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Chatterbox Spring 2017

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  • Member since
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  • From: Denver / La Junta
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Posted by mudchicken on Tuesday, May 30, 2017 10:00 PM

AgentKid

Good to hear from you dinningcar.

A few weeks ago I had a question for you and mudchicken about your days back on the Santa Fe, but I apologize because now I forgot the question.

It is always good to hear from all of the folks in the Chatterbox.

Bruce

 

 

We'll be around here if the question re-appears. With our luck, you will ask about some corner of Chico's old haunts that neither of us never managed to be at in our careers.

  Methinks Mooks is out for der Chicken's hyde, yes?

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 6:49 AM

[quote user="BOB WITHORN"]

CSSHEGEWISCH

Bob, you appear to be a bit short with the length.  Based on your report, I'm using 250 93-foot TTX flatcars (50 autoracks plus 200 flats for the turbine blades) as a yardstick and come up with about 23000 feet in length unless the flats for the turbine blades are shorter.  Maybe somebody else can help out.

 

It appeared that there were 2 blades per 3 flats.  The heavy end of each on it's own car with a special roller rack on the third. Makes for a 200 + car train so I guess that makes it 18,000 + feet, so I was 'off by a mile'.  I understand the single loco on the old GT but I bet it got a workout on the long hill west of Durand to Perry, Mi.

 
Your aim may have been just a little bit off, easy mistake to make.  I would assume that the bombardiers who flew with our fathers were better than that.
The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by Mookie on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 7:03 AM

mudchicken
Methinks Mooks is out for der Chicken's hyde, yes?

(that's my winter cloche...)  

As usual, Sir C, you are spot on!  

She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw

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Posted by mudchicken on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 8:21 AM

There's a darned good reason why all the feathers are numbered. (Tip of the hardhat to Foghorn Leghorn, fellow chicken)

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by Murphy Siding on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 8:59 AM

mudchicken

There's a darned good reason why all the feathers are numbered. (Tip of the hardhat to Foghorn Leghorn, fellow chicken)

 

I say, I say son. That there made me guffaw.

Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.

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Posted by mudchicken on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 2:56 PM

I suspect many of you will see where der' Chicken's office nest is tonight on the evening snewz.. A little excitement (with four BIG booms rattling the windows) has shut down Denver today. If you see any video from the air, the striped building closest to the exploding heavy equipment fuel & service truck is us and we are at the top with the lower deck (11th floor, the whole floor), behind the leftmost of the three doors. The driver survived - pulled out by a passing construction supervisor. People stupidly driving through flaming gasoline, police threatening people to leave the light-rail platform accross the freeway, drones and choppers droning overhead.

We will be here for a while. FD elected to let it burn out after foam(white) and chemical (purple), including an airport crash truck's full load, couldn't put the fire out.  I-25 is severed for several more hours. 

Will the politician's knee-jerk reaction to the odd incident create a rush to ban fuel trucks?

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/05/31/vehicle-fire-interstate-25/ 

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by JoeKoh on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 3:36 PM

afternoon

Saw the Ns local back uptown today after I left work.Big boss asked if I wanted to take a field trip to Minnesota.It's for equipment at work.Going to talk with the other boss about it.Matt is glad to be out of school.Going to get cleaned up.

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").

 

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 3:41 PM

mudchicken

I suspect many of you will see where der' Chicken's office nest is tonight on the evening snewz.. A little excitement (with four BIG booms rattling the windows) has shut down Denver today. If you see any video from the air, the striped building closest to the exploding heavy equipment fuel & service truck is us and we are at the top with the lower deck (11th floor, the whole floor), behind the leftmost of the three doors. The driver survived - pulled out by a passing construction supervisor. People stupidly driving through flaming gasoline, police threatening people to leave the light-rail platform accross the freeway, drones and choppers droning overhead.

We will be here for a while. FD elected to let it burn out after foam(white) and chemical (purple), including an airport crash truck's full load, couldn't put the fire out.  I-25 is severed for several more hours. 

Will the politician's knee-jerk reaction to the odd incident create a rush to ban fuel trucks?

 

Yikes! Suddenly those $1 million liability insurance policies make sense. It must take a pretty cool headed person to approach this mess and help the driver.

There's no need to ban fuel trucks. Just ban fuel truck explosions. Problem solved.

Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.

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Posted by mudchicken on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 3:47 PM

We've already got exploding houses due to knuckleheads in the construction industry laying sewer and cutting supposebly abandoned oil & gas gathering lines that proved not to be. The reaction to that has been nutso.

