Steam Locomotives versus Diesels

[Anonymous]

Michael Sol - as I said before, neither TomDiehl nor myself has to produce anything to refute the specious arguments you've put forth at great length.

HISTORY has already done it for us.

Now, you obviously consider yourself as a person of superior intelligence; you think that anyone who disagrees with you is a, well, substandard intellect. Your problem lies in the fact that there is a tremendous disparity between your perceived level of intelligence and your actual level. If your actual level of intelligence was up to the level of your perception of it, you'd have been able to realize that HISTORY has proven you and Mr. Brown as wrong as you can be, and you'd further realize that you've wasted about 25 of the pages of this thread.

Old Timer

[solzrules]

AHHHH.. Sweet. Modern technology.......[8D]

[ajmiller]

You can edit your own posts after you've posted them. Each of your posts has an edit button on it.

[solzrules]

I think one of my posts was screwed up. Please chalk that up to being a rookie![#oops]

[solzrules]

QUOTE:
So is high voltage railway electrification. It outlasted steam and it will outlast diesel. Steam boilers are still commonplace in office building installations, our insurance carrier expresses no concerns about ours and our Stationary Engineer reports to me he hasn't heard of a boiler explosion in about 40 years. Interestingly enough, he says that either mechanical or modern electronic controls and sensors make that just about impossible. He also says they are foolproof, but cautions that there is always a fool out there somewhere that will prove the adage wrong.

Again, if you have a passion for reports check out the OSHA incident reports regarding steam fatalities. And steam boilers are no longer used to heat office buildings (they are too dangerous). Modern heating systems are based on a hot water system (similar to hydronic heat). Also-they said that all those modern electronic and mechanical controls would keep the TITANIC from sinking, but I don't think that quite did the trick. The only fool is the fool who relies on mechanical and electrical safety devices. Both are prone to failure. I have seen both fail.

QUOTE:
You cannot control a steam engine with the same prescision as an electrical motor. Modern eletronics can control an AC motor with prescision unheard of from any DC motor in the 1st generation diesels, and certainly better than any steam engine.

Actually I was trying to get back to the basic topic of this thread. That was steam vs. diesel, if I remember correctly. I was trying to point out the benefits of an electrical motor as oppsed to a steam engine. I don't have facts or reports to back this up. Just experience.

[solzrules]

QUOTE:
If it is so "obvious" that maintenance costs went down, then why does there seem to be so much difficulty showing any numbers to support it? OldTimer and TomDiehl seem to be able to generate a lot of name-calling, but are unable to generate a factual analysis, despite the allegation of so many studies "by all the railroads" unanimously showing the contrary. If there are that many studies, they should be like wallpaper. Oddly, OldTimer and TomDiehl just seem to have misplaced their copies. When I misplaced mine, I grabbed some annual reports and did an analysis. They can't seem to do that either. What's the problem here?

Let's try this differently. Instead of producing studies, reports, speculation, dreams, or yes even fantasy, how about this. Could it be that railroads realized the potential to maximize profit by minimizing maintenance? A term for that might be capitalism. SO what if EMD/GE sexed up diesel studies to sell their product. Companies have been doing that for years. A smart person knows his industry and will see through the B.S.
Again, I am not employed in the area of railroading, but a few common sense guidlines can be spread to any job. And if those guys can't find those reports lying around they should all be commended. If I had stuff like that filling up vacant space in my house I would really need to find another calling in life.

[solzrules]

QUOTE:
There is a 21 page thread on the Milwaukee Road which is somewhat similar-
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=22066

QUOTE:
Do you remember the GREAT MONTANA WHEAT WAR! There seems to be a common influence in all of these discussions. Pettifogs rule.

I know not of this "Great Montana Wheat War" But wait, let me take a wild stab in the dark as to what it is all about. Did someone make an assertion about a topic on page one and then devote the other 25 pages to a pissing match? If so, I can't hardly wait to read it. Unfortunately, there are only 24 hours in a day. [V]

[ajmiller]

QUOTE: Originally posted by vsmith

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal

QUOTE: Originally posted by ajmiller
If there's one thing I learned from Monty Python it's...
An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition, not just contradiction. Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.

No, it isn't![:p]

I'm sorry, but this is 'hitting yourself on the head' lessons.[:o)][:p][;)]
[banghead][banghead][banghead][banghead][banghead][banghead]

Your type really makes me puke, you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous pervert! [xx(]
[;)]

[ajmiller]

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal

QUOTE: Originally posted by ajmiller
If there's one thing I learned from Monty Python it's...
An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition, not just contradiction. Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.

