Depot Diner & Coffee Shop

[JoeKoh]

Morning.I'll get some juice around.mamma made some muffins to go with breakfast.matt wants to go see the fireworks with G+G tonight.
stay safe
Joe

[cherokee woman]

Also on the 4th of July menu today:

hamburgers and potato salad. Will also have french fries for Matt.

I think Mutt's red, white and blue doughnuts and Mama's muffins will
be enough for breakfast this morning. We'll all save room for the hotdogs,
hamburgers and french fries. But we'll also have plenty of potato chips!!

[railfan619]

Good morning everyone hope everyone has a safe and fun 4th.

[blhanel]

Boy, I sure am getting hungry reading this page. Wish it would stop raining here so I can grill something. My wife and I will be venturing into downtown Cedar Rapids tonight to watch their big fireworks display. A new twist this year- some will be shot off of the top of a building along with the usual main display from a barge in the river.[8D]

[CShaveRR]

Your rain is apparently headed our way. It appears that I'll have to drive to work (and of course I'll need to stop and put gas in the tank!). Keep your powder dry, everyone!

[railfan619]

Yeah we had just some rain here to but for right now it is pretty nice out side. But more rain is on the way just as long it does not ruin the firework display tonight. By the way who wants some thing from summerfest.[:D][4:-)]

[cherokee woman]

Getting the grill ready for the hamburgers and hotdogs and corn on the
cob. Don't have any red white & blue cake for the 4th, but we will have
strawberry shortcake. Baked a yellow cake in a rectangle cake pan, so
we can cut up into squares, and add the strawberries and whipped cream.

[railfan619]

That sounds very good save me a couple of hot dogs for tommorow. Have a good 4th and hope you all get to see some fireworks tonight and remember to stay safe.[4:-)]

[Anonymous]

Any one needs any ? answered on the old Conrail here in the NorthEast I was Conrail Police for 10 yrs till the CSX Merger then they got rid of 15 Special Agents going up to 26 Yrs on the job.

[JoeKoh]

Bobby
welcome to the forums.no questions yet but we do have some cool water for your dog.just watch out for ms. mookie.she can be a crabby kitty sometimes.
stay safe
Joe

[locomutt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Bobby K-9 RR Police

Any one needs any ? answered on the old Conrail here in the NorthEast I was Conrail Police for 10 yrs till the CSX Merger then they got rid of 15 Special Agents going up to 26 Yrs on the job.

Bobby, [#welcome] to both the Forums and the Diner.
Hope you will enjoy it here. Looking forward to hearing more from you,
the voice of experience is always welcome around here.

[cherokee woman]

[#welcome] to the Depot Diner and Coffee Shop, Bobby. Always glad
to have new people drop into the Diner! Hope you enjoyed the cookout
here at the Diner tonight. Did you take a look at all the neat model
layouts in the Coffee Shop?! The guys here take a whole lot of pride
in them, as they should.

How about a nice strawberry shortcake?!?!?!

[JoeKoh]

Strawberry shortcake after all we had for supper?sure why not.got milk?
stay safe
Joe

[cherokee woman]

Now Joe, you KNOW we've always got milk here!!

Good morning everyone!! Getting ready to go for produce.

Breakfast muffins are out on the warmer, staying warm for you all.

See you all in a bit.

[Mookie]

CRABBY KITTY????? What do you mean CRABBY!!!!!

Just because we celebrated WW3 last night in our neighborhood - and we are supposed to be a no noise fireworks city and I looked for potholes in the street this morning due to M1000's going off....

Whose CRABBY!

Morning all - I'm back.... [:X]

[locomutt]

Welcome back,CRABBY!!!!![:D]

In spite what you have already posted,I do hope you had a semi-enjoyable
holiday weekend. Hope "Millie" didn't find too many of those 'potholes'
this morning!!

[CopCarSS]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie
Just because we celebrated WW3 last night in our neighborhood - and we are supposed to be a no noise fireworks city and I looked for potholes in the street this morning due to M1000's going off....