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by tree68 on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 5:11 PM

Looked up the location.  It's not between my sister's place of employment downtown and her home (Aurora), so she won't be too peeved.  

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...

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Posted by mudchicken on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 5:26 PM

tree68

Looked up the location.  It's not between my sister's place of employment downtown and her home (Aurora), so she won't be too peeved.  

 

With everybody trying to find new N-S routes to get home, hope she's going E-W...Going diagonal accross Denver? -fuggedabowdit, ain't gonna happen today.

The southbound lanes of I-25 are open now (for the last 20 minutes), but 10 MPH will be all you go because of the sand, absorbent and cooked asphalt. They are still applying foam to the truck. The cab burned, melted or otherwise dissappeared. Might get hauled off by 6PM.

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by Norm48327 on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 5:31 PM

MC,

Remember the good old days when those tankers pulled doubles? Two booms for the price of one. IIRC, that would have been 12,000 gallons of gas.

Norm


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Posted by mudchicken on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 5:50 PM

That still happens here. One of those went boom in Pueblo several years back at I-25 and US-50. Curious to see who owned the truck here, a construction company or a jobber/distributor?

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by ChuckCobleigh on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 5:54 PM

mudchicken
With everybody trying to find new N-S routes to get home, hope she's going E-W...Going diagonal accross Denver? -fuggedabowdit, ain't gonna happen today.

Did they shut down the light rail traffic along the 25 for a while?

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Posted by mudchicken on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 9:24 PM

Yep - about 4 hours. They now have 3-4 guys and a hi-rail bucket truck standing by at the west end of the Orchard station.

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by CShaveRR on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 9:47 PM

The evening news here just showed a down-on shot of a bit of fire, and said the highway was closed.  

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)

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 9:55 PM

MC maybe we will find out if it takes Colorado longer on  I-25 than Georgia did on the I-85 replacement ?

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Posted by CShaveRR on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 9:59 PM

Yesterday I received the good news that I won't be getting chemotherapy after all...at least not for a while.  The medical oncologist to whom I went for a third opinion (to reconcile the other two) said that with the recent radiation I had, my marrow-producing system was undoubtedly compromised, so recovery from doses of chemo would take too long (likely more than the three weeks they give you between doses), so it wouldn't be effective, except in terms of wiping me out.  (Which is precisely my daughter's problem--her marrow production was damaged by the cancer itself, and she had no choice but to go with chemo...and she's paying for it physically now.)  So no chemo until my PSA levels become detectable again (and that could be any time, but some of my friends have gone over twelve years without it happening).

So, on receiving that great news today, I slept in (surprising myself--apparently nervousness was making me tired), then went out to Rochelle.  Despite the fact that one UP track across the diamond was out of service (there were tampers, surfacers, and welders on Track 1), the action was pretty decent.

Headed out there (actually near Dement), I saw a train with trucks, a bus, two tampers, other track equipment, and a large rail laying machine (nearly all on flat cars) headed east, toward Proviso, on the UP.  I wonder where it will be used...I don't think they're ready to put that third track in between River Forest and Melrose Park yet.  Both UP and BNSF were pretty busy over the diamonds, and yes, the new diamonds are pretty quiet.

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)

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Posted by mudchicken on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 10:06 PM

When I went home at 6:30, they were just beginning to lift the truck frame onto a lowboy trailer. The rotomill was waiting on the circus around the truck to get out of the way. There were 20+ high-side and Dumpr semis all waiting on the rotomill. They were talking about asphalt 14+ inches deep being toast.Blaw-Knox Spreader box paver was nearby and the media was talking about 100 tons (?) of asphalt being ready by 9pm. We'll see if they get after it.  (Major road construction project on the next exit south is getting a bunch of extra Force Account/ Suspense Account work right now.)

 

UPDATE: Southbound lanes (5) open by 5:30 PM with intermittant closures all night; Northbound lanes (5) opened at 4:15 am the next morning. There will be periodic closures for the next week, mostly at night....Concrete Jersey Barrier gets removed and replaced for 300' and part of that supports a light tower.

Repaved area ( just to get going again) was 350' x 50' x 1.2' on both directions. Far from complete in the repaving process. - No bridges, fortunately.

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by Norm48327 on Thursday, June 1, 2017 5:52 AM

MC,

In '15, we got caught in rush hour traffic on 76 and 25 while returning from Salida to Loveland. I would imagine the south end of 25 is the same mess during those times.

The repairs of I-85 were amazingly fast, and I understand the prime contractor got a hefty bonus for getting it done so quickly. I hope they get 25 done as quickly.

Norm


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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Thursday, June 1, 2017 7:14 AM

mudchicken

We've already got exploding houses due to knuckleheads in the construction industry laying sewer and cutting supposebly abandoned oil & gas gathering lines that proved not to be. The reaction to that has been nutso.

 
We don't quite have that problem (no oil or gas fields nearby) but every so often an equipment operator will get careless and slice open a gas or products pipeline that has been properly identified and marked.
The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by Mookie on Thursday, June 1, 2017 8:12 AM

CSSHEGEWISCH
We don't quite have that problem (no oil or gas fields nearby) but every so often an equipment operator will get careless and slice open a gas or products pipeline that has been properly identified and marked

fiber optic company laying line here in our fair city, has FD and gas co on speed dial.  Almost a daily occurrence.

She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw

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Posted by JoeKoh on Thursday, June 1, 2017 3:14 PM

afternoon

Ns was clear when I left work.Waiting for Mamma and Matt to get home.Chores to do.

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").

 

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Thursday, June 1, 2017 10:42 PM

mudchicken

When I went home at 6:30, they were just beginning to lift the truck frame onto a lowboy trailer. The rotomill was waiting on the circus around the truck to get out of the way. There were 20+ high-side and Dumpr semis all waiting on the rotomill. They were talking about asphalt 14+ inches deep being toast.Blaw-Knox Spreader box paver was nearby and the media was talking about 100 tons (?) of asphalt being ready by 9pm. We'll see if they get after it.  (Major road construction project on the next exit south is getting a bunch of extra Force Account/ Suspense Account work right now.)

 

UPDATE: Southbound lanes (5) open by 5:30 PM with intermittant closures all night; Northbound lanes (5) opened at 4:15 am the next morning. There will be periodic closures for the next week, mostly at night....Concrete Jersey Barrier gets removed and replaced for 300' and part of that supports a light tower.

Repaved area ( just to get going again) was 350' x 50' x 1.2' on both directions. Far from complete in the repaving process. - No bridges, fortunately.

 

Must be quite the fire. At noon today, FOX network was repeatedly showing film of the tanker burning. Underneath the title was the blurb "HAPPENING NOW!"

Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.

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Posted by tree68 on Friday, June 2, 2017 12:22 PM

mudchicken
When I went home at 6:30, they were just beginning to lift the truck frame onto a lowboy trailer.

Got a tweet with early video of the incident, including the rescue of the driver.  The fire grew quickly, but people just kept passing the scene, until there was fire in their lane...

I see a number of videos of fires taken by bystanders (check out Statter911.com).  It never ceases to amaze me the language these folks use, especially when they know they may post the video on-line.  

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
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Posted by JoeKoh on Friday, June 2, 2017 3:07 PM

afternoon

Ns was clear when I left work.Getting things ready for Deshler tomorrow.Going to be interesting when the pipeline is ready to go under NS by our building.Everything is set out for it.Need to get back at it.

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").

 

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Posted by JoeKoh on Saturday, June 3, 2017 11:18 PM

good early Sunday morning.

Had a great time as usual in Deshler. Plenty of trains.Had a Michigan group come down to watch trains too.A gentleman provided his motorhome for transportation.They enjoyed the trains and watching us play games.Csx decided to combine frieghts and unit trains while going around the wyes in Deshler.Q 500 had autoracks behind him.An ethanol train had frieght behind him too.This tired Dad needs to get to bed.

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").

 

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Posted by JoeKoh on Monday, June 5, 2017 6:26 PM

evening

work was busy today.Ns had a hopper train westbound in the siding when I left work.Some of the cars were their new high top cars for coke trains.Mowed the swamp when I got home.Chores to do.Haven't got the whole trip details for work for next week yet.I am not going to park my truck at the Detroit airport.Chores to do inside.

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").

 

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Posted by JoeKoh on Tuesday, June 6, 2017 5:03 PM

evening

Work still busy.Westbound hopper train still in Archbold.Had an intermodal go west when I left work.Much to do here.

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").

 

  • Member since
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Posted by JoeKoh on Wednesday, June 7, 2017 2:27 PM

afternoon

Hopper train is gone.Ns Local was going back west after work.Guessers say Mother Nature is going to warm us up this weekend.Projects to do.

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").

 

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