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What is your avatar?

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  • Member since
    March 2016
  • From: Burbank IL (near Clearing)
  • 13,540 posts
Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, February 12, 2013 7:00 AM

My avatar is a westbound South Shore train stopped at the old Hegewisch station, the only suburban stop in Chicago not served by Metra.  I grew up about a block from the South Shore where it crosses the former CWI (now abandoned) and former NKP (now NS) near the Ford plant.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: Defiance Ohio
  • 13,319 posts
Posted by JoeKoh on Tuesday, February 12, 2013 6:35 AM

mine is a B&O caboose in Deshler Ohio.It's not near the trainpark but a city park near the pool north of town.It has been the subject of vandalism.So the Bartlow twp Historical society and local residents have come together to get the caboose moved.They have a place and a contractor to move it.They just need to get through all the other red tape so it can be done.

stay safe

Joe

ps mookie here is your milk(my great niece is bringing the girl scout cookiesSmile, Wink & Grin)

Deshler Ohio-crossroads of the B&O Matt eats your fries.YUM! Clinton st viaduct undefeated against too tall trucks!!!(voted to be called the "Clinton St. can opener").

 

  • Member since
    December 2003
  • From: Oswego IL
  • 132 posts
Posted by dm9538 on Tuesday, February 12, 2013 12:28 AM

Mine is an Athearn BB GP38-2 that I converted to what I call an early GP39-2 paper air filter box and all. It is painted and lettered for my model railroad, the Brookfield & Western. I built 7 of these for my RR about 20 years ago. Still have 5 more to go...... someday.

Dan Metzger

  • Member since
    December 2001
  • From: Sunny (mostly) San Diego
  • 1,920 posts
Posted by ChuckCobleigh on Tuesday, February 12, 2013 12:17 AM

San Diego Trolley at the Seaport Village station, taken May 10, 2005 a little after two in the afternoon.  It's actually an out of service train that was heading back down to the trolley barns, maybe had been used for training or something.

  • Member since
    February 2005
  • From: Vancouver Island, BC
  • 23,330 posts
Posted by selector on Tuesday, February 12, 2013 12:13 AM

I have used several avatars over the eight years I have been registered here.  The newest is a squinty version of this shot of my Sunset Models HO Canadian Pacific Selkirk 2-10-4 on my former layout's scratch-built (and real creosote-stained) scale trestle:

Crandell

  • Member since
    September 2002
  • From: Rockton, IL
  • 4,821 posts
Posted by jeaton on Monday, February 11, 2013 10:54 PM

Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 Big Boy, #4017, National Railroad Museum, Green Bay, WI

"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics

  • Member since
    August 2005
  • From: At the Crossroads of the West
  • 11,013 posts
Posted by Deggesty on Monday, February 11, 2013 10:35 PM

Mine is Buddy, a half yellow lab-half? my wife and I had for nine years. I am considering asking my daughter to take a picture of me and replace Buddy with it after I move in with her and her daughter. All in favor say, "Yea;" all opposed say, "Don't frighten us!" She does have an industrial strength camera.

Johnny

  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Central Iowa
  • 6,901 posts
Posted by jeffhergert on Monday, February 11, 2013 10:35 PM

Mine is a picture I took about 30 years ago.  Some time between April 1980 and November 1984.  It was taken on the westbound Milwaukee Road's Wilton (IA) local, or "patrol" in MILW speak.  It was taken about a mile or so west of Durant, IA, looking back towards Durant.  

If anyone has been paying attention, you know I'm a big RI fan, so why a MILW picture?  Well things aren't all they seem to be.  Yes, it is a MILW Rd train.  You may have a hard time finding the spot on a MILW map, though.  Before April 1980, it was part of the RI's Chicago-Co Bluffs-Denver main line.  Atter November 1984 it became the Iowa Interstate, who operates it still.  The agent at Durant (a long time friend) and the crew on the train are all ex-RI, interim employees of the MILW Rd who operated Davenport to Wilton (steel mini mill) and on to Iowa City.

A bright spot in an otherwise dark time for a RI fan.

Jeff   

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Monday, February 11, 2013 10:32 PM

Mine is, predictably and appropriately, the locomotive design that is the quintessence of mad-scientist 'advanced' steam technology.

The word is not 'Thunderbird' ... although a little of that might help the situation.

The word is "Gilderfluke".  (And not a parody of Baldwin 60000, either...)

As Eli himself would have said, "if you can't have fun with yourself, life's missing more than a little something."

  • Member since
    August 2008
  • From: Calgary AB. Canada
  • 2,298 posts
Posted by AgentKid on Monday, February 11, 2013 10:27 PM

My avatar is a photo I took of the former CPR Shepard station, which was relocated to Heritage Park during an eastward expansion of Calgary's City Limits. At one time it was the first manned station east of Calgary, on the transcontinental line. Named after the Langdon & Shepard Engineering Company, which built the original mainline from Winnipeg, MB to Calgary.