So if an M250 is a 1/4 stick of dynamite, does that mean your neighbors were celebrating with full sticks of dynamite, Mook? And I heard that Nebraska was a quiet kind of place! [:p]

So I ventured down to Canon City for the weekend, and had a great time. It's been awhile since I've been there. I rode the Canon City and Royal Gorge route train. A really neat trip as always, but they did shake up the operations a bit. They used to run two F-7s back to back for power. Near the Rock and Rail Railroad (reporting marks RRRR...kind of remind me of a[oX)]) they would run around the train for the return trip. On this trip they had an F-7 MUed to an SD-9 for the uphill pull, and a single F-7 on the other end for the downhill run. It wasn't quite as aesthetically pleasing. Still a great ride though.

Also managed to try out the World's Scariest Skycoaster." A skycoaster is a deal sort of like bungee jumping, but not really. One is placed in a sling, and hoisted up around 50 feet or so. Unlike bungee jumping, the fall is in an arc, and so its a bit more like flying. What was great about this ride (as opposed to the Skycoaster I did at Six Flags Great America in Chicago) is that at the apex of the arc, one is over the Royal Gorge with nothing in front of oneself (the suspension is on your back). It's about as close to truly flying as I'll ever get...and what a view!

Next trip down there I do have another plan for some fun in the canyon. There's an ex-Viet Nam Helicopter Pilot running tours through the Gorge now. I saw him several times during the day, and all I can say is WOW! He goes low and fast through the canyon. Some of the banks and such that he did were out of this world. Of course, its probably a walk in the park for a Nam pilot, but it sure looks like a lot of fun to me!

Anyways, hope you all had a great holiday. I'll get some pics up hopefully today on the lunch break.

TTFN!

[JoeKoh]

welcome back mookie.we had our own version of fireworks shows out here in the country.matt and I watched and ate popcorn.
stay safe
Joe

[tree68]

Enjoyed the fireworks over the St Lawrence River last night - fired off from an island on which is located a replica of a Rhineland castle. Very picturesque!

Did so from the deck of a local fireboat - nice part about having lots of friends in the business. We had a front row seat!

The trip back to the dock after the event involved dodging some of the hundreds of boats also out to see the fireworks - less than last year because it was a Monday night, but a crowd nonetheless. The trip turned out to be quite eventful, though.

Not far from "home" the boat captain noticed a boat "not where it should be." Being a fireboat, we investigated and found 10 people on a big twin inboard which was taking on water. Rapidly.

We got them onto our boat and started dewatering, as well as our pump would do, while we waited for the Coast Guard to arrive. A Department of Environmental Conservation marine patrol (there was a lot of law enforcement on the river last night) took most of the boat's occupants ashore while we worked with the CG to keep the boat afloat long enough to escort it to a marina. It took two pumps to keep up with the water coming in - they holed the hull pretty well.

Once the boat was out of the water we could see the extent of the damage. They had hit a shoal and driven the propeller shaft hardware up through the bottom of the boat. If you're familiar with inboards, you can imagine what it looked like.

Had we not spotted them it would have turned into a rescue (more than it was) as I'm sure within 10 to 15 minutes the boat would have sunk. This was at around 11pm, remember, and there's not a lot of traffic on the river by then even with the holiday. Besides, they were out of the main channel, and being a holiday weekend, a passing boater might have assumed that all the waving was just revelry, unless, of course, it was by then obvious that the boat was sinking...

I really have to credit the Coast Guard - by and large they are young, but they worked they butts off keeping that boat afloat. They obviously love what they do.

Of course, our fireboat crew didn't do a bad job, especially considering that said crew consisted of the captain (and chief of their fire department), a relatively inexperienced member of the same fire department, a paramedic who had almost no boat experience, and moi, who does know that starboard is the right side of the pointy end of the boat... The captain had enough to worry about from the nautical side, answering our questions about where to find stuff, and working with the CG - the rest of us had to handle all the other stuff that had to be done, which we did quiet well, thank you. Not bad for a thrown-together team.

So a nice quiet 4th turned into a late night. I'll take that ice cream sandwich now.

[Mookie]

clarification - M1000 is what they call them on the police radio. I have no clue what an M-80 looks like - but I know it rattles windows.

Tree - another reason not to go near/on the water! I drink small amounts of water infrequently, just for that reason! No drowning here!

Dry...