No, it isn't![:p]

Yes it is!

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

I had a feeling that all professional studies of any type were "obscure" to you. Now we know why.

I guess professionals just don't publish on internet railfan sites.

Odd, isn't it?

Best regards, Michael Sol

Obviously, "professionals" don't post anything, anywhere. I wonder why that is?

Well, I do think it is time for this thread to die. You are bound and determined that there is not going to be a discussion of anything involving facts and figures that conflicts with your predisposed notions.

-- Michael Sol

And you are bound and determined to keep referring to an obscure study that you know noone on this forum has even heard of and you're treating it as gospel. Then when someone disagrees with you, you immediately look down your nose at them and tell them how stupid they must be since they don't have this supposed study. Whether this "study" even contains any of these facts and figures is completely your interpretation.

[vsmith]

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal

QUOTE: Originally posted by ajmiller
If there's one thing I learned from Monty Python it's...
An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition, not just contradiction. Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.

No, it isn't![:p]

I'm sorry, but this is 'hitting yourself on the head' lessons.[:o)][:p][;)]
[banghead][banghead][banghead][banghead][banghead][banghead]

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ajmiller

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl
I'm sorry, I must have missed this, where was it that you posted the link to the Brown study?

This is why this thread is now so long. This is the third time posting this information:

H. F. Brown, "Economic Results of Diesel Electric Motive Power on the Railways of the United States of America," Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 175:5 (1961).

For professionals, this is the standard citation method, and for professionals, they know where to find it and how to get it.

And they will understand what it says.

Best regards, Michael Sol

Sorry, tried clicking on that link but it doesn't work.

That's because it's not a link, it's an underline.

Sorry, I couldn't find the "sarcasm" smilie.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ajmiller
If there's one thing I learned from Monty Python it's...
An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition, not just contradiction. Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.

No, it isn't![:p]

[ajmiller]

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl
I'm sorry, I must have missed this, where was it that you posted the link to the Brown study?

This is why this thread is now so long. This is the third time posting this information:

H. F. Brown, "Economic Results of Diesel Electric Motive Power on the Railways of the United States of America," Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 175:5 (1961).

For professionals, this is the standard citation method, and for professionals, they know where to find it and how to get it.

And they will understand what it says.

Best regards, Michael Sol

Sorry, tried clicking on that link but it doesn't work.

That's because it's not a link, it's an underline. It is customary to underline, or italicize, titles of books or proceedings when publishing bibliographic references. Why don't you try google or maybe go to a local university library. Most old journal articles are not yet available online. It takes a lot of work to scan all that stuff in. I searched on Penn State's library page, and their copies of Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers for volumes older than 1969 are in the library annex and not in the stacks, so it will be hard to get to that volume. It looks like modern volumes of Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers have been split into more than a dozen parts. Part F is dedicated to rail and rapid transit publications.

Now fight nice, folks. If there's one thing I learned from Monty Python it's...
An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition, not just contradiction. Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

I had a feeling that all professional studies of any type were "obscure" to you. Now we know why.

I guess professionals just don't publish on internet railfan sites.

Odd, isn't it?

Best regards, Michael Sol

Obviously, "professionals" don't post anything, anywhere. I wonder why that is?

Well, I do think it is time for this thread to die. You are bound and determined that there is not going to be a discussion of anything involving facts and figures that conflicts with your predisposed notions.

However, after wasting considerable time on this, I note the reasons why:

You represented to this thread that "every railroad engineering department" in the country did studies on Dieselization and they "all" came to the identical conclusions, and those conclusions directly contradicted H.F. Brown.

My first thought, on reading your astonishing claim, was that 1) you were pretty ambitious to go out and read every single study done by every railroad engineering department in the country to determine what they concluded, and 2) I wondered how you did that since most of those railroads have long since disappeared.

Odd as your claims seemed, I only asked you to provide one citation to one single study so we have something intelligent to discuss on the topic instead of your wild flights of fancy and your unsuccessful attempts to be clever.

And you could not provide one single citation to one single complete study anywhere.

My conclusion? Like your dishonest initial representation regarding the B&O study, which you pretended was your own statement until confronted with it, I think you have done the same thing again.

You have simply misrepresented, to everyone, what you know. You have not, in fact, ever read a single professional report by any railroad engineering department regarding the economic results of Dieselization. You have, in fact, no idea what any of them really say. You do not know, in fact, if there were any such studies actually done.

