Nice day yesterday at daughter's house - the kids liked the presents, brunch and dinner were delicious and I survived the post-turkey dinner drive home.
One highlight of the day was the drive through Oswego County, where the trees were all coated with snow, creating something of a winter wonderland. The roads were clear, though, so it was clear sailing all the way.
Today is Boxing Day for our neighbors to the north. One of the Canadian participants in a daily amateur radio net told us that the term "Boxing Day" comes from the one-time practice of working on Christmas Day, then receiving a box of gift from the boss the next day.
While it's dropped a bit in this day of on-line ordering, it also seemed to refer to boxing all the presents you wanted to exchange up and heading for the returns counter at the stores...
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...
Good morning
Going to see what rolls by this morning.Hopefully neighbors mess gets cleaned up before tomorrow's rain.Need to run errands this afternoon 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").
Merry Christmas
Off to G+G's house.Safe travels everyone.
mudchicken Polar is over for another year. Hero Boy sounded too much like Arnold Stang this year. Time to recover and enjoy the season. ....snow here in Denver is still MIA.
Polar is over for another year. Hero Boy sounded too much like Arnold Stang this year. Time to recover and enjoy the season.
....snow here in Denver is still MIA.
We wrapped up our Polar on Sunday night - an added date. Despite being added a little over a week ago, the "Cocoa Class" filled right up, including some folks who travelled some significant distances just to ride the train.
I spent most of my time in the cab this year, so saw little of our passengers, except two nights working in the station (impressive to see nearly 600 passengers gathered in that grand old station), and I was the conductor the last night.
Drove home afterwards, arriving to find a dusting of new snow. It's continued to snow lightly all day, but that's only about an inch we've gotten. After near +60F earlier in the weekend, a green Christmas looked like a possibility.
Busy wrapping gifts tonight for a visit to the daughter's house tomorrow.
....snow here in Denver is still MIA. (mountains have more than average snowpack for this time of year - range fires on the prairie becoming a source for concern.) The scottie knows he grew all that dense outer fur for good reason - where is it?
Good Morning
We delivered the goods for Matt's group after church yesterday.Saw a few trains on Csx.Going to Christmas Eve service tonight.Merry Christmas.
evening
Was able to take brother out and go watch trains.Ns and Csx were busy.Had lunch in a diner just east of the NS yard in New Haven Indiana.Had a good view of the tracks.Stacey says everything is done for the lunch tomorrow.Going to relax tonight.
stay safeJoe
Above freezing in Calgary, Alberta today, and that has been the daytime situation for at least a week. Been out on the motorbike, just have to avoid back streets that may still be icy. Even though the days have been warm, the sun is too low to melt much ice and the outdoor rinks are still in decent shape. A bit cooler for the next few days, but no snow in the forecast. Not like early October when we got buried by 16" of the stuff!
Rather different 70 miles to the west in the mountains of course. Even further west the highway folks were shooting down avalanches in the Rogers Pass on Thursday. The railways coordinate with Highways and hold trains back if necessary. They sometimes position a plow train nearby just in case the snow reaches the track.
John
Thunderstorm in Central MD - 15 minutes after I completed working on the race car trailer! It was in the 60's today.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
My tech guy stuck a program called "Ghostery" on my laptop (the only place I ever visit the Forum), and it cleaned up the site quite a bit. In fact, too well--for awhile I was unable to access the Rochelle Webcam. I finally had to go through the sites it was blocking and find the one that would allow the trains to go through again.Right now it's blocking five sites on this forum.Snow chance: we got just a tiny bit today, and that is the last chance of weather for a while. There may be snow falling Christmas morning, but we don't expect to be here to see it. We're hoping for Linda and family to arrive tomorrow night from California via Portland, but there are supposed to be storms out that way tomorrow, so we'll be keeping an ear to the computer.Today's baking is done; it included four types of cookies in tins, with meringue cookies (we call them "forgotten cookies") sitting in the cooling-down oven to harden. Tomorrow is the day for whatever house-straightening hasn't been done as of now. I still have two massive tables to do for the sightings report I was hoping to put out yesterday.
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)
afternoon
Mc sorry for your loss.Ns was busy.Coal train still waiting to go east.Last day before shut down everybody wants it now.Snow flurries as we came home.Chores to do here.
Brian: You aren't the only one that wondered what had happened. It's like Bergie's ghost made an appearance. Tried responding to another thread for four days straight and got nowhere.
We are now wondering what liquor cabinet the boyz at old Weatherliar U. got into.
Sixty degrees in Denver tomorrow. Now there is snow on Saturday and late X-mas day (albeit 20%) where there was nothing yesterday. Went "over the hill" yesterday (and back) - White knuckle ride over Vail Pass and thru the Eisenhower/Johnson tunnels in a ground blizzard that shut down the freeway just after we passed by. Plenty of people on the road that clearly were not qualified to be up there in winter conditions. Must have been quite the sale on ditch finders.
Lost an old railroad friend yesterday that had quite a boomer's resume. (Class 1 and shortline and on to tourist railroad.)....Sad week.
Must be beautiful up north!
Edmonton got freezing rain about 10 days ago and all the rural roads are still skating rinks. Highways are good though. And now we have a wind warning for tonight and tomorrow, supposed to get gusts of 90 km/h (55 mph).
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Your welcome to take as many tons of it you want free or just come up and frolic in it. Good 6 foot high banks everywhere.
Also a week of nightly ice fog has a thick coating of white frost on absolutely everything that is exceptionally pretty in sunlight. That'll get you in the mood.
0% down here, too.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Finally! Haven't been able to log in to the forums for nearly a month. Fixed it by deleting cookies after getting a long-awaited answer from Trains.
Joe, our chances up here in Iowa look to be about 0%. I'm surprised you're at 10%.
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Afternoon
Tomorrow starts the first day of winter.Calling for a mixed bag of stuff for tomorrow.Still only a 10 percent chance for a White Christmas here in Nw Ohio.Ns has another coal train in the siding at work.also saw a westbound stack train go by after work.Chores to do here at home.One more day of work then it's vacation time.
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