[Junctionfan]

I'll have a coffee please. Just watched my cat chase a cricket through the house. She must be 11 years old now and still acts like a kitten sometimes.

[CShaveRR]

I could see at least six different municipal fireworks displays from my vantage point at work last night. Heard about four "grand finales" that I couldn't see. When I came home our neighbors were lighting and smoking up the sky--I went downstairs and didn't come up for a couple of hours.

Should be a pleasant day today; I'm in the mood for another train-watching picnic! Unfortunately, Tuesday is generally a slow day around here, and this having been a holiday weekend it might be a little slower than normal. Intermodal and coal traffic doesn't seem to follow those rules, though, so who knows?

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan

I'll have a coffee please. Just watched my cat chase a cricket through the house. She must be 11 years old now and still acts like a kitten sometimes.

Mine's 12+ and can be just as playful... (Try a laser pointer sometime.) She has finally discovered that if she wants attention I'm now the only game in town. Loves to have her head scratched and will "place" your hand with a gentle application of claws.

[locomutt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan

I'll have a coffee please. Just watched my cat chase a cricket through the house. She must be 11 years old now and still acts like a kitten sometimes.

Don't let age deceive you;Beside the fact we celebrated America's birthday
yesterday,CW & I had the "Honors" of providing a birthday party to two of our
cats.No. 1 turned 18,and No.3 14. They still think of age in terms of months,not years!!
DO NOT LET No. 1 anywhere near a mouse;catnip,or real!! I almost[xx(]feel
sorry for the mouse. (NOT!!)

[blhanel]

Wish we could have a pet to enjoy here, but my wife is allergic to cats and afraid of dogs. Oh well, I'll play with the friends' and relatives' pets when we visit them and not worry about caring for them... Hey, does the diner serve Mountain Dew? I like my caffiene good and cold!

[mudchicken]

....and set on STUN[:D]

[Mookie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

Wish we could have a pet to enjoy here, but my wife is allergic to cats and afraid of dogs. Oh well, I'll play with the friends' and relatives' pets when we visit them and not worry about caring for them... Hey, does the diner serve Mountain Dew? I like my caffiene good and cold!

See...you are smarter already and just came in the diner! Pets are wonderful, but a lot of work!

Mt Dew - beverage of choice after coffee! Even the diet is decent!

So come to the diner every so often and enjoy our menagerie! We have cats/dogs and an occasional pig er....pain!

Mz Catty!

[}:)]

[CSXrules4eva]

Lets see what happend to me yesterday. OH I went to the fireworks downtown in Philly at the Art Musam (spelling) on the Ben Franklin Parkway. OH my I should of brought my video camera down because so many crazy and interesting things happened. First they close the main accesses to the Parkway Martain Luther King Dr and Kelly Drive, so ovisiously the only alternative is I 76 (east). So of course that was jammed packed (go figure), and it took me and my gandmom 30 mins just to go 1/4 mile down to the next exit were we parked. Then we had to walk 3 miles on West River Drive aka Martin Luther King Drive, allong the Schkill (spelling) River. We get closer to the Art Musam then I see people siting on the overpass bridges and I say to myself, "Out of all the years I've been going to Philly's fireworks I haven' t thought about that!!" I noticed while the fireworks were going traffic on both sides of the 76 expressway were at a stand still. The poor police were trying to get to an emergancy and only got less than 1/8 of a mile in about 1 hr. Anyway, after the fireworks were over about 5 seconds later I hear a freight train come through and I mean the engineer leaned on the horn, he/she did this off and on for about 10 mins. That was awsome!!!!

[CShaveRR]

Darn! Just missed Sarah again.

Between "my sister" Mookie and me, I think the Diner goes through more Mountain Dew (diet here, thanks) than any other soft drink. I prefer the caffeine-free variety (imported from Michigan) myself, but probably drink more of the regular high-powered stuff.

Had a nice train-watching picnic at lunch with my wife. The only problem: no trains! The scoot was lined up but running late (that "heavy passenger" was being loaded again!), and was on the center track due to rail testing on its regular track.

[Junctionfan]

Do your cats use your stomach or even lower as a spring board to get to the top of the couch you are lying on?[B)][soapbox] Mine does............