Elliotts Trackside Diner (est 1-1-07)

[pcarrell]

Here we are on page 2. This is not acceptable gentelmen. KA BUMP.

Hey!  We didn't let it drop to page 2!  You did!  It was your turn to go a while ago and you chose to wait!  Now don't let it happen again Mister! 

[Paul W. Beverung]

Here we are on page 2. This is not acceptable gentelmen. KA BUMP.

Well I made it into work. I don't know why. Dedication I guess. It wasn't bad driving. The back roads were totally covered with ice but it was grainee and not slick. The interstate was covered but the traffic had pounded down the driving lanes and most everybody was going slow. There  wasn't alot of traffic and by the time I got on the east side of Ft Worth the roads were wet but in good shape. Of course you had a few that thought they were untouchable. One guy went past me doing at least 60. about 300 yards down the pike he had to slow down fast for the sane folks. The worst thing that happened to me was I ran out of coffee about 10 miles before I got to work.

Nothing going on in the MRR world for me. I haven't even worked on the new mine head frame. Tonight I'll have to put out a bale of hay and feed do I won't feel like going down to the basement. I'll try tomorrow I guess.

18 days to go. See you all later.

[PA Belt]

after noon all!

[grayfox1119]

Good afternoon gents, the temp has risen to 32.2F, but the trees are still loaded with ice, no melting taking place.

JEFF: I don't know if this latest cold wave is going to hit you will full force that far south, but by Wednesday night here, it will below 0, and the high temp will only be about 12F. How's the backdrop project coming?

We had yet another train accident here yesterday, a 15 year old boy got off his northbound train and then proceeded to climb over a 3 foot high fence to cross the tracks to get to his mother in the parking lot instead of walking around to the crossing area. An Acela headed south doing track speed ( about 60 there I believe ) struck the boy killing him instantly. Why do people persist in doing unsafe, foolish acts? I can't imagine how the poor mother must have felt seeing that happen.

Later,

[Cox 47]

Good Day All.....Cloudy as still rainning here but no ice yet....I'll have Corn bread and beans,smoked sasage and a diet Coke please thank you....I'm waiting on the service man to come to check out my power chair its not wanting to shut off  when you turn it off....Ran trains for a while this morning....Can't seem to get into any project this cool damp weather makes ol Aurther flare up and makes anything very small hard to work on...Took the clock down in living room cleaned it put a new battery in it but couldn't get it going again I think its time for a new one...Checked out 6 Illinois Central passenger cars on Ebay need them like another whole in my head they would look bad on my little railroad but I think I'll have a conferance with Sallie and maybe bid on them maybe.....Jeff ...I checked out the back drop site they got some neat stuff...You all have a good one.....Jerry

[pcarrell]

Hey Flip, not a problem!  Lets see......for lunch, how about.......a burrito!

Oh, and I'll have a Moxie with that please!

Thanks Flip, that hit the spot!

[JPowell]

Greetings all-

  Lee - You have ALOT of email from me (photos) About 7 emails in all.

  Weather heer is not nice at all. I'm watching the noon news and there was an accident earlier this morning between a Ford Focus and an 18-wheel Dump Truck. Guess who won and how many lost that match up - NO PUN INTENDED!

  Well guys, at some point, I will get the photos I sent to Lee posted to my Trainboard page, along with some from the real railroad too.

  Drive careful today!

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Good morning and top 'o' the day to all of ye.

It's a cool one here today. That barbed wire fence between here and the north pole done fell down.

Today's Weather for:  
Sundown, LA  71446-6114      1/15/2007 

Sundown Fire Dept., Station 23
 
Wind Chill:  38°F
Humidity:  91%
Dew Point:  42°F
 
So Far Today
High:  62°F
Low:  43°F
Rain:  0.39"
Rain Rate:  0.04"/h
Gust:  29mph NNE
 
High: 43 °F
Low: 32 °F

Important Message
 
Winter weather advisory in effect from midnight tonight to 12 PM cst Tuesday.  
Now through 12:00 PM CST January 15, 2007
 
Through 11 AM...scattered to numerous patches of rain or showers will occur over central and southwest Louisiana. Precipitation will diminish from the west over southeast Texas while continuing over much of Jasper...Newton and Orange counties. Widely scattered patches of rain or showers will occur over south-central Louisiana in the Lafayette...Abbeville...New Iberia and Saint Martinville areas. Rain amounts will be mostly light but to a tenth of an inch per hour in some places.  

Rest Of Today  Low: 38    High: 38    Periods of rain. Much colder. Temperatures falling into the upper 30s. North winds 10 to 15 mph.  

Tonight  Low: 32    Rain in the evening...then rain and light freezing rain likely after midnight. Colder. Lows in the lower 30s. North winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 80 percent.

I'll be having the scrambled eggs today.

