roads removed them from F's by mid-1960's, but I'm not sure about GN and NP. CB&Q did remove them. ... The Stewarts do need handrails and grab irons added to look right. CB&Q has spark arrestors on top, and I added some on two of my F's. Should do all of them.
Jerry .. I like the SD9. I recall B&O sold at least one SD9 to Burlington Northern to add to their large fleet of SD9's.
Ken ... That's a nice line up of locos.
Happy Model Railroading
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Evening All,
Today has been a series of highs and lows. I went up to see Jon at the LHS. I showed him the hookup directions and he called Walther's Tech Services for me. They recommended hooking into the power buss or a separate DCC Booster-Guess which I did? I really appreciated Jon calling.
Got home hooked power up, installed pit, bridge and calibrated the bridge without issue. Measured and cut Round House track ends and filed the inside edges. Spent some time adjusting the six RH leads on the TT lip, taped them down and went to store track leads in memory and . I spent the next 3.5 hours attempting to index track positions, recalibrating the bridge and even resetting to factory settings. By this time I was pretty upset and had a throbbing headache. MOH called and I was short with her (later apologized) and decided to try 1 more time before quitting for the day....And it worked . I then put in 5 or 6 track index numbers in random order and it worked. I turned it off and anchored the RH tracks.
Tomorrow I plan on powering the RH tracks and putting in the 2 track leads that will go to the TT from the yard. I sure hope the indexing works tomorrow.
Well I have babbled on long enough so I will wish all a good evening.
Curt Webb
The Late Great Pennsylvania Railroad
http://s1082.photobucket.com/albums/j372/curtwbb/
Coffee in a UNION PACIFIC mug, please.
Outstanding layout pics being posted in here. Well done folks!
Went to pick up the replacement sprayer tank for the pull behind trailer, only to find it was the wrong one. After getting back on the phone with the company, they now say it is no longer made and there are none available. That was a waste of time while the weeds grew out in the pasture. Going to have to suck it up and buy a whole new rig. Ouch!
No time for MRRing here. Energy levels are low, too.
Take care, all.
Rob
Afternoon guys
Work was kind of strange today. Despite the storms we were pretty busy. I still managed to get in a break. However it was interuppted by my manager, who wanted me to pick up some stuff from another store. I did, but my car kept spinning the tires (and tried to spiin a few times, and hydroplained once) due to all the standing water. One would think with 10-11" (275) wide rear tire and a 9-10" (255) in the front, all 4 being performance tires, it would grip fairly easily, but it doesn't; even when dry. Add in the fact that the fox-platform mustang isn't a very good wet weather car,the roads are paved with seashells, and it had been raining for a good 10 hours and the roads are really slick when wet. I'm good about keeping it in control when it tries to spin.
Jeff, Looks like the L&A is a bit heavy on the F-units. However, looking through my pictures, I noticed I had a bachmann DRGW FT ABBA, but modified andI sold them with 13 matching rivarossi cars for a tidy sum of cash a few years back. Kind of wish I didn't, because it was a really nice set-up.
Ken, Me, married!?!?!? Nope, never. Love the DRGW F9s, but they do match the ex-NP F9s. So I'll take them along with the other stuff we talked about. That'd get me halfway to my goal of 1 F-unit ABBA set.
Afternoon All...Its sunny and 78 here...We broke down and turned the AC on yesterday evening...I'll have a double cheese burger loaded with onions,pinto beans and a Red Pop...Please..Thank You..Sallie and I went out for a long chair ride was nice..Preacher and His wife stopped by and gave us a big mess of strawberries...Been running trains on both layouts and got some practice time on horn..got a Fake book on E-bay always wanted one 1200 tunes!..should keep me busy when I get my lip back..
That is a B&O SD and Cab on the B&O interchange on the I&S at south Greenup..
You all have a good one...Jerry
Afternoon folks!
Chloe, I'll have a turkey club sandwich and a glass of iced tea please. I'll be at the Rivet Counter for a bit.
Had a bunch of things I had to do this morning so I didn't take time to stop by then. Had to drop off photos at the paper for the Scholarship article, then head up to the hearing center. My left hearing aid decided to not communicate again..... They took me right in and this time the technician got the company tech on the phone and they had him completely reload the software on the devices and start over again. If that doesn't cure the problem, it may be a hardware problem and the left hearing aid will have to go in for repair. He said since these are brand new technology and have only been on the market for a few months, little glitches like this have a tendency to crop up for the first couple years they are on the market. Good thing is they will stay with it for as long as it takes to get the problem solved!
