I feel MC's loss - been there myself. My sympathies to all as well.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
....And our sympathies to M C as well for the canine loss. They become a full member of one's family. We're a pup family as well, as my Avatar shows.
And Carl....Speaking of your car remembering you....Ours has to do that too. If it's locked, and either Jean or I walk up to it....and touch the door handle, it will unlock. {If we have the key in our pocket}.
Quentin
Our car isn't nearly that sophisticated, Quentin. We had been told by our trusted mechanic not to leave the car without running it for more than three or four days at a time. For some reason this time, we went seven straight days of either walking or biking everywhere we needed to go. But the car behaved well for us this morning, and the mileage was good when we got gas.
We met Gus when we were out in Colorado over four years ago. He had the two younger boyz doing most of the leg and alarm work for him even then.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
tree68 I feel MC's loss - been there myself. My sympathies to all as well.
And mine as well.
(Happy belated b-day wishes to Chris)
Nance-CCABW/LEI
“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” --Will Rogers
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right! --unknown
Same here, offering our sympathies to all concerned.
Afternoon all.....
Happy belated birthday to all concerned, and condolences to all who lost since last time I was in.
Taking some off time in a hotel room tonight, needed to get out of the truck and unwind, been a rough last two weeks, finally figured out the truck, apparently something went through both turbo chargers and lodged in the muffler, plugging it. So, I now have two brand new turbos and a new used muffler, and the truck has run better than it has in three months. This last week was an exercise in making up for lost revenue, ran 2500 miles from Monday morning thru Friday morning, and have an approximately 800 mile run lined up for the weekend.
Ran up and down I-95 from New York to Providence, along the Northeast Corridor. Never saw anything from Amtrak (think they were mocking me).
Dan: Soon as I get closer to WI, will figure out something on loading the software you wanted into your computer.....
Randy Vos
"Ever have one of those days where you couldn't hit the ground with your hat??" - Waylon Jennings
"May the Lord take a liking to you and blow you up, real good" - SCTV
Sounds like a heck of a weekend Randy...glad to hear that your truck is working better. As to that software, many thanks...you just brought a smile to my face. We've got a bit of wind today, 40ish mph, so things are blowing around quite well outside...one good reason to have a bit of extra 'ballast'...in RR terms.
Off to see if I can shoot some steel with my Rebel...
Dan
rvos1979 Ran up and down I-95 from New York to Providence, along the Northeast Corridor. Never saw anything from Amtrak (think they were mocking me).
I have similar problems...I mention the good days here on the Forum, but if somebody were to come and look for himself, I would be embarrassed and wonder where they all were hiding.
Today was a good day. We found a quilt store with some nearby tracks, and I had five trains in rapid succession (and even managed to get a little time in the store with Pat).
And on Saturday, we found a quilt show (some really interesting stuff) and Carl and Pat got a cab ride in our RS18u besides!
Yep - Carl and Pat wandered east into NY. After a morning ride to Thendara from Utica, I met them for lunch, followed by a visit to Old Forge hardware, and whilst out doing a little sightseeing before the last pumpkin train of the day, we found the quilt exhibition.
I joined them in the cab on the way out to the pumpkin patch, where I had to resume my duties as Patch Master, and unfortunately had to leave them on their own for the return to Thendara and a cross-platform change of trains to reboard their train back to Utica.
After the kids visit the pumpkin patch, one lucky kid gets to ride the cab back to Thendara (with a parent), so Carl and Pat rode back to Thendara in one of the coaches (or maybe in the baggage car - it's a neat place to ride!)
It was really great meeting them. Next time, it'll be on their turf!
zardoz rvos1979: Ran up and down I-95 from New York to Providence, along the Northeast Corridor. Never saw anything from Amtrak (think they were mocking me). The same thing happens to me when I traverse hwy 41 in Wisconsin--I can go from Slinger all the way to Oshkosh and not see one train. But when Dan goes out, he can't keep up with all the traffic on the rails.
rvos1979: Ran up and down I-95 from New York to Providence, along the Northeast Corridor. Never saw anything from Amtrak (think they were mocking me).
On a related note...the Oshkosh Bridge & Yard projects have started. A link to my Yard Project pictures (Flickr):http://flic.kr/s/aHsjvrX4Fi
A link to my Bridge Project pictures (Flickr):http://flic.kr/s/aHsjwwo36U
My sympathies as well....even though us dog owners/lovers gripe about having to walk them on those -10F nights and when they wake us to "go out" on those frosty mornings (seemingly always at 5 a.m.)...still though, a day without a dog is a like a day without sunshine.
