You're late Larry. There were a bunch of antique fire engines on display and in the parade in Frankenmuth last Saturday. I didn't go but I was told it was good.
Norm
There - made my hotel reservations for the trip to Michigan. Several important activities planned - most specifically a visit to the Henry Ford to shoot pictures of an old piece of fire apparatus they have in storage there.
Although I'm still waiting for confirmation on that.
Deshler is looking iffy - as in if I can't shoot the pictures on Monday, I might be down.
Tuesday will be a visit to a fire museum in Ann Arbor.
Saturday and Sunday, of course, will be "Milford Memories." No reunions this year, though.
Going to be a whirlwind trip - I have an event on Friday before I go, and have to be back on Wednesday night. Wheeeee!
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 - my totally unprofessional guesstimate is that it is stressed. My folks had a silver maple in front yard and it was always getting an iron shot and feeding and trimming from the local nursery doctor - and is now the biggest tree on the block! Godzilla! Beautiful, but with all that attention, who would want a tree that should be on a lot by itself?
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
Mookie Murphy: Does your maple tree need a shot of iron?
Murphy: Does your maple tree need a shot of iron?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy Siding Mother Nature is messing with us. Backing out of the garage, I noticed our maple is starting to turn. Then I dove to work through thick corn fog.
Mother Nature is messing with us. Backing out of the garage, I noticed our maple is starting to turn. Then I dove to work through thick corn fog.
It's been so dry here that trees are starting to go dormant. Fall colors may be non-existant here - the leaves may just fall off.
evening
still warm here in Nw Ohio.We have a time to set up stuff for mission festival.Ns was clear when I left work.
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").
GRMS 2 is a Plasser built (ie - "Prussian Nightmare") geometry car in captive service to CSX. Built on a standard Plasser carbody (track motor vehicle in their parlance), GRMS means Gage Restraint Measuring System (not an UMLER Code, it is only CSX's M/W unit number.) Onboard CSX-1 and CSX-2 they have a way of hydraulically loading the rail to cause and measure gage and rail cant/rollover issues in the rail tie interface system. Most Class 1 railroads have some version of these cars (hardly all in a Plasser carbody) and shortlines rent the same type thing. The grand-daddy of all of these is AAR/TTC110, a cut down ex-SP SD45x built at the test track in Pueblo in the late 1980's...(Saw it go in at Avondale CO as an SP SD-45x (9504? IIRC) and then come out looking like a 5-axle slug (C- trucks to Blomberg B's and an extra axle where the fuel tank used to be) ... radical railroad chop shop kit-bashing at 1:1 scale )
https://www.plassertheurer.com/en/machines-systems/measuring-work.html
http://www.plasseramerican.com/en/machines-systems/measuring-work-grms.html
(What's inside a Plasser carbody is kinda like Forrest Gump's Chocolate Box, no two applications are ever the same, the guts are usually different )
work busy.westbound grain train when I left.Chores to do.Cannonball do look both ways as a switch track goes into our warehouse before we get inside the building.Ns does ocassionally park MOW equipment from time to time.
blue streak 1 Well another CSX muck up here, 5 unit meet on our short siding. An engineering single unit north bound, then a 4 engine light move, and a manifest all trying to clear on main. A southbound intermodal followed by a long manufest. Both south bounds too long for siding. the 3 northbounds stacked tightly on main and when soth bounds cleared they proceeded north enguneerun unit on a green and next 2 on restricting to clear blocked suto crossings. Now about the engineering unit. Marked only "GMS 2" right fronts CSX on right rears. 1. A single car with 2 two axel powered end trucks. Truck wheels only about 1-1/2 ft from #5 holder. 2. Approximately 50 ft long and height of a covered hopper including AC units on each end. 3. Appeared very boxy with only about a 10 degree slant on each end with no crumple zone. Ends were identical in every way except coupler. 4. Had three amall single axels between end trucks. 5. Had in front of each end what may have been a cab signal inductor holder. 6. Did not have a standard Janey coupler or separation levers. 7. On one end had what can only describe a a non operating solid knuckle much like what one would see on a cheap model RR car. 8 # 7 attached to unit by a double piece of steel that coupler unit end slides into then attached by a pin. Much like a tow bar set on a lawn mower. 2 pieces of steel with about 2" holes for coupler pin. 9. Did not have any apparent air hose connections however it had a closed doors on each end that may have had some kind of connections or just access panel doors. 10 Finally only markings were GMS 2 without any prefix. BALT ?