Why I picked it, is because it is the same structure type as our station at Irricana, where I lived from 1956 to 1965. In Canada, unlike on US RR's, close to 90% of the stations on the CPR were also the homes of the Station Agents. Due to space constraints in the park, the low end of the building to the right of the chimney, which was the freight shed, was shortened by about one third of its' length. This was an actual prototypical reduction performed on many stations during the first two years of WWII when there was a desperate shortage of finished lumber for use in military buildings. It was done on a Subdivision by Subdivision basis but the project never got as far as the stations on the Langdon Sub. where Irricana was situated.

If you could blow up the photo big enough, you would see two windows on the second storey above the office. Those would have been where my parents bedroom was. My brother and I had bedrooms on the back side of the floor. On the main floor at the far left, was the waiting room, which ran from the front to the back of the building. To the right of that, on the front half of the floor was the office, and the heated freight room. Behind those two rooms, along the back, were our kitchen, dining room, and living room. We had a nice yard out back. We moved out in January 1965. In an absolute surprise to my Dad, the notice of closure of the station was posted on April 1st and it was closed on July 1, 1965. The Sub. was abandoned and the station demolished about 1973.

The house my parents bought when we moved from Irricana into Calgary was finally sold last fall. It was surprising to my brother and me how much stuff my Mom had hung on to from our time in the station.

Bruce

So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.

"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere"  CP Rail Public Timetable

"O. S. Irricana"

. . . __ . ______

  • Member since
    December 2005
  • From: Cardiff, CA
  • 2,930 posts
Posted by erikem on Monday, February 11, 2013 10:18 PM

Mine is Durango & Silverton 481 taken on the high line last spring. The book Narrow Gauge in the Rockies by Beebe and Clegg had an engraving of a southbound D&RG train on the high line and I'd been wanting to see that ever since buying the book in the early 1970's.

- Erik

  • Member since
    April 2007
  • From: Iowa
  • 3,293 posts
Posted by Semper Vaporo on Monday, February 11, 2013 9:21 PM

Mine is my RR's logo (CMBY RY) with the "B" and "R", and the "Y"'s interlaced one above the other.  The Steam Locomotive headlight crosses the bottom of the "RY".  Different renditions of the logo have various phrases in the beam of the headlight.  Early on it was "The Straight line Short line".  Presently it is "Semper Vaporo" ("Forever Steam").  There have been others, but they were so short lived that I don't remember them.

 

{Sorry, the host site lost all my images.  Not only that, but I changed the avitar to the front of a wood burning steamer that I drew using MS Paint.)

Semper Vaporo

Pkgs.

  • Member since
    June 2001
  • From: US
  • 13,488 posts
Posted by Mookie on Monday, February 11, 2013 9:08 PM

Brother Carl - owner of the Lounge - gave me mine many years ago.  Mookie must spend a lot of time at the beauty shop, since she is pink.  But what you probably can't see is that she is holding two milk pails with the inscription "Will Work For MilK". 

And that is true - for a glass of milk, I would provide the cookies Shy

(thanx BC)

She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw

  • Member since
    October 2006
  • From: Allentown, PA
  • 9,810 posts
Posted by Paul_D_North_Jr on Monday, February 11, 2013 9:06 PM

Me leaning against a Jackson (Harsco) 6700 tamper that was tied-up on a dead siding for the holidays at Phoenix, AZ about 3 years back.  They're wonderfully productive and useful machines (as long as they're working . . . ) and don't get enough attention in the railfan or induustry press, IMHO.  I'd rather have or spend quality time on one of them than a locomotive !

- Paul North.   

"This Fascinating Railroad Business" (title of 1943 book by Robert Selph Henry of the AAR)
  • Member since
    March 2002
  • 9,265 posts
Posted by edblysard on Monday, February 11, 2013 8:41 PM

Uhhh...its me, myself and I.

23 17 46 11

  • Member since
    April 2002
  • From: Northern Florida
  • 1,429 posts
Posted by SALfan on Monday, February 11, 2013 8:31 PM

Don't have one - I'm still in Murphy's Witness Protection Program (in my case sometimes the "Witless" Protection Program).

  • Member since
    December 2001
  • From: Northern New York
  • 25,021 posts
Posted by tree68 on Monday, February 11, 2013 8:25 PM

Mine is a pin with our railroad herald and the legend "Trains are Good," a refutation of a group who feels our ROW would better serve the public as a hiking trail.

LarryWhistling
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...

  • Member since
    January 2002
  • From: Canterlot
  • 9,575 posts
Posted by zugmann on Monday, February 11, 2013 8:13 PM

This month it is Rigby from the "Regular Show".

As far as significance?  Rigby is cool - and I always have something animation-related on here.

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

  • Member since
    May 2005
  • From: S.E. South Dakota
  • 13,569 posts
What is your avatar?
Posted by Murphy Siding on Monday, February 11, 2013 8:06 PM

     A lot of members' avatars have a train, or something train related.  Trouble is, they're too small for me to see exactly what they are.  Anyone care to elaborate what their avatar is, and it's significance?

     My avatar is a drumhead(?) from a train *I think*(?)  in the Colorado Railroad Museum(?).  The significance is, that I'm a dummy and don't know how to put an avatar on my account.  So,  I asked  the best photographer on the forum for help.  Chris- CopcarSS kind enough to give me a nice, colorful avatar

Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.

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