Aw, Jeff. One of my all time favorites. And the 1st Peter Sellers movie was seriously funny! Especially the chase at the end!
Won't even mention the "roadrunner"....
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
we are down 2 less than 100 florida cougers. a very limited gene pool. on the verge of extiction.
AgentKid Carl, I hadn't read before that Potash Corp. had cars with GACX reporting marks. Thank you for that info.
Carl, I hadn't read before that Potash Corp. had cars with GACX reporting marks. Thank you for that info.
Cars in GACX series 31500-31935 should all be in pink. Or, as it is actually identified on some of the cars, "Sour Cherry".
AgentKidYou folks in the Chicago area that are experiencing this most recent cold snap, be careful out there.
The official low here this morning was 11 below; I think our mileage may have varied. We are showing 8 below in Lombard right now, after the sun's been up for three hours. We have nowhere to go, and plenty to do. Our house is quite chilly, so we're moving slowly. It took only one of me to change two light bulbs, so I've accomplished something today, anyway.So far, nothing drastic or dramatic on Metra, either yesterday or today. Maybe they learned a thing or two last time.I don't know how, or why, but the village's plows managed to find some ice/snow to put at the foot of our driveway. I'd cleaned that stuff yesterday after they'd been through, and the streets looked fine. Since it would probably require a chipper to remove anyway, I'll wait and use said chipper when it's warmer out...maybe this weekend.
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)
So, you don't feel chipper about chipping? I would always wait until it was warmer to begin playing Indian.
Speaking of having your cleaned driveway re-covered, one morning as we were going to church, I saw a man blowing snow off his sidewalk--and a snowplow came up behind him and threw snow on him.
Johnny
So apparently CSX scrapped a 80mac that had wreck damage.
Ya know, I am a railfan, buff, foamer, what have you - but still. I can't believe the people practically crying on a certain facebook page. Seriously people - it is a machine. Get a life.
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
floridad we are down 2 less than 100 florida cougers. a very limited gene pool. on the verge of extiction.
Nobody in an official capacity wants to confirm or deny the existance of such cats in the Adirondacks - and it's the same with the wolves. Most folks are pretty sure that both are roaming the woods, but with as many city slickers as frequent the forest (along with their vest pocket dogs), there would probably be a great hue and cry to get rid of them...
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...
I had a Cougar cross the road in front of me near Grayling, MI. At first thought it was a deer, but deer don't have three foot long tails. Thats probably the only one I'll ever see in Michigan.
Norm
We are looking up for UFO's and we should be looking all around us!
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Tin Shoes! - How Ya been?
Still lurking- tried to post a picture of a mountain lion that was taken by a trail camera near Winterset, IA back in October, but somehow messed it up, and then couldn't delete the post. Grrr...
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
Getting ready to trudge through my weekly errand. It's downright balmy out there (14 above), and I may linger trackside for a bit, if the signals are favorable.An article appeared in Crain's Chicago Business, a weekly paper that I seldom look at. Maybe I should start...http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140125/ISSUE01/301259979/this-brew-crew-keeps-trainloads-of-beer-from-freezing#| I know both of those guys...Billy Diamond didn't work the hump much, but Matt Groesch used to come up there from time to time. I'm pretty sure that the job they're on is a remote job.
CShaveRRIt's downright balmy out there (14 above), and I may linger trackside for a bit, if the signals are favorable.
One was, and I got lucky. As I began my last bank errand, the outbound scoot came into town on Track 3. Tracks 1 and 2 were going to have some crossover action at Grace from an eastbound of sorts.I had to cross the tracks again to return from the bank. The crossover move was still lined up, but another westbound was coming on 3! Turned out to be a light engine. It went by, the bells at the depot stopped ringing, and I decided to leave for the museum. I heard the bells at the Elizabeth Street crossing stop ringing, too. Five seconds later, they started again...time to turn around!The eastbound train appeared to be a single UP locomotive pulling two scoot cars. Then I noticed the flat cars at both ends of the "passenger consist". What we had were two brand-new cars for Metra Electric being delivered from the Nippon Sharyo U.S.A. plant in Rochelle (numbers 1295 and 1296, if anyone's keeping tra ck). The flat cars are needed because these electric cars have their own coupling system. I wish I could have seen how the adaptation was made, whether these cars have some sort of convertible coupler or a permanent electric coupler on one end. Maybe I'll get the chance again...or maybe I should get out to Rochelle!I was really ready for some train-watching, in that I'd brought along my tickets. So I took the next eastbound scoot into Elmhurst, and on arrival was immediately rewarded with the westbound scoot, and a manifest freight leaving the yard, following it on on track 3. It seemed like just a few minutes later (I was absorbed in a newspaper) when the gates went down again. Another westbound on Track 2, this one an empty EDGX coal-gon train. Back to the paper, but who-o-o-o-sh! Another train was really moving on track 3. Turned out to be a train of empty NORX coal gons, coming from around the yard with plenty of momentum. He was there and gone before the EDGX train had picked up much speed. The EDGX train had an unusual array of motive power: one unit on the point and two DPs on the hind end (they usually run with one and one).After those two trains disappeared, I noticed that the eastbound scoot was lined up (about 15 minutes ahead of the fact). There was a headlight from another westbound ready to leave the yard, but with that lineup he wasn't going to go anywhere. So I went to the hobby shop, bought a magazine (thought about buying a spare February issue of Trains for propaganda purposes--really liked that issue!--but decided not to). I walked over to the far platform to catch my westbound scoot. The eastbound pulled in and left, the freight was ready to go out of the yard, and the westbound scoot made a 2-to-3 crossover ahead of him.Frustration on the way home...an eastbound manifest came through as we left Villa Park. I hope he didn't have too many good cars on him; the ones that I could see might have given me something to look up had I been able to read numbers, but the opposing speed was well over 100 (and the range less than 20 feet), so fugiddabahdit! That manifest had a DP unit on the rear.I got off the train and headed for home. At Finley Road, an eastbound auto-rack train was staging on Track 2. I wondered whether he was waiting for that westbound to come out of the yard. Track 3 had a flashing yellow at Finley by this time. Before I got a block away from the tracks, the gates went down, and the westbound--intermodal...double-stacked containers and some UPS trailers, among others--came through. I decided to head home...didn't especially need to see the auto racks. But things were moving fairly well. Maybe I'll go back before the snow tomorrow.