Well another CSX muck up here, 5 unit meet on our short siding. An engineering single unit north bound, then a 4 engine light move, and a manifest all trying to clear on main. A southbound intermodal followed by a long manufest. Both south bounds too long for siding. the 3 northbounds stacked tightly on main and when soth bounds cleared they proceeded north enguneerun unit on a green and next 2 on restricting to clear blocked suto crossings.
Now about the engineering unit. Marked only "GMS 2" right fronts CSX on right rears.
1. A single car with 2 two axel powered end trucks. Truck wheels only about 1-1/2 ft from #5 holder.
2. Approximately 50 ft long and height of a covered hopper including AC units on each end.
3. Appeared very boxy with only about a 10 degree slant on each end with no crumple zone. Ends were identical in every way except coupler.
4. Had three amall single axels between end trucks.
5. Had in front of each end what may have been a cab signal inductor holder.
6. Did not have a standard Janey coupler or separation levers.
7. On one end had what can only describe a a non operating solid knuckle much like what one would see on a cheap model RR car.
8 # 7 attached to unit by a double piece of steel that coupler unit end slides into then attached by a pin. Much like a tow bar set on a lawn mower. 2 pieces of steel with about 2" holes for coupler pin.
9. Did not have any apparent air hose connections however it had a closed doors on each end that may have had some kind of connections or just access panel doors.
10 Finally only markings were GMS 2 without any prefix.
BALT ?
Self propelled engineering test vehicle - requires a Engineer pilot only for operation and can operate on Signal Indication in non-Train Control territory. In Train Control territory it operates with a MofW pilot on track car authority.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Joe, thanks for your time and effort to answer. Have a safe "day" at work and look both ways before crossing the tracks.
Respectfully, Cannonball (switch7frg)
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
afternoon
work not so busy today.Ns has empty cars uptown.Chores here at home.
CSSHEGEWISCH CShaveRR And again, signal problems on the south side of Union Station. Glad you didn't get caught by that today, Paul! If you meant the signal outages on Thursday, I was caught in that. The 5:00 departure was delayed so I was able to board that and we didn't leave Union Station until about 6:00. So I was about 45 minutes late from my usual departure time. Friday went smoothly.
CShaveRR And again, signal problems on the south side of Union Station. Glad you didn't get caught by that today, Paul!
And again, signal problems on the south side of Union Station. Glad you didn't get caught by that today, Paul!
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)
blhanel CShaveRR The Culver's in DeKalb is right by the tracks, and we had a pair of stack trains blow through there (and one more just before we got there). "Blow through" is not entirely accurate...although the track speed for stack trains with car restrictions is 70, they don't blow for any crossings. The trains we saw were doing very well, speed-wise. Were they eastbound? If so, I wonder if they were the same two trains I saw as we left for Des Moines this morning to pick up our grandson for the week- I crossed over the tail end of the first one while southbound on IA-13 (one of my train-watching spots where you got to see the meet, remember?) and crossed over the second one while westbound on US-30 near the east end of Beverly.
CShaveRR The Culver's in DeKalb is right by the tracks, and we had a pair of stack trains blow through there (and one more just before we got there). "Blow through" is not entirely accurate...although the track speed for stack trains with car restrictions is 70, they don't blow for any crossings. The trains we saw were doing very well, speed-wise.
The Culver's in DeKalb is right by the tracks, and we had a pair of stack trains blow through there (and one more just before we got there). "Blow through" is not entirely accurate...although the track speed for stack trains with car restrictions is 70, they don't blow for any crossings. The trains we saw were doing very well, speed-wise.
Were they eastbound? If so, I wonder if they were the same two trains I saw as we left for Des Moines this morning to pick up our grandson for the week- I crossed over the tail end of the first one while southbound on IA-13 (one of my train-watching spots where you got to see the meet, remember?) and crossed over the second one while westbound on US-30 near the east end of Beverly.
Brian, of the three at DeKalb (this was around noontime), two were eastbound and one westbound. The second eastbound had lots of Hub Group (green) contaners.MC, those cars sure looked like open-top hoppers, due to the placement of slope sheets., end arrangement, etc. The class on one of them ("GA-168") shows that it came from that rascally 76000 series. The outlets were modified from the original (I found a couple of pictures of the cars in the original series) to somehing more controllable (and the cars had a screen on which a solar panel could be mounted...or perhaps solar panels have evolved in design). The cars I saw were numbered in the low BNSF 914000 series; they had previously been in the 908000 series, same last three digits.
As is typical of these trips, I don't ever think I did too well while out in the field, but once I get my data home, wow!
