tree68 I'm stuffed, now... Daughter called, gave phone to grandson, who informed me he'd soon be a big brother. Daughter explained that they are adopting a young lady who will be born at the end of January. Everyone is excited!
I'm stuffed, now...
Daughter called, gave phone to grandson, who informed me he'd soon be a big brother.
Daughter explained that they are adopting a young lady who will be born at the end of January. Everyone is excited!
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
What a great day! Tree is expecting; Murphy also got stuffed; we got our heat back by 10 am....
And I still have a great set of tastebuds!
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
Mookie- The friends that we had dinner with are dealing with a furnace that concked out this morning.
What is the deal with holidays and appliances? I thought we were going to have frozen food for awhile!
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Houston Ed - since they fixed the old heater, we could almost have a windows open day! Lovin' it!
Pecan Pie - I would have given some serious thought to traveling south!
There's a bakery near me that makes an awesome pecan pie. I'm not even that crazy about pecans, but that pie is awesome.
I got to spend Thanksgiving in a Ramada (and people still want to work for the railroad..why??). Pretty much everything ran except a few yard / local jobs. First time I've seen that since I hired out. Either business is that good, or planning that poor. Rumors of full service on Christmas floating around.
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
zugmann There's a bakery near me that makes an awesome pecan pie. I'm not even that crazy about pecans, but that pie is awesome. I got to spend Thanksgiving in a Ramada (and people still want to work for the railroad..why??). Pretty much everything ran except a few yard / local jobs. First time I've seen that since I hired out. Either business is that good, or planning that poor. Rumors of full service on Christmas floating around.
zugmann I got to spend Thanksgiving in a Ramada (and people still want to work for the railroad..why??). Pretty much everything ran except a few yard / local jobs. First time I've seen that since I hired out. Either business is that good, or planning that poor. Rumors of full service on Christmas floating around.
Can't speak for your carrier - mine is still trying to work off the reroutes from the Lake Effect snow that shut down the lines between Cleveland and Buffalo plus business is that good.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Pecan pie is good, if sweet almost to a fault.
My scratch-made apple turned out quite well (not always the case, crust-wise). It would sit in the fridge for three days while I'm on the railroad, so I'm taking some of it to share...
Three more days of hauling happy families to the North Pole (and Old Forge). Hope the snow doesn't get carried away - makes for a slippery day climbing the hill...
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...
Murphy Siding Tell me you at least got a traditional Charlie Brown Thanksgiving meal of toast, pretzels, and popcorn?
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmm......TOAST!!!!!!
But you got to stay at a Ramada!
I started out at home. Becky and I were planning to take advantage of one of the restaurants serving Thanksgiving dinner. Until my mark was moving too close to make the trip over to Ames and back. So I was sent to the local store (stayed open all day) for last minute turkey type options. While leaving the store, I saw the West way freight on the lead ready to leave town. That job used to always lay in for a holiday. I've noticed the last couple of years that they don't annul as many yard, local, and junk manifests (at least on the main line corridor) like they used to. In my area, they always have "planned" to keep everything, except for the aforementioned local/yard/junk manifests, running. It was usually crew issues that limited what actually ran.
Speaking of which, crew issues aren't as bad for Thanksgiving as they once were. (Most employees will say they will work T-day, but won't on X-mas.) There were a few laid off, including two extra board guys who bailed and moved me up one train. I'm not sure if they marked off because of the holiday or to avoid the train. I got to spot an mty ethanol train at the Blair Cargill plant and then take the power to Council Bluffs for servicing.
(On the diesel ramp at CB while waiting for our van, it seemed like I was in a time warp. At 2am visible in the available light in the immediate vicinity of the ramp office was nothing but GP38, GP40 and a lone SD40-2 engines. There was big modern road power in the facility, but not visible from where I was standing. I thought how those engines once were main line road power, now they are yard and local power.)
A few days ago, one of the van drivers let a stray cat get into our yard office. I don't if it was on purpose or accidental. They finally got it back out. Someone asked me later if I had brought one of my cats with me to work. I said no, that the stray was the new Manager of Rodent Control.
Jeff
Jeff, to whom does the Manager of Rodent control report?
Johnny
Aside to Murphy: When Jeff posts these stories, it is like sitting in a comfy chair and listening to family stories about railroading. This is the best part of the forum for me!
afternoon
waiting on boyscout popcorn.tomorrow it's have truck will haul it.going to watch the game in between.Ns had a stack train in the siding when I left work.Lot's of OT for whoever wants it at work too.
stay safe
joe
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").
Our Thanksgiving plans went off without a hitch until early this morning. By changing our orer of family visits, we saw a lot more relatives yesterday than we normally do. I'd like to make that work every year, but next year is the "little kids' Thanksgiving", when the Charmageddon babies will be getting together. (These gatherings alternate between Thanksgivingand Christmas; this year we'll get the babies together for Christmas).Early this morning I woke up unable to breathe, and with no voice. A little first-aid helped that problem (sorry, SJ...turns out I'm allergic to some cats, after all!), and my voice returned in time for a lunch gathering with a couple of high-school classmates (including one that I never realy knew before now, beyond name recogntion). But we had taken care of the L.L.C. business we needed to by that time, so we decided to come home a day early. Pat is glad to be able to watch the old movies that she wants to see on TV, and I might sleep in tomorrow.
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)
Not too far off.