Finally! I'm finally able to participate in the Forums again. I couldn't get in last night, but it was up and open this morning. (I could see what others were saying, but it wouldn't accept my login attempts, despite the fact that I was getting the Newswire and everything else.) What a weekend to miss out on!
Sunday was the birthday of two of the heavy-hitters on the Forum: one of them was Larry, AKA "Tree68".
Congratulations to the Blysards on the birth of their second grandchild!
Nance is out of the hospital, after a stay over the wrong-wrong-wrong weekend.
The absence of Forum did help us a little bit in keeping our weekend plans secret, which worked out perfectly. We decided to go to New York after Nance's plans to visit us out here fell through. We had planned to surprise her Sunday at the railroad museum for which she volunteers, but found out Friday that she was in the hospital. So we just surprised her there instead. I think it made her day (we talked up a storm for a couple of hours).
Other details of the trip: Thursday afternoon, we saw the Mad River and NKP Museum at Bellevue, Ohio. Thursday evening, Berea, Ohio--four trains in less than an hour, and the first hint of what the week was going to be like for unusual equipment, courtesy of CSX.
Friday morning: Conneaut, Ohio (a CSX train, and as close to the B&LE facility as we could figure out how to get...we saw nothing). Erie: A couple of new 8900-series Canadian Pacific units on the GE test track. North East, Pennsylvania. A lovely quilt store, just around the corner from the parallel main lines of CSX (nee-NYC) and NS (nee-NKP); five trains blew through there while Pat was in the store.
Saturday: Boarded the Adirondack Scenic Railroad's train in Utica for a rainy but spectacular trip to Thendara. Heavy rains over the previous days brought stream levels and speeds up to make them a lot more spectacular. At Thendara we met Larry (first time face-to-face, after years of knowing each other on the Forum). He took us across the street to the inn for lunch, then for a tour of Old Forge, a touristy town a short distance away. They have a general store that's the Most General Store in the state--it included a yarn shop, a bookstore, and a few other specialty shops (I got a couple of books there, and viewed for the first time anywhere a 50-state collection of DeLorme Atlases for sale). At the new arts center in Thendara a quilt show was going on--caught all of us by surprise, and there were some pretty interesting quilts all over the place. We then took a different train out to the pumpkin patch, with four people in the cab of the ex-CP RS-18: the engineer, Larry, Pat, and me. We rode the coach back to Thendara (one lucky kid and his dad got to ride the cab instead of us for the return trip). Larry presented me with another book on the history of the line we were riding, and we returned to Utica after dark. One CSX train went past while we were on the enclosed passageway over the tracks there.
Sunday: No real train chasing, though we gave CSX every chance we could between Utica and Rochester. We visited Nance in the afternoon.
Monday: A trip to Henrietta to have a look at Nance's museum, the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum, connected by rail to the New York Museum of Transportation. Then a trip to a fabric store in East Rochester (Nance had recommended it to Pat), which happened to be a parking-lot away from the CSX main line. We didn't see any signs of NYC's old Despatch Shops in East Rochester (home of thousands of MDT reefers and all kinds of NYC equipment), though there was a Despatch Street. One westbound freight, that we encountered a couple more times on our way east. Lunch at North East again...no trains, but we discovered the Lake Shore Railway Museum--they actually have one of the three South Shore Little Joes there! Supper was at The Station in Defiance; our guests were Joe and Matt, plus a couple of CSX stack trains. Had we had anything but pizza, Matt would have had our fries, for sure!
Today: The obligatory pilgrimage to Shipshewana, Indiana, was followed by a drive along the old NYC main line (here operated by NS) from Goshen to Elkhart, along the north edge of their yard there, and on into Mishawaka and South Bend before we headed home. We saw several NS freights, and witnessed the arrival of the Grand Elk Railroad's freight from Grand Rapids.
Earlier I mentioned unusual freight cars on CSX. They seem to have the garbage market pretty well covered; said garbage is usually carried in high-side steel gondolas, many of which are old coal gons. Some, however, are old Detroit Edison 125-ton aluminum coal gons, and there are two companies that have new-built cars from National Steel Car. In all, I got a good half-dozen new reporting marks for companies operating these cars.