[grayfox1119]

Good morning everyone, we have icing taking place here in central Massachusetts, trees and wires are all covered, but the temp is rising, it is 31.8F now and was 31.5F a short time ago, but it is snowing heavily to the north in central VT, NH, & ME. The snow line is supposed to moved back south alte this afternoon and evening.

The wood burner is cranking just in case we lose power, but I also have the generator fueled and ready to go if needed. The wires are heavy with ice.

For you CHARGERS fans.....sorry, but we have to do it, we like to play Indy and the Colts in the big game next week.

Looks like a MRR day today...see you guys at lunch. BTW, anyone seen Fergie lately???

[fec153]

PA BELT- That is a FEMALE driver, right?

DER- The female replacement knee joint is smaller than the male . Found this out when took a passenger into a dr.'s office. Pictures and literature on a table.

Flip

   Looks like T O P. First time in a loooonnnng time. Sorry pc.  Order up .ya'll It's on my tab. You to,Vinnie.

                                         

[GMTRacing]

Good Morning All,

     Just a regular to go please Zoe. Spent all my coffee time in the lobby catching up on the postings. 'all have been busy. Nice backdrop Jeff. and the shelving looks good Slappy.

 

der - if you scribe lines in the fascia / dock before painting it can give you enough tooth to pencil in a line with a contrasting color and no stencil needed. I've got two full coats of gloss Modge Podge down with a little extra paint here and there between coats to add depth (and fix a couple of spots i didn't like). So far so good.

Hope you all have been spared the brunt of the ice storm out in the heartland. Looks nasty. We've had a couple this way that knocked down power for days. One benefit of city life here is that we're on the same grid section as the hospital and the power is never out for long if we keep the line from pole to house free of overhanging limbs (and no I don't trim them myself - seen too many mishaps with lines and branches).

I didn't get to go to Philly after all this weekend, my youngest had all the symptoms of apendicitis so I stayed close to home. The pain was constant but not severe so he stayed out of the emergency room and feels fine now. we'll call the doctors office today and see what they want to do (the joys of managed care - no weekend hours). Did spend time cleaning the house and doing some minor repairs and so got good points when the CFO returned last night.

Besides coating my new water area (still not sure is it a river, tidal pool, inlet?) I ripped out my old river and a concrete block viaduct to add a bridge and make the area of the dam and river a gravel pit and concrete plant withh rail service. This adds track and switching to an area that was previously bare of tracks and gives me an excuse to have more hoppers, covered and open. 

Bears and Saints should be good, can't say I have much enthusiasm for the other game - just don't see much in either team.  Time to pick up tools.       CUL,J.R.

[pcarrell]

Mornin' everyone!

Just headed off to work and thought I'd pop in and say hey.

Hey!

Later!

[LSWrr]

Good morning everyone,

Wet & wetter changing to colder and snow for this afternoon around here.  I guess a good day to straighten up the layout room and make room for the curves and maybe put some buildings together.

Lee

[Anonymous]

Good morning

Happy MRRing

[wetidlerjr]

Good morning ! from Indiana.

01-15-07

[james saunders]

Evening Gents...

 

This weekend I have a large project planned in between cricket and sunday evening... I'm going to the hardware, buying some new sheets of plywood and timber, and rebuilding my layout. In a twist of fate we changed the garage (layout room) around and now I have space to expand my 'L' shaped layout into a 'U' shaped layout. the two sides of the 'U' will be 8' long and with a middle section of 5' 6'', which will have a suburban station scene on it, which i'm yet to name. The layout will be protolanced, with fictitious names but modelled on real locations, or at least elements of. the layout will feature Narrow gauge (3' 6'' gauge) and also standard gauge. I will post pics sunday some time or early next week of the progress. should be fun. Once the new benchwork etc is completed, i'll order all my track from the hobby shop ( will be a fair bit) and points etc, and get started on that. I'll also start my kit, now that some tools I ordered arrived.

 
All for now Oz..

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Now THAT is funny!

[PA Belt]

my layout i goina have this seane!!

[Hoople]

hoppel: i got the idea from you

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Tomorrow will be more backdrop work.

[Paul W. Beverung]

Hey Lee is that F-250 a 6 speed or automatic?

Congrats Mike on the new grandkid.

Not much going on today. I put out a bale of hay and then did some reading in the afternoon. I really needed to get toothe basement but the easy chair book and blanket in front of the fire with Mary Ann were to much to resist. Tomorrow back to work unless the roads really ice up here. I am not going to chance a wreck now after driving 30 years without one. See you all tomorrow.