Ken, if the transfer doesn't solve the problem, you might try downloading the whole thing from the HP site??? Just a thought.
Rather nice day so far here in the Finger Lakes. There was a heavy fog out there first thing this morning that has now burned off. Currently 72°F outside with a high today ofm 76° this afternoon. May be a few thunderboomers later on as well.
Curt, Thanks. Granddaughter #2 doesn't miss much... She takes in everything around her. Yesterday she was playing with the Timesaver and looked up at the wall and said, "OH, Pictures!" IO asked who the picturers were of, and she looked at me, grinned and said, Livy and me!" Then she looked over and saw a huge poster my son Matt gave me years ago. It is a "Sunday Times Reprint" of the series they did on Shakespeare's Characters. This one is my favorite character, Falstaff. You're not surprised I bet. She made a face and said, I don't like him, he's ugly! I tried to explain who he was in terms a three year old could understand........
Ulrich, wonderful photos of a beautiful country!
Later!
Morning Dinners
Flo, Diet Dew Please.
Vincent Glass was still wet because of all the rain we have gotten the last few days and because it was so long. Reason I had to cut it, you have never been married have you? Last few weeks it seems to rain on my days off. So Wednesday it was clear and I had to get it done.
Here are the F9's I was telling you about.
HP Photo Suite Well I found the CD and tried to load it. Now it say's I need Java Virtual Machine. Down load the newest version, still won't work. Guess it needs the older version? So I will try to find the file on my lap top and get it from there.
See you all later.
Well,
Thank you Ulrich for the picture tour fo Swiss land. I want ot open a Swiss bank account while here, not that I have much to put in it, but jsut so as I can say "I have a Swiss Bank Account"!
Today is 65* already and VERY STICKY out side. A/c on and dehumidifier dehumidifying its heart out.
I went to Wally World to return the 2 extra shirts I bought yesterday. I picked up a few new pairs of summer shorts that will actually fit my waist. According the Dr. scale yesterday I lost 8 pounds..good thing as I weigh 260 now and need to get down some. SO I spent more than i returned!
Washing clothes today.
Did the banking this Am but have more to do when MOH comes home with a paycheck.
GOt scripts, too.
Boring life I lead errands and chores and not much else today!
Here I sit, fat,dumb and not so happy.
Morning All,
Getting ready to leave the house. Have a errand to run then up to the LHS for advice. Talk to you later.
Ulrich- Beautiful scenery.
Ray- I meant to tell you yesterday that you have a real sweetie for a granddaughter.
Everyone take care.
Good morning. It's 71° and cloudy with patchy fog. The high will be 90° and it'll be partly cloudy.My food stamp card was reloaded this morning with $45 so today I'll be finishing up the grocery shopping. Won't take long with that paltry amount. Later I may take a look at the former site of the Shell Service Center.
Packer Ken, Jeff, and anyone else (Regarding stewart Fs), Do all the stewart Fs that aren't kato drives have buehlers? I stuck a buehler in an athearn RTR GP35 and it seems to work pretty good.
Ken, Jeff, and anyone else (Regarding stewart Fs), Do all the stewart Fs that aren't kato drives have buehlers? I stuck a buehler in an athearn RTR GP35 and it seems to work pretty good.
They'll either run dependably or they won't. The QC on the Buehlers seem to be hit and miss. I got two Stewart U25B's with Kato drives and Buehler motors. One runs beautifully and the chassis is all original. The motor in the other one would short out at the drop of a hat. I pulled the motor and put in a Proto 2000 Athearn type motor. It would be difficult to use the existing trucks so I pulled them also and put in Athearn trucks. The chassis for the Stewart U25B was made for Kato and Athearn parts so no modification of the frame was required.
Packer Jeff, you're teasing me with all those F-unit aren't you?
Jeff, you're teasing me with all those F-unit aren't you?
Good Morning!!! Just coffee please. Thanks
A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 87.
Spent most yesterday out in the yard. Got a lot of stuff done, but still a lot of stuff to do. Looks like a repeat today.
Gonna say somethiiiiiing……can’t remember what it was.
Ya’ll have a good 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
Kinda foggy out here...high near 80F with heat index of 85F...and an ever increasing chance of those t'underin'boomers as well.