I was always amused how yard guys get the day off with pay, yet road guys work it for nothing extra. When that part of the contract was being written, someone must have been out taking a whiz or something.
Had late breakfast with Sir Chicken & Boss Hen. Always a fun time! Sent a hug with them for Nigel (scotty); BH said a treat would be respected more!
zugmann Murphy Siding Tell me you at least got a traditional Charlie Brown Thanksgiving meal of toast, pretzels, and popcorn? Not too far off. I was always amused how yard guys get the day off with pay, yet road guys work it for nothing extra. When that part of the contract was being written, someone must have been out taking a whiz or something.
I thought it was part of the National contract, but maybe not. Road people (on our line) get paid personal leave days in place of the holidays. There's 11 (IIRC) railroad recognized holidays and road people will eventually get 11 paid leave days. (You don't start out with 11, but 3 and get a few more added every few years. I think I'm up to 9.) You can use them when you want, subject to crew availability. That is, they can deny your use of them if they think they are too short on crews. (Although it may have changed, and probably not for the better, it was said the computer system used to determine crew availability looked at all terminals over the region. Maybe the entire railroad. Your terminal could be flush with people, but a shortage 500 miles away caused a denial for laying off. Callers used to be able to override the system, but supposedly now they can't.)
Paid leave days that aren't used by the end of the year for trainmen can be carried over and used until May of the next year. Engineers used to be able to carry them over, too. Until somewhere (I think I heard it was North Platte or Cheyenne) the local union made a deal to have unused paid days "banked" until you end your railroad employment. I don't think it was supposed to be systemwide, but that's how it is now.
They will also usually pay the days for uncompensated time off after the fact. That is, you lay off or are forced off by Federal Requirement in an uncompensated status. You can put a claim in asking to be paid a leave day(s) for the time off. I burned up most of my leave days this year for being off on the Federal Requirement. Most of the year they were denying the paid leave days, even when approved by your supervisor. I only used one or two to get time off this year. All the others were when I was already off or otherwise unavailable. If they paid unused days at the end of the year, that wouldn't be so bad. I wasn't going to give them a no interest loan for 15 or 20 years so I made sure I burned them up some how.
Deggesty Jeff, to whom does the Manager of Rodent control report?
MEDIA BAFFLEGAB.
New heights were reached in this area earlier today. I had thought calling a locomotive a Power Car might have been as far as they could go, but wait for it. . .
There was a minor derailment up at Lake Louise, AB earlier today as the train went over a switch. The media referred to the switch as a TRANSFER STATION.
That is all.
Thank you.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/10/23/1382542966276/Toast-and-butter-003.jpg
Oh wow!
Lunch......
Lacking something....
AgentKid MEDIA BAFFLEGAB. New heights were reached in this area earlier today. I had thought calling a locomotive a Power Car might have been as far as they could go, but wait for it. . . There was a minor derailment up at Lake Louise, AB earlier today as the train went over a switch. The media referred to the switch as a TRANSFER STATION. That is all. Thank you. Bruce
For the life of me I can't understand why the media insists on doing this. Someone had to have told the reporters what actually happened. Why couldn't they just report what they heard. If the reporters thought there would be confusion they could have expanded the term to track switch, or siding junction.
Five cars off the track, but still standing, would normally not have caught the media's attention, but the railway could not have picked a more conspicuous location for this to have happened. Right in the Lake Louise townsite, on a Saturday, at the start of the new ski season. There was just no way people weren't going to notice!
Bruce: no one listens today. There is no comprehension a lot of the time. I have a quote here on my puter screen: "Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply"
Ergo - newspapers wrong, fast food orders wrong; prescriptions wrong; grocery orders wrong; even tv crawls - wrong & misspelled!
Bafflegab - reminds me of the "bafflegab thesaurus." Three columns of "fancy" words. Just pick one from each column and you end up with a high-fallutin' phrase that means virtually nothing. "Functional Monitored Mobility" anyone?
Not a bad weekend on the railroad. Ran the Polar Express on Friday night, the last trip to Thendara on Saturday (an all-day event - and 100 mile round-trip by rail, to boot), and Polar Express again on Sunday. Plenty of "seat time."
It wasn't my weekend for keys, though. I'd misplaced my truck key - but I knew it was around the house, as the truck was in the garage when I discovered it missing. Fortunately, I had the spare set. Friday night I lost my ring of railroad keys. This morning when I got the the post office, the keys I usually carry on my belt weren't there, although they were when I got dressed.
Found the truck key behind the seat in the truck. I apparently dropped the railroad keys at the hotel - they were at the front desk. And the other keys were right were I got dressed. So all ended well, key-wise. Kinda nerve wracking, though. The truck key would have cost over $100 to replace/reprogram, the railroad keys might not have cost as much, but would still be a real pain to replace. At least the postmistress gave me my mail out of my box...
Daughter and family have now officially announced their pending arrival (previously mentioned). Daughter posted a video on FB of grandson opening a preset with an "I'm a big brother" Tee and a book about being a big brother. He was excited, once he figured it all out, although he was somewhat disappointed that the gift wasn't a Transformer...
Time to get started on the Christmas decorations, then off to a Skywarn class.
congrats grandpa Tree.work is busy.Local is waiting for a crew to pull empties out.Need to get cleaned up.
There. I'm all trained up to "spot" winter weather for NWS. I got the summer part done a year or so ago.
Full schedule tomorrow. Guess I won't get any decorations up until Wednesday.
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