Well, the last night of Polar is in the books. Apparently these two added trips sold out within a day or two of being available.
First trip had something like 504 passengers, the second 540.
Didn't see many of them, as I was in the northbound locomotive.
Many sighs of relief...
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...
CSSHEGEWISCHNote to tree: you sound like you've watched Tom Skilling on WGN. He mentions the change of meteorological seasons at the appropriate times.
That came out of our local NWS office (Buffalo).
MC - Engineer for us involves the same thing every trip - speed limit north to the "North Pole," then returning at reduced speed dependent on how long the Big Guys take to visit all the passengers. Some are quick, some are slow, but they're getting better. Haven't made a "caribou stop" in the Utica Marsh in quite a while.
For on-board crew (conductors, brakemen) the big thing is tracking the Big Guy's progress so the conductor can advise the southbound engineer as to speed. It's also a chance to schmooze with the passengers - my standard question is "where's home." It's amazing how far some people travel to ride the train (I had some visiting family from Houston a week or two back). Otherwise, the crew isn't really involved with the "show." That's up to the mostly teens we hire for the purpose. And we have staff on-board as well.
We added an extra night late in the game this year, so I'll be headed there Tuesday night. Saturday I was conductor - we had 544 riders on both trips - an odd coincidence. That brings us to 44 trips this year.
2.83 inches of rain from yesterday through this morning - now the wind is blowing. Locally reported in the 40 MPH range.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Today and tomorrow are predicted for mid-30's with mid-40's for the rest of the week. Possible 50 degrees for Sunday (Christmas Eve). It's been a poor excuse for winter so far.
Note to tree: you sound like you've watched Tom Skilling on WGN. He mentions the change of meteorological seasons at the appropriate times.
Only two more nights of Polar for me. Even with the script changes, it's starting to get old for this year. We run more people through our program, but we also have additional performances/ trains every night (and somehow had to work-in an additional two dozen folks onto overbooked trains - quite the juggling act)...Wonder how Tree's tribe disguises the lack of a steam engine...
WEIRDNESS DEPARTMENT: This summer, the local fireworks display was cancelled due to adverse range fire conditions. On Saturday night, without much warning, they shot -off all the fireworks for 40 minutes. BossHen described it as "World War 3" ...With all the leaves off the trees and all the vegitation dead and gone in the still, cold night air, it was really LOUD. The dog and the cat were in full panic mode and went into hiding.
Weatherliars are predicting snow on Christmas Eve. (in the 60's this week)...
Well, three more days of Polar Express under our belts, with three to go. I worked those past three days, and will go back to wrap up the season on Tuesday.
Tonight we had an odd coincidence - exactly the same number of passengers on both trains (544).
Most of our trains have had 500+ passengers. With 44 trips, you can do the math. And we get people from all over the country. I had someone from Houston a couple of weeks ago.
Time for bed. My FitBit tells me I took 11,075 steps today.
good morning
Mild tempratures continue here in Nw Ohio.Guessers say the chance of a white Christmas is pretty much 0.Was able to catch a friends first trip as an engineer(solo) for CSX.He took I 191 to Chicago.College boy did find the switches he needs for the layout in Deshler.The Boss and Matt are out doing shopping.Matt and I are planning on going down to Marion for a slide show.I am going through the archives to find some goodies.
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").
BaltACDIt is still Fall for another 8 days.
Meteorological winter began December 1...
CSSHEGEWISCH We've had a rather mild winter so far with only two or three light dustings.
We've had a rather mild winter so far with only two or three light dustings.
What is this stuff called snow???
The lows for the next week are forecast to run between the high 40's nd low 50's. Should be seeing high's in the 70's the next couple of days.
CSSHEGEWISCHWe've had a rather mild winter so far with only two or three light dustings. Temps have generally remained in the 40's with an occasional warmup.
It is still Fall for another 8 days.
CSSHEGEWISCH We've had a rather mild winter so far with only two or three light dustings. Temps have generally remained in the 40's with an occasional warmup.
We've had a rather mild winter so far with only two or three light dustings. Temps have generally remained in the 40's with an occasional warmup.
We've had temps in the teens, and the 50's, and snow (in fact, it's falling right now to the south of me). Here, the snow is currently gone, although the temperature is below freezing. And the sun is shining brightly.
The current forecast is for a green Christmas.
(the Elf Herders created as many problems as the elves )
mudchicken4th night of Polar here (4 more to go, we go in circles to arrive at the North Pole / fun to watch how the script changes every year)
I've seen us go from six cars with general seating to ten, with assigned seating and six first class (extra cost) cars. We generally put over 500 people on each train. First Class is the first to sell out, usually by late August.
When I first started running on PEX, we used volunteers as "elves." Oftimes, they were high schoolers from honor societies, JROTC, etc. These days, we audition the cast members and pay them something. The discipline is much better, thank you.
We get an annual visit from the licensing people. This year's fellow seemed happy with how things were going - which was encouraging, as he came on the night of our first revenue runs.
The cast runs through a set script with the key points of the story, and everyone gets cocoa and a cookie, along with a visit from that jolly old elf himself. We use four for the ten cars, including one we pick up at the "North Pole." Making sure he is able to visit with all the riders on the way home from the NP is a challenge sometimes for the conductor, although we don't make as many "caribou stops" as we used to...