Carl: The ballast cars you saw the old ATSF 177000 series cut down process(silica) sand hoppers (round hatches and roofs cut off)with MK or Miner doors grafted onto the bottom. There were 850+ of them at the end...17800 Class were their big 3-bay brothers that had oblong holes cut in the top so you couldn't overload them. The hated 76000 Class were modified coal cars with ratchet/ chain gates that once opened, could not be closed (until the cars were empty, then they would be able to be closed-up....you didn't dare open one of those rascals around switches, open deck bridges or road crossings)
There were things we did with the 177000's that you just didn't try with the bigger, heavier cars. IR has a bunch of 177000's roaming around OmniTrax. Amtrak wound up with a bunch when the SSB-1200s and CF-7s traded for SDP40F's At one point, there were more than 1000 of those rascals, so some cars found themselves in the 176900's....
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Something like six inches of rain in two hours, and it went down almost as fast as it came up. That had to be wild. Bt sad for the families of two who lost their lives, and upsetting for those who lost possessions, livelihoods, etc.Joe we wandered west, too. Pat thought I deserved a good train-watching trip after a week full of appointments, so we headed toward Rochelle after church, stopping for dinner in DeKalb. The Culver's in DeKalb is right by the tracks, and we had a pair of stack trains blow through there (and one more just before we got there). "Blow through" is not entirely accurate...although the track speed for stack trains with car restrictions is 70, they don't blow for any crossings. The trains we saw were doing very well, speed-wise.At Rochelle there were two empty hopper trains in rapid succession on the UP, followed by a loaded crude-oil train on BNSF. That was it for a while--Pat got some book read and some sweater knit. We then headed south to Mendota before heading east toward home again. I was surprised to have no action on BNSF while we were along it, from Mendota to Yorkville. I was able to get data off some interesting BNSF ballast cars (converted from Santa Fe open hoppers, best I can tell...they have tarps to cover the load). From Yorkville we headed back north to UP country, meeting the Overland Route in Elburn. Caught a CN crude train in West Chicago, which was holding up a westbound train of empty former Com Ed gons. That train started west, and a scoot headed east. We caught the scoot again by County Farm Road, but it left us for good at Wheaton. By the time we got to Finley Road, another train had a clear signal to follow him through Grace on Track 1.
BaltACDFlash flooding in Ellicott City, MD has CSX's Old Main Line shut down
I saw info about the flooding on a fire website. I checked Acme Mapper to get a better idea of exactly where the problem was and noticed a rail line between the river and Ellicott City's Main Street (which appears to have suffered a lot of the flooding). I'd imagine they'll need some fill...
There was a civilian rescue of the occupant of a car. They made a human chain and got the woman out before her car washed away.
Flash flooding in Ellicott City, MD has CSX's Old Main Line shut down
switch
from what I have seen Crestline tower has been closed even while conrail was still conrail.I will ask the train experts for a certain date.
joe
JoeKoh went west to wander.Saw a loong train climb Hicksville hill on track 2 westbound.Also saw a local come out of Garrett to service the steel mill near Butler Indiana.CSX has trackage rights on NS' former wabash line.I know "F" tower is closed.I will look up when Crestline was closed.Work tomorrow. stay safe Joe
went west to wander.Saw a loong train climb Hicksville hill on track 2 westbound.Also saw a local come out of Garrett to service the steel mill near Butler Indiana.CSX has trackage rights on NS' former wabash line.I know "F" tower is closed.I will look up when Crestline was closed.Work tomorrow.
Joe, with all the new signaling in place system wide, is the Crestline tower still active??
Mother nature sent a little shower overnight.Trimmed a bush and mowed the swamp.Matt was rented out for the day.Chores to do inside here at home.
Truck fixed and inspected - check.
TV interview done - check
Dinner with daughter and family - check (the baby warmed right up when I started playing with her).
Dog here and settling in - check.
Bed - next.
Just imagine if all of those folks had decided to drive, park, and otherwise navigate in the city! Even if the transit service requires government support for days like this, it's probably worth it just to avert the economic disaster that would result if the city were tied up in knots! It might even have been worse than the Bilandic Blizzard.They did it again--I was lucky enough to see empty exra trains running west on both UP West and the BNSF today. Since the one I saw on BNSF was later in the day than the one I saw on UP, I suspect that it was not their first of the day.And again, the rain came. Here we got 0.4 inches today instead of the two inches plus of yesterday. We're still above water.And again, signal problems on the south side of Union Station. Glad you didn't get caught by that today, Paul!
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