Yesterday I went and relaid the track that got clobbered in the derailment/collision...the problem was that a #6 turnout was too close to the back alley behind the three buildings that went ...and, I had a couple of hoppers go to ground there...with the stuck control...all ...beeep..went to ..beeeep
Today, I have to get some more lightbulbs to fix a couple of lights in the trainroom...and, hopefully, give us some more lights in there....
Have a good day!!
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/
Good Morning! from Tipton IN.
Bill Tidler Jr.
Near a cornfield in Indiana...
A stop in before I go to work. I looked at the weather for my area and it says Thunderstorms for the next few days. Guess I'm going to have to hold on washing my car for a few days.
Today is Thursday, MAY 3rd, 2012!!!
The weekend is SOON!!!
{not as asleep this morning am I?}
Have a GREAT day!!!
For those of you who may get an appetite for traveling to Switzerland, just a few bits of information:
Good Morning Gang!
As announced yesterday, we will take a train ride right through the heartland of Switzerland, from the beautiful city of Lucerne via the Brünig Pass line all the way to Montreux, where we will stay over night.
Tomorrow, we will take an early train from Montreux to Visp, where we will be boarding a MGB (Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn) train to Zermatt. In Zermatt, we will take the ride up to the famous Gornergrat Ridge with its spectacular view to the Matterhorn Mountain.
Here are some impressions:
The Gornergrat Ridge is at an altitude of 10,132 ft, so we may have to tote some oxygen with us!
Be sure to have warm clothing ready, as we will most likely have snow up there!
After having enjoyed a Swiss Cheese Fondue for Lunch, we will be going back to Zermatt. The hearty ones can leave the train at Riffelalp Station and hike back to Zermatt, the rest of us will stay on the train and continue to enjoy the view to the mountain of all mountains.
After Dinner, we will all take a short walk to the outskirts of Zermatt to enjoy the sunset over Mt. Matterhorn.
Enjoy your day!
The final could have went better, but the instructor gave out a tricky one. I still managed to get it done in fairly short order though.
Unfortunately it looks like one of the ones I was looking at are the wrong phase F3s for BN (with the side screens between the portholes). The rest are okay. Strangely enough they are all NYC (seems all my project/parts locos are always ATSF, NYC, or NKP)
Ken, why didn't you wait for the grass to dry before cutting it? I've never cut it wet before.
Galaxy. Is their anything about breaks at the federal level? I ususally get 8 hour days without a break, and my folks insist I should get one. The smokers all do, but I'm the only non-smoker there.
If the weather is good tomorrow, I will wash and clean out my car and help my brother with his. I don't think I've shown my car in the dinner before (or at least before I lowered it and had the windows tinted). Speaking of cars, does anyone know how to keep squirrels out of the engine compartment? I keep finding acorns on top of it...
Anywho, it's late and I have to work early tomorrow. See you tomorrow.
Time to call it a night. Got the grass mowed today then went to the pharmacy to refill my meds then to Wal-Mart to pick up some rice and pasta dinner packets then to Captain D's to get my dinner for today. No work on the layout but I did run some trains. GP7's 116/544, GP9's 7270/1809 and the F3 A/B set #500. Maybe tomorrow after more grocery shopping (food stamp day) I'll run F7A/F3B/F2A Frankensteins. Good thing I don't have any bridges. They'd have to be built heavy to support that trio. See y'all tomorrow.
Janie, just a decaf for me at the moment.
Thanks Bob! Yes she is a cute little 3 year old, smart as a whip, and usually 3 steps ahead of everyone else... She is just now starting to be gentle petting my kitties and not grabbing for everything in sight. She is learning life goes a lot smoother when you do what you are supposed to. She was a joy to have here today!
Rob, the photo was taken at 11AM this morning...
I have been busy rewriting a news release for the MLK Dinner... The lady who said she would write it didn't think the paper would publish anything about the scholarship winners..... Huh? THAT is exactly what the paper likes to publish! We get some free advertising of the dinner along with it. Just waiting to see if there are any more suggestions or corrections from a couple committee members before emailing to down to the paper. Should have been done and sent to the paper 2 days ago! The lady volunteered to do the write up to save me some work.....
One of the NMRA Divisions new members wants to stop over to see my layout on Friday. We met at the meet last month, and showed me photos of his layout. Some excellent work the gentleman has done. He has already stopped in a couple other members layouts.
Catch you all later!