4th night of Polar here (4 more to go, we go in circles to arrive at the North Pole / fun to watch how the script changes every year) ... wondering how long before the news of the butchering of the yellowperil's mechanical forces out here makes the newsreel feed. Lean and Mean has gone well beyond starving and stupid in these parts.
Wild looking hydrogen units for passenger and freight uses have wandered through the big LJ recently that were headed for the two test tracks at Pueblo. (snuck-in?) SECO NEWS - First Hydrogen Powered Train in The U.S. Passes Through La Junta
Ice fog tonite (another first)
What little snow we had here is gone. Saw some snow on the way home from the railroad last night, but the ground is still fairly warm, as it was in the 50's on Saturday, and started out in the 40's on Sunday.
I did hear reports of up to 3" of the white stuff to the north of us.
Got potentially dicey on the drive home as I watched the thermometer in the truck dip down to +30F for a bit, but then I drove out of that and the roads were pretty good the rest of the way home.
Six more nights of Polar Express - a marathon run of six nights in a row (12 trips total). I'm working the first three, and may head back down for the last night. We added a night as a result of numerous inquiries. With Christmas on Monday, we didn't get into the weekend prior.
Woke up to the ground being covered with a dusting of snow - no snow on paved areas, just on non-paved areas. Temperature overnight never got below freezing and the snow will be gone as the day progresses.
morning
I forgot to mention Deshler has recieved some grant funding.They are in the process of building a pedestrian bridge across the creek.It will connect the walking trails around the resivouirs.Locals won't have to use the CSX bridge to cross.Time for breakfast.
evening
Took picture up to Brother in Edgerton.Ns ran a few stack trains.Went with Matt to Deshler.He worked on the layout.The village has the B&O caboose repainted and it looks great.Csx sent M 367 west with the B&O unit(1827) leading.Tomorrow going to catch up on chores here.
Morning
NDW has cars to shuffle around.People are excited about Amtrack expanding in Ohio.Going to take awhile to get the tracks up to par.Leaving out a piece of chocolate cake and milk to remeber Mrs.Mookie on her birthday.Time to get ready for work.
CSSHEGEWISCHI find it somewhat surreal to be running the Polar Express on a rainy day.
True, but what can we do? The rain is actually worse for traction than dry snow (as opposed to slush)...
OTOH, it's dark by the time we get to the North Pole, so aside from Santa standing on green grass, no one notices. Except Santa, who gets a bit wet.
tree68 Another successful night of the Polar Express. Hopefully tonight goes as well. Rainy right now. Maybe it'll knock off before we run tonight.
Another successful night of the Polar Express. Hopefully tonight goes as well. Rainy right now. Maybe it'll knock off before we run tonight.
Foggy here in Nw Ohio this morning.Little town of Maria Stien in Mercer county brought home another state football trophy.Liberty Center near hear fell short.The boss baked some cookies after we decorated the church.Going to check on my brother and see if we can find something on NS.Been a rough week for Amtrak with them hitting non patient drivers.Chili will be warming in the crockpot for lunch.
Winter is showing up.Lake affect snow around Cleveland.The NDW had a cut of cars to work on in the yard yesterday.The CSX Defiance yard had a few cars as well.Time to get ready for work.
The 8080 is now 50 years old and the first issue of BYTE came out 48 years ago. What's amusing is the number of articles on computers and model railroading that showed up in the early issues of BYTE.
Nice!! .. I had to pause a moment when I saw that the 6502 is 48 years old ..
Of course now with the cloud, who cares!! Put it on someone elses computer.
rdamonThe problem now is that applications are bloating to use this storage and they are expanding with sloppy code, unused libraries, and unneeded add-ons. I wonder how many 3.5” disks Microsoft Office would take to install today.
Take a look at the Task Manager on your PC - the amount of disk and memory that's committed is scary. My tablet is similar, except I can't upgrade the memory like I did with the PC. And it's all background stuff - not programs that I'm running.
I think it would take the same number of CD/DVDs to load Windows now as it did 3.5" floppies back in the day...
Back in my college days, I took several programming courses. I wrote a Fortran program that used almost a whole box of cards (2000 in a box). It ran just fine, but that was a lot of cards to punch... In another course, I wrote a Pascal program that printed out to four pages (Apple 2e). It either wouldn't compile, or if it compiled, it wouldn't run. Neither the instructor nor I could figure out why. Still passed the course.
rdamon BaltACD I have a mini-SD card that has a Terrabyte of storage. Times they are a changing. The problem now is that applications are bloating to use this storage and they are expanding with sloppy code, unused libraries, and unneeded add-ons. I wonder how many 3.5” disks Microsoft Office would take to install today.
BaltACD I have a mini-SD card that has a Terrabyte of storage. Times they are a changing.
I have a mini-SD card that has a Terrabyte of storage.
Times they are a changing.
As I mentioned in an earlier post - the first computer I was ever involved with had 32K words of processing core memory. At its base level it was programmed in Assembly that facilitated tools for the end user (me) to manipluate. At 32K words the programming had to be 'tight' just to get simple actions accomplished.
The history of computers is that the faster and more storage is available, the sloppier the coding becomes. Sloppy because the programmer can get his code to do what he wants it to do, and once that happens they normally stop any efforts to tighten up their code and storage requirements.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.