Good Night All

[der5997]

Sunday 14^th Jan

 

Good early Sunday evening Diner peoples:

 No mrr at all yesterday, as the morning was taken up as usual for a Saturday, with M-I-L hair appointment and shopping.  After lunch it was off to the city for more shopping and a film in the evening. (Sneak Preview of Miss Beatrix..what can I say, it was delightful, and had a couple of awesome shots of a tall stone rail viaduct with passenger steam on it, in the Lake District of England.. UKMatt could probably tell us where.) Home at 10:45.

 

This morning, when I started this, I was sitting at the keyboard with an old towel across my lap, hand painting the concrete top of the wharf and catching up on back pages.  The keyboard is on a sliding shelf, so it can go out of the way when I paint, or do other modelling.  Differences in paint between bouts of reading and typing won’t matter, because I’m after an old concrete blotchy look anyway.  Not being used to Normal scenery, I’m wasn’t sure what to do about representing the joints between the squares of concrete the wharf would have been made from.  I’ve gone for drawing them on with a pencil after the paint has dried. Scribing them just rips off the acrylic paint and uncovers the bright white of the piece of fascia paneling from which the wharf top is made.  I’ve also added three man-hole covers.  These are probably just over-size. They are made from those little disks of plastic that you get when putting up new shower curtains.  The hooks go into holes punched in the curtain, and these disk things fall out as you add the hooks.  If, like me, you size everything up for its mrr potential, then instead of trashing them, you save them in the “odd stuff” medication phial kept for the purpose!  Painted dark rust and with a thumb print of plaster dust, they are just the ticket.  BTW, use ACC to glue them, if you follow suite, as white glue doesn’t grip the plastic too well.

 

 

Just:  Welcome to the Diner.  I don’t think we’ve met. Our HR division apologizes for the inadvertent hiring of shape shifters as temporary staff. We think that this one wasn’t a salt vampire however.

 

JR:  Good to hear that the paint and gloss mod podge worked out well. I’m likely to have a go at painting the ocean today or tomorrow; (no idle ships on this one though).  Yes, I like the way that the sub-surface can be made to get movement into bodies of water in this technique too. For the sea by the wharf I’ve got to build up the wave at one end.  I’ll use Flex Paste for that, as I don’t want to risk pouring more plaster at this stage.  Then I’ll be ready for painting.  Getting to that is taking a while because in thinking about the industry that’s on the wharf, I’ve decided on an Omega 3 Fish oil processing plant. So it needs tanks and such.  Not much room for these peripherals on the wharf itself.  I’ve constructed a concrete pad a little ways off near the tracks. The tanks can go on that, and pipes can run between the plant and the tank “farm”. (If 3 little tanks can be called a farm)

 

Chuck and Kathy:  West Coast snow.  I remember that from Campbell River, Vancouver Island.  Didn’t happen much, but when it did it could be impressive, like 3 feet in a single dump.

 

Jeff:  That’s a great tutorial on the back drop.  I’ve copied the urls, and the backdropwharehouse one as well, thanks.

 

Mark:

It's louder than any engine I've ever run

  Just think of the cash you’ve saved on a sound decoder for that one!

 

Dick:

Many people feel that Douglas Firs make the best Christmas trees.

…that is if they weren’t brought up on short needle Christmas trees like spruce, as we were.  I just can’t get into the large needle tree scene.

On the weather front, we had very light flurries yesterday, but only on the drive home. Temp today is only -5 C, so not the monster that was forecast for you guys.

 

Flip:  Gender specific knees…Oh my!

 

Bgardner2: Welcome to the Diner.  Tomato country! Freezing rain sounded as if it could be Ontario.  We had a slight flurry of snow earlier this evening on the eastern shore of Nova Scotia, but only about 1-2 cm.  A grandchild who like trains…does it get better than that? CN eh?  That’s what we have for class 1 around NS.  Cape Bretton and Central Nova and some others, but not the ever- popular CP.

 

Mike: Congratulations on the soon-to-be-new grandchild!

 

Time to get Flexpasting that bit of sea so it can dry overnight….Oh no I can’t, I’ve just remembered I wanted to put in some of those groups of pilings at each end of the wharf.  Have to make, stain and install those before I can touch up the sea.

TTFN, things to do.

 

[rtraincollector]

Pa Belt whose foot is that in the last pic lol

hoople we have an area here called stormont also its about 12 miles down the road from me. it was a small town back when but now its just where we have a area to take your trash and yard trash (Compactors maned by a refuse company) we don't have regular trash pick up here.

 Well all have a good day

[pcarrell]

PA, I'm just a little ahead of you on the construction.

Jeff, you inspired me this weekend with your backdrop project. It looks great, and I can't be outdone, sooooooo.............

I spent the weekend finishing up all of my crossbraces on my benchwork, then I laid all of the subroadbed for the staging yard. Next is the interchange area, then I can lay some track and run some trains!

I'll take some pics when I get a bit further along.