You have consistently misrepresented the facts of what you know and how you know it. You have flogged this argument far longer than it needed by a fraudulent representation of what all these alleged studies "say" when in fact you simply made it all up.

You have never read a single one.

Thanks for the waste of time.

-- Michael Sol

You're welcome.

And thanks for wasting our time referring to a report that only YOU seem to know exists.

[MichaelSol]

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

I had a feeling that all professional studies of any type were "obscure" to you. Now we know why.

I guess professionals just don't publish on internet railfan sites.

Odd, isn't it?

Best regards, Michael Sol

Obviously, "professionals" don't post anything, anywhere. I wonder why that is?

Well, I do think it is time for this thread to die. You are bound and determined that there is not going to be a discussion of anything involving facts and figures that conflicts with your predisposed notions.

However, after wasting considerable time on this, I note the reasons why:

You represented to this thread that "every railroad engineering department" in the country did studies on Dieselization and they "all" came to the identical conclusions, and those conclusions directly contradicted H.F. Brown.

My first thought, on reading your astonishing claim, was that 1) you were pretty ambitious to go out and read every single study done by every railroad engineering department in the country to determine what they concluded, and 2) I wondered how you did that since most of those railroads have long since disappeared.

Odd as your claims seemed, I only asked you to provide one citation to one single study so we have something intelligent to discuss on the topic instead of your wild flights of fancy and your unsuccessful attempts to be clever.

And you could not provide one single citation to one single complete study anywhere.

My conclusion? Like your dishonest initial representation regarding the B&O study, which you pretended was your own statement until confronted with it, I think you have done the same thing again.

You have simply misrepresented, to everyone, what you know. You have not, in fact, ever read a single professional report by any railroad engineering department regarding the economic results of Dieselization. You have, in fact, no idea what any of them really say. You do not know, in fact, if there were any such studies actually done.

You have consistently misrepresented the facts of what you know and how you know it. You have flogged this argument far longer than it needed by a fraudulent representation of what all these alleged studies "say" when in fact you simply made it all up. Completely fabricated your arguments and pretended you knew all about these studies.. That was fundamentally dishonest.

You have never read a single one.

Thanks for the waste of time.

-- Michael Sol

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

I had a feeling that all professional studies of any type were "obscure" to you. Now we know why.

I guess professionals just don't publish on internet railfan sites.

Odd, isn't it?

Best regards, Michael Sol

Obviously, "professionals" don't post anything, anywhere. I wonder why that is?

[MichaelSol]

I had a feeling that all professional studies of any type were "obscure" to you. Now we know why.

I guess professionals just don't publish on internet railfan sites.

Odd, isn't it?

Best regards, Michael Sol

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl
I'm sorry, I must have missed this, where was it that you posted the link to the Brown study?

This is why this thread is now so long. This is the third time posting this information:

H. F. Brown, "Economic Results of Diesel Electric Motive Power on the Railways of the United States of America," Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 175:5 (1961).

For professionals, this is the standard citation method, and for professionals, they know where to find it and how to get it.

And they will understand what it says.

Best regards, Michael Sol

Sorry, tried clicking on that link but it doesn't work.

[MichaelSol]

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl
I'm sorry, I must have missed this, where was it that you posted the link to the Brown study?

This is the third time posting this information:

H. F. Brown, "Economic Results of Diesel Electric Motive Power on the Railways of the United States of America," Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 175:5 (1961).

For professionals, this is the standard citation method, and for professionals, they know where to find it and how to get it.

And they will understand what it says.

Best regards, Michael Sol

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

QUOTE: Originally posted by solzrules
[Steam engines require a ton of maintenance. It they could build a low maintenance steam engine that was profitable for the railroad (or any industry), I think they would have done that by now.

There seems to be little support in the historical record for that. Milwaukee Road figures show maintenance costs went up. Brown's study for all Class I railroads shows that maintenance costs went up.

If it is so "obvious" that maintenance costs went down, then why does there seem to be so much difficulty showing any numbers to support it? OldTimer and TomDiehl seem to be able to generate a lot of name-calling, but are unable to generate a factual analysis, despite the allegation of so many studies "by all the railroads" unanimously showing the contrary. If there are that many studies, they should be like wallpaper. Oddly, OldTimer and TomDiehl just seem to have misplaced their copies. When I misplaced mine, I grabbed some annual reports and did an analysis. They can't seem to do that either. What's the problem here?

Best regards, Michael Sol

Well, since WE'RE being criticized for this:

I'm sorry, I must have missed this, where was it that you posted the link to the Brown study?

lol, GOOD ONE.

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

QUOTE: Originally posted by solzrules
[Steam engines require a ton of maintenance. It they could build a low maintenance steam engine that was profitable for the railroad (or any industry), I think they would have done that by now.

There seems to be little support in the historical record for that. Milwaukee Road figures show maintenance costs went up. Brown's study for all Class I railroads shows that maintenance costs went up.

If it is so "obvious" that maintenance costs went down, then why does there seem to be so much difficulty showing any numbers to support it? OldTimer and TomDiehl seem to be able to generate a lot of name-calling, but are unable to generate a factual analysis, despite the allegation of so many studies "by all the railroads" unanimously showing the contrary. If there are that many studies, they should be like wallpaper. Oddly, OldTimer and TomDiehl just seem to have misplaced their copies. When I misplaced mine, I grabbed some annual reports and did an analysis. They can't seem to do that either. What's the problem here?

Best regards, Michael Sol

Well, since WE'RE being criticized for this:

I'm sorry, I must have missed this, where was it that you posted the link to the Brown study?

[MichaelSol]

QUOTE: Originally posted by NW_611
If I remember correctly, the anecdote about the 2707 (Boeing's SST) was that it was designed to break even/make money on fuel at $0.10/gallon, but that when the Arab states said, "Ooh, embargo!", the thing became absolutely non-viable solely on fuel costs alone. It would appear to this amateur student that, if/once the low(er) diesel fuel costs of the 1950s went away either due to increased consumption or political upheavals, a supposed cost savings of the diesel-electric went away.

I suppose that even had railroad management wanted to really make a change---Ross Rowland and the ACE 3000 of which I know very little notwithstanding---the ability to do so was long gone. Sort of like an anecdote I heard where the Carter Administration wanted to bring back the previously-retired Convair B-58A Hustler strategic bomber, but was prevented from doing so by the fact that they had all been scrapped in Arizona.

To wedge one other thought in here, is there detailed information/analysis on the effect of "efficient" versus "total" dieselization? Let me try to textualize this: It's the 1950s and so you've dieselized the lightly-trafficked branch line and retired locomotives that were new when Wilson was making his Fourteen Points. You cut down on maintenance and so forth, and maybe even save some doubleheading from time to time. Do those economies transfer (or survive, whatever) when all of a sudden you've got to have five GP7s to do the work of one Class A locomotive?

I suppose I'm wondering if there was a true advantage to 'total' dieselization as opposed to a 'no other choice since we can't support Class A operations any more' situation. I'm not trying to be clever or anything; I just wonder if the management types had any other choice than the "one 251/567 fits all" solution.

OldtImer told you to start another thread, he certainly isn't going to answer your question, you only have to look through his mutliple posts here to find 1) zero factual information, 2) a repeating disdain for any statistical analysis whatsoever, and 3) a continuing series of name calling posts despite a warning from the forum moderator specifically about the behavior.

You have to wonder about people that don't like the topic of a thread, but insist on posting anyway, trying to get other people to stop talking about it. Not just a little odd, perhaps pathological. Where I grew up, If you don't like the conversation, simply butt out. Not this bunch. As 27 pages shows.

Your question was polite and reasonable.. And raises a good point that I think Brown specifically noted. During the period of the study, under conditions then existing on U.S. railways, multiple unit operation was no virtue except in limited circumstances. And those limited circumstances constituted a very small percentage of overall locomotive miles operated.

The point your question raises, did it really make sense to have to operate four or five separate diesel units in multiple unit operation to get the horsepower output of one Class A Steam engine?

You didn't gain anything in crew costs by ordinary multiple unit operation, but you did "gain", if that is the proper word, four or five highly complex machines operating in place of one relatively more simple machine.

Of course, that is the condundrum of economic service life as well. Those four or five highly complex machines will need complete tear down and overhaul between three and four times in order to achieve the economic service life of that big Class A steam engine.

The way I learned it, through an electrification analogy which applies here, you don't "replace" a powerful single unit locomotive with an economic service of 30 years with five equivalent horsepower locomotives with economic service lives of 8 years in road service. You replace a single unit locomotive with an economic service life of 30 years with the equivalent of 20 locomotives to obtain the power and economic service life of 30 years. It was an interesting way to look at it.

However, this short life/multiple unit concept is where the statistical data gets slippery. