blue streak 1 Well trains lost my Colonial pipeline shutdown thread. But gasoline prices here up another 20 cents $2.69 - $2.75. Diesel price now below gasoline at least temporary.
Well trains lost my Colonial pipeline shutdown thread. But gasoline prices here up another 20 cents $2.69 - $2.75. Diesel price now below gasoline at least temporary.
afternoon
Well CSX is plugged up as usual.Q 161 was told to hold at Sherwood as the dispatcher had no crews for them.They also had trains stopped ahead.Ns has a new signal ready to turn at the St.Joe diamond.Went up to Butler.Saw a CP run through train turn the corner.Sperry has a doddlebug parked in Edgerton.Time for lunch.
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").
I like squirrels. I always tell people they are ideal pets. They're entertaining to watch, you don't have to feed them or clean up after them, and you don't have to worry about providing for them if you go on a trip.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
I think we had a squirrel-fight overhead sometime overnight: there are a lot of fresh green leaves on the grass this morning--no branches, just leaves. And I just cleaned that yard...Our backyard neighbors used to maintain several bird feeders in their yard. Perhaps it's a summer thing that the feeder poles are empty now, but they might have gotteh tired of feedig the squirrels as well.
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)
My visitors often drop in from an adjacent tree - short of cutting the tree (a good 40' tall spruce), there's not much I can do along that realm.
Considering that the birds alone can "drain" all of the feeders in a day, I may actually be saving seed by letting the squirrels in...
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...
Balt - I like the solution. Doesn't hurt the animal; had me in stitches; you can bet the squirrel has a pad and pen and working out the solution in another corner. This is so funny!
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
Poor squirrel! Did it give up?
Johnny
tree68I've had squirrels get into the house - or at least in the attic and walls, never actually inside. Skritch, skritch.... About four have found my bird feeders in the winter (the only time I feed the birds). A couple of reds, a couple of grays. I'll occasionally get out the airsoft pellet gun and take a couple of shots at them. Usually the report is enough to scare them away. I don't think I've hit one yet. I've got to redo the "screen" I put on one feeder - the birds can eat, but the squirrels find it more difficult. Every now and then, one will squeeze inside it and pig out as usual. Most unusual "guest" I've had at the bird feeders, however, was a fox, who was busily eating the sunflower seeds the birds (and probably the squirrels) had knocked to the ground. Too bad the fox didn't encounter one or more of the squirrels...
About four have found my bird feeders in the winter (the only time I feed the birds). A couple of reds, a couple of grays. I'll occasionally get out the airsoft pellet gun and take a couple of shots at them. Usually the report is enough to scare them away. I don't think I've hit one yet.
I've got to redo the "screen" I put on one feeder - the birds can eat, but the squirrels find it more difficult. Every now and then, one will squeeze inside it and pig out as usual.
Most unusual "guest" I've had at the bird feeders, however, was a fox, who was busily eating the sunflower seeds the birds (and probably the squirrels) had knocked to the ground. Too bad the fox didn't encounter one or more of the squirrels...
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I've had squirrels get into the house - or at least in the attic and walls, never actually inside. Skritch, skritch....
Got Scottie outside = NO squirrels.
Scottie Inside = Vegetable garden salad bar for squirrels (BH has had squirrel eat tomato right in front of her, separated by glass)
Squirrels ? Got to hate them. Went away for a few days and took dog. Big mistake. Returned to find not a single walnut anywhere either on trees (6) or on ground. Dog is a good squirrel chaser.
Murphy: Outdoor cats leave dead mice on your doorstep as a "gift" for their keepers. Squirrels leave a few nutshells. Take your pick....
Had some turkeys take a walk in our yard before we left this morning.Buzzards had a nice breakfast near Bryan as well.They decided to perch on the old NYC signal masts.Ns ran some good trains.Saw a c-40-9 standard cab take a train eastbound.Not many of those left.Things to do.
Murphy Siding Anybody out there squirrely? We don't have a walnut tree in our yard, only an apple tree that feeds the wildlife for miles around. The closest walnut tree is over a block away. For some odd reason, Mr. Squirrel carries lots of walnuts a block down the street to my driveway. There, he peels off the green outer coating to get at the walnut meat and leaves the razor sharp shell pieces on the driveway. Other than the obvious reason- Mr. Squirrel hates me- why would he (or she) do this?
Anybody out there squirrely? We don't have a walnut tree in our yard, only an apple tree that feeds the wildlife for miles around. The closest walnut tree is over a block away. For some odd reason, Mr. Squirrel carries lots of walnuts a block down the street to my driveway. There, he peels off the green outer coating to get at the walnut meat and leaves the razor sharp shell pieces on the driveway. Other than the obvious reason- Mr. Squirrel hates me- why would he (or she) do this?
Squirrels in the area seem to us my race car trailer as their 'dinner table' as they leave shards from various things with shells that the chow down on all over the trailer. I have to use my leaf blower on the trailer before I go to load up the race car.
First, let me say I'm a lover of Black Walnuts. They are a bear for us humans to crack and are very tasty but squirrles are looking for food and have the advantage in that they are rodents that must gnaw. Their teeth continuously grow if they don't. They can gnaw through the toughest of things and Black Walnut shells qualify among them. Do not expect Mr/Ms squirrel to plant a Black Walnut tree in your yard. When they are done the only thing left is the very hard shell.
They are named squirrels for the simple reason they are squirrely. While riding my Gold Wing several years ago I had one chenge direction three times as I approached. The end result was a dead center hit with the front wheel. I didn't stop to see if he/she survived.
Better to be hated by a squirrel than a skunk.
Best I can offer at the moment.
Norm
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
If I remember correctly, that was KCS' Bicentennial unit!
Does anybody here besides me remember the stunt that the KCS locomotive shops pulled with an SD40-2 back in the bad old days (the complete opposite of painting everything primer brown/red where every panel was painted a different random color before they put the locomotive back together after a total tear down and rebuild following a wreck?)
Joe - I am not a big green fan, but with the cream to go with it, to me that is the best paint job ever on BNSF. It is tailored looking, really has held up well and so much better than the ever popular ack-orange. NS black and white - also very tailored looking. Both look like they are dressed to go to a cocktail party - orange looks like orange pants, orange shirt and a yellow vest bought at a flea market.ACK...
Jeff, when I used to look at equipment descriptions ("UC/INITnumber), just about everything had the word "cushioned" on it, including an awful lot of stuff that I knew didn't have cushioning. No, I don't know of any cushioned covered hoppers, past or present.Coal gons used to come up on our switch list as a "J" something or other. That would go along with their AAR Car Type Code, which is usually "J301". I'm sure somebody in the programming department could come up with a "see J, say gon" fix.Those Heritage Units have been around for a while...maybe a repaint is in order?
Ns has a coal train in the siding.It has 2 sd 70 macs.One is still in"Mookie" paint.Haven't seen those around very much.Mother nature is cooling us down today.Chores to do.
I guess if a railroad thought hard about it, why not paint loclomotives in the red oxide(?) color that BNSF paints their covered hoppers, in order to hide the rust?Carl- Your post reminded me of an old joke- A woman goes into a carpet store to order new carpet as her kids had worn out the old stuff. When the saleman asked what color she wanted, the woman gave him a handfull of dirt from her front yard. "That's the color I want to match. It'll make it easier on everyone."
While there are fire departments that paint their apparatus black ("safety black" is one tongue-in-cheek description), most do paint their trucks red. The "safety yellow" ("slime yellow) craze is pretty much over - even the FAA doesn't insist on it any more.
But - this is about paint durability (even if the color isn't black) - the slime yellow craze coincided with a period when the steel used for vehicles was pretty poor. As a result, there was a lot of rust evident (in cars, too). Red trucks didn't show it like the slime yellow rigs did. Other than the "fire trucks are red" school, I suspect that's one reason the color faded from favor as quickly as it did.
These folks like their lights, too...
Black nicely hides, at least from a distance, oil stains. Of course, everything from a distance usually looks nicer. I remember the last time I had the MP heritage engine, which I think as been touched up since, it looked good. Until we got up to and on it. Then it looked really ratty, especially inside.
Carl, do you know off-hand of any covered hoppers with cushioned drawbars? Our train lists have started identifying cars with cushioned drawbars and some covered hoppers are indicated as having them. The lists now have a summary of car types with all listed except gondolas. They always come up as "other car". Nothing like seeing a list for your empty coal bucket as "135 other cars."
Jeff
Congratulations, I think.I was going to make a comment or two on your post, but a voice in my head insisted, "Don't go there!". So I won't.Instead, I'll say here that red is probably the worst color for maintaining, in any form, be it paint, cloth, printed media, and on and on.I've never seen a really bad-looking NS locomotive. I suspect that a lot has to do withgood paint, because I've seen black tank cars that have turned gray and/or exposed their primer coat in a very short while.A friend of mine once said that Kansas City Southern had the right idea when they were painting all of their freight equipment that "cocoa-powder brown", because that was the color that everything weathered to, anyway. I suspect it would be different for units that spent most of their time in ore fields, etc, where the soil is a different color.Watching trains a few days back, I was thinking that UP should paint the underbodies of their locomotives (trucks and tanks, anyway) that color of brown instead of gray--brown used to be a color that UP used along with yellow, and that was the color I was seeing on all of the locomotive trucks that went by me. It may not look as good initially, but in the long run it certainly wouldn't look worse!
I think I just hit a new milestone on the Trains forums- my first thread to be moved! I had started a thread about painted locomotives and someone decided that it should be moved to the Locomotives forum where nobody goes. I got a nice e-mail telling me it had been moved, so all is well.
Ns local was uptown when I left work.The boys from Columbus are in Indiana tonight.Hoping for no surprises.
joe
CSSHEGEWISCHWhat a drag it is getting old.
Beats the alternative!
What a drag it is getting old.
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