Urbanized ForagingOpossums?
holy rambling raccoons BATMAN!!!
UFR just doesn't have the same ring as UFO. And don't forget UFD and UFC. Deer and Crows - lots of crows to keep the offal cleaned up.
Awful offal?
Deggesty Awful offal?
Back from a "kill-the-cabin-fever" day in Indiana. A quilt store in Michigan City was holding a "sit and sew" session--just brig your own projects, work on them, and hang out in a fabric store. I figured that I could put some of the time to good use on my hobby. We went to our favorite restaurant in Gary for breakfast, and got to the quilt shop by about 10:30. We parked the car in front of the store, went in, got to meet Henry the Dog and Eddie the Baby (3 months), and I left Pat there among new friends. I began the trudge back to the South Shore's spur by the power plant, where a coal train of antiquated (steel, not aluminum) hoppers and gons was sitting, I walked the length of that train (somewhere around 100 cars, roughly a mile), and got prior numbers off most of the cars that had them. Included were a few surprises and a few frustrations (who took the ACI labels off those old Chicago & Illinois Midland hoppers?). But after walking a half mile to the train and a mile along the train, I had to get back to the store. It was about another mile, because I could make it the third side of a triangle. The whole episode took about two hours. Found lots of neat old houses in Michigan City (some reminded me of Muskegon...they were both ports of sorts), but they need a lot more TLC than the ones in Muskegon.When I got back, Pat figured she'd need another couple of hours at the store, so I took the car and went to Chesterton. No trains in sight, so I went to one of my favorite fast-food chains for a late, but light lunch. Unfortunately, this one didn't have wi-fi, so I was limited to working on my own files. Checked out a lot of what I'd seen, and eliminated a dozen or so cars that I'd seen before. I have a few things to dig into now that I'm back on the Internet, and an e-mail full of information for a couple of other files I'd been working on.So the cabin fever has been treated...but the forecast for tonight and tomorrow pretty well ensures that we'll have another case on our hands soon! They're calling for 7-10 inches in the next 21 hours, and on Tuesday, here comes another one, just like the other one.I'm getting out pork chops and the meat grinder to prepare Sunday dinner. I'll serve the Ground Hog on buns with barbecue sauce.
UrbanizedForagingOppossums?
My previous post may have seemed out of context by itself; THIS (in response to the MOOK) is where my reply should have been. Sorry about the confusion, and also about the further confusion this post may be causing, and also for the further confusion my next post will likely create....
zardoz UrbanizedForagingOppossums? My previous post may have seemed out of context by itself; THIS (in response to the MOOK) is where my reply should have been. Sorry about the confusion, and also about the further confusion this post may be causing, and also for the further confusion my next post will likely create....
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Changes, some good and some bad...I've lost the ability to communicate with this Forum using Firefox. I can bring it up, and it allows me to type a reply, but not to post it. So for the past few days I've moved over to Entourage for postings.Also, has anyone tried looking at the Rochelle Webcam at night? I'm getting back-and-white images...not very great ones, but they show a lot more than the webcam used to. I guess we should be grateful for small favors... Infrared lighting somewhere?Off to Elmhurst later today to run payday errands. Then back home before the snow flies yet again.
Shot this on the way home last night. I kind of like it. I didn't have my tripod with me, and hte moon disppeared behind clouds a minute later - just sort of lucked out.
Very nice! Heaven was smiling on you!
Zug - Nice shot. Right place, right time.
Carl - It'll be in tomorrow's mail...
I got a digital subscription to Trains on my tablet. Now that shows up well before the print version. If I'm ambitious, I can read most of the magazine before it shows up in my mailbox.
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