Well, I barley dare to post after that report but I will enough to say thanks again, hope you enjoyed your birthday (and Larry did his, too, along with all the others celebrating recently!!), glad you had a safe trip, and THANKS again bc I got out Mon--it must have been that your visit fixed me right up!!! I am sure that's what it was, or perhaps the pleasant shock of it all. AMAZING!!!
As noted earlier, it was great to visit with Carl and Pat. Wish I'd had more time - but I had a pumpkin patch to run, too! Glad to hear that they enjoyed the scenery - it is spectacular!
One of the books Carl picked up at Old Forge Hardware was Volume 2 of the third edition of a very hands-on effort by a now-retired professor of forestry. His hobby has been (and still is) studying the railroads of the Adirondacks. His research has been phenomenal, and continues. The book is filled not only with narrative about the lines and the stations, towns, and industries thereon, but with hundreds of hand-drawn schematics of those lines.
The first edition of this work was just one volume. The second edition was a very thick one volume. The third edition got broken up into three volumes, plus he's adding a fourth covering the railroads of the Catskills.
While the information is comprehensive, he's found errors and omissions in them himself (including one or two with the help of yours truly), which will probably lead to an addendum, or fodder for a fourth edition...
I gave Carl a book about the Adirondack Division. He also picked up a book about the cat that hung around in the Thendara station for some time...
Lots of reading for the cold months ahead!
Nance - Glad you're feeling better! One of these days we'll get onto each other's railroads...
CShaveRR Sunday was the birthday of two of the heavy-hitters on the Forum: one of them was Larry, AKA "Tree68".
zardoz, perhaps someday you'll appreciate that the supposed oversight may have been a hidden kindness - i.e., if no one remembers a birthday, does it really count ???
Must be some master list somewhere... I'm amazed how some people know everyone's birthday.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Or perhaps, you were the other unnamed heavy hitter?!
HB anyway!
Jim, my deepest apologies! I seem to remember going through this last year, and even that didn't jog me to remember.
Larry's is easy...
Willy, Mudchicken (Boss Hen's spouse), and Aimee were all in the Camp Mookie Summit of 2006, which was held right around that time (even BNSF cooperated by sending lots of trains for the celebration). Chris May's birthday falls on the same day as Pat's parents' anniversary.
So belated greetings, Jim (and remind us again about the date!). Tom, when's yours? And Paul?
A true diplomat remembers one's birthday and forgets one's age...I'm halfway there.
__________________
Brutal weather out there today; wet and windy. Closer to the lake they're worried about wave action along Lake Shore Drive. If I can catch a decent break in the precipitation, I'll get out and run some errands. Meanwhile, I've spent the entire morning morning with a block of fascinating royal-blue gons that were rebuilt for garbage service by adding 27 inches to their height (and I'm not done with the back-history work yet!).
CShaveRR So belated greetings, Jim (and remind us again about the date!). Tom, when's yours? And Paul? A true diplomat remembers one's birthday and forgets one's age...I'm halfway there.
If I tell you, then it won't come true!
Okay, I looked it up. Jim's is on the 15th. So happy birthday, Jim, less than a week late! I think that the 16th concluded the big barrage, until someone tells us differently.
Nothing dramatic to report...I was just waiting for my equipment information files to get backed up (I have nearly 3000 files and folders now!). Just happened, so I'll toddle off to bed.
Amtrak is detouring over the UP between Chicago and Council Bluffs again this weekend. Guess who gets the first leg (CB-Boone) on #6.
Jeff
Congratulations, Jeff! And have a quick, smooth trip!
I'll actually be in a position to (hopefully) see the trains. Our local Historical Society is hosting a Civil War re-enactment today and tomorrow at or near the museum directly across from the tracks. I plan to get a box seat for rail action during the post-skirmish pig roast this evening!
No luck with the Zephyr(s) yesterday; the battle took longer than expected . Today, however, I'll be in a good spot from noon on. Perhaps I'll make a list of what I see for posting later.
Thanks everyone.
Here's to you
Here's a few of my recent shots from Flickr. As always, C&C welcome.
Most of these are taken in or around Oshkosh, WI on CN's Neenah Sub.
Oct 19, 2011
Q116 heads south through the Oshkosh "Yard":
http://flic.kr/p/axnvGo
Changes In Oshkosh
May 26, 2011
L526 works Blended Waxes in the daylight, which is uncommon for this train. This is just before the work at Blended started. A caboose (seen here) used to be required to work this job.
http://flic.kr/p/9MyXzd
October 22, 2011
All the work is done, save for a chain-link fence on the rail side of the spots for the tank cars:
http://flic.kr/p/ay8MfZ
To see all the pictures I took of the project see here:http://flic.kr/s/aHsjvrX4Fi
L576 comes off of the Neenah Sub mainline and enters the Neenah Controlled Siding where it meets L595:http://flic.kr/p/aybCZJ
Locos are shuffled at Shops Yard, featuring three generation of GE power:http://flic.kr/p/aybDfo
October 23, 2011
Q199 heads north and brings a GTW Geep (GTW 5856, OLS) with it:http://flic.kr/p/ayksJ6
Lake Winnebago is pretty still, unlike the southbound potash train a few feet away:http://flic.kr/p/ayo9ZL
Thanks for looking. More can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/danbraun/
Second weekend (and the event as a whole) of the Pumpkin Trains is "in the can." At least it didn't rain today, although the "suggested" sunshine decided to wait until right after the last train left the Pumpkin Patch...
The treat today was a trip up five miles of our out of service track via hi-rail. We hope to have this particular stretch open next spring, and what a treat our riders will be in for. I've got a bunch of pictures, but I haven't really had a chance to look through them for suitable candidates. I was driving, so my "partner in crime" managed to fill up one of my memory cards, and most of another - lots of images to review.
I also secured my video camera to the outside of the hi-rail and let it record the whole trip. That'll take a little longer to process, but I'll get it up on YouTube soon, I hope.
The most prominent feature of the trip is a number of large rock cuts and sweeping curves. With the leaves down, there were some interesting panoramas of the surrounding area, but many won't be visible with leaves on the trees.
This section is almost entirely a grade - about 2%, and it shows...
We also hit the highest point on the entire New York Central just west (railroad north) of Big Moose. Which leads one to the obvious observation that our trip back to Carter was "all downhill from here..."
Dan, we have to make it up your way sometime and let you show us some of these places. (Don't think we can do it before Thanksgiving, and after that the snow will be too deep. )
Larry, I'm glad you got at least one good weekend, weather-wise, for the pumpkin patch. And that new stretch sounds like it will be spectacular! (That's the problem with these post-retirement vacations...we're accumulating more and more places that we want to go back to. Eventually staying at home is going to be our vacation!) One thought...if foliage is blocking great vistas during the travel season, how much of this can legally be removed from your right-of-way?
___________________
Yesterday afternoon, while I was "minding the store", with cannon-fire in the background, I decided to make a note about the trains that went by. Being there as long as I was gave a chance for busy times and slow times, and the variety was pretty good, too.
1151: The West Chicago local, westbound, with four units, including CNW 8701 (wonder what happened to CNW 8646--those two, the only units still in full C&NW paint, are usually together).
1214: Westbound CWEX empty coal gons.
1252: Eastbound manifest, possibly from Des Moines.
1310: Eastbound Metra scoot (slightly late).
1320: Westbound Metra scoot.
1353: Westbound stack train, mostly Hub Group containers.
1442: Westbound Amtrak 5 (California Zephyr), detour move. An SD70 was leading the two Amtrak units, for ATC/Cab signal purposes.
1457: Westbound auto racks.
1511: Eastbound Metra scoot (slightly late).
1518: Westbound Metra scoot.
1525: Eastbound stack train, mostly EMP and UMAX containers.
1529: Another eastbound stacker (five units), mostly Hub Group containers.
1534: Westbound empty hoppers (the "system mix" of D&RGW, UP, MP, CNW, and CTRN hoppers).
1547: Eastbound manifest from North Platte, with UP, CSXT, and SP-painted power on the point).
1550: Westbound manifest.
1605: Westbound auto racks.
1627: Westbound WPSX hoppers and gons.
1720: Westbound Metra scoot, followed immediately by the eastbound scoot, this time about 15 minutes late.
Only the CWEX and WPSX empty coal trains had distributed power this time.
So, never did I have to wait more than an hour for things to go by (on a weekday the scoots would have run every hour instead of every other hour), and the 3:00 hour yielded seven trains. Total, 19 trains in 4 1/2 hours, or an average of one every 15 minutes.
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