[PA Belt]

hoppel: i got the idea from you

heres a funny one:

Oil Change Instructions For Women:

1) Pull up to Jiffy Lube when the mileage reaches 3000 miles since the last oil change.
2) Drink a cup of coffee.
3) 15 minutes later write a check and leave with a properly maintained vehicle.

Money spent:
Oil Change $20.00
Coffee $1.00
Total $21.00

Oil Change Instructions For Men:

1) Wait until Saturday, drive to the auto parts store and buy a case of oil, filter, kitty litter, hand cleaner and a scent tree. write a cheque for $50.00.
2) Stop by the Beer Store and buy a case of beer, write a cheque for $20.00, drive home.
3) Open a beer and drink it.
4) Jack car up. Spend 30 minutes looking for jack stands.
5) Find jack stands under kid's pedal car.
6) In frustration, open another beer and drink it.
7) Place drain pan under engine.
8) Look for 9/16 box end wrench.
9) Give up and use a crescent wrench.
10) Unscrew the drain plug.
11) Drop drain plug in pan of hot oil: splash hot oil on face and arms in process. Cuss.
12) Crawl out from under car to wipe hot oil off of face and arms. Throw kitty litter on spilled oil.
13) Have another beer while watching oil drain.
14) Spend 30 minutes looking for oil filter wrench.
15) Give up; crawl under car and hammer a screwdriver through oil filter and twist off.
16) Crawl out from under car with dripping oil filter splashing oil everywhere from holes. Cleverly hide old oil filter among trash in trash can to avoid environmental penalties. Drink a beer.
17) Buddy shows up; finish case of beer with him. Decide to finish oil change tomorrow so you can go see his new garage door opener work.
18) Sunday: Skip church because "I gotta finish the oil change." Drag pan full of old oil out from underneath car. Cleverly dump oil in hole in backyard instead of taking it to recycle.
19) Throw kitty litter on oil spilled during step 18.
20) Beer. No, drank it all yesterday.
21) Walk to Beer Store; buy beer.
22) Install new oil filter making sure to apply a thin coat of oil to gasket surface.
23) Dump first quart of fresh oil into engine.
24) Remember drain plug from step 11.
25) Hurry to find drain plug in drain pan.
26) Remember that the used oil is buried in a hole in the back yard along with drain plug.
27) Drink beer.
28) Shovel out hole and sift oily mud for drain plug. Re-shovel oily patch of ground and avoid environmental penalties. Wash drain plug in lawn mower gas.
29) Discover that first quart of fresh oil is now on the floor. Throw kitty litter on oil spill.
30) Drink beer.
31) Crawl under car getting kitty litter into eyes. Wipe eyes with oily rag used to clean drain plug. Slip with stupid crescent wrench tightening drain plug and bang knuckles on frame.
32) Bang head on floorboards in reaction to step 31.
33) Begin cussing fit.
34) Throw stupid crescent wrench.
35) Cuss for additional 10 minutes because wrench hit Miss August (2002) in the left ***.
36) Beer.
37) Clean up hands/forehead and bandage as required to stop blood flow.
38) Beer.
39) Beer.
40) Dump in five fresh quarts of oil.
41) Beer.
42) Lower car from jack stands.
43) Accidentally crush the remaining case of new motor oil.
44) Move car back to apply more kitty litter to fresh oil spilled during steps 23-43.
45) Beer.
46) Test drive car.
47) Get pulled over: arrested for driving under the influence.
48) Car gets impounded.
49) Call loving wife, make bail.
50) 12 hours later, get car from impound yard.

Money spent:
Parts $50.00
DUI $2,500.00
Impound fee $75.00
Bail $1,500.00
Beer $40.00
Total $4,165.00

...but you know the job was done right 

[Hoople]

PA belt, you have a town named stormont too?

Great minds think alike...

( So what If the town of stormont is going to be on the expansion of my layout and doesn't exist now?)

[PA Belt]

ok, heres the layout pictures 

 

thorn creek

thorn creek 

 

stormont 

underside of benchwork

dont mind the walls, im gona put up paneling that looks like brick 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Jeff... Man I always learn something from you...Your back drop looks great can't wait to see it with clouds....Where did you find the city you used?

This is the place. .

Deleted due to change in copyright (01/17/07)

[Cox 47]

Looks like I'm buy'in Belly up and enjoy....Girls could you use a dish washer to work some of this off?  Jerry

[Cox 47]

Afternoon all...Another dark rainy day here but no ice yet....I'll have a slice of Pecan pie and a Diet Coke please Thank you....just watched the bears game that wasa a finger nail biter...Saints and Bears next week should be a good one....Bgardner....Welcome to the coffee shop drop in anytime....Jeff... Man I always learn something from you...Your back drop looks great can't wait to see it with clouds....Where did you find the city you used? I was thinking if the Bears do take it all the way and Cards winning the WS its been a great year...You all have a good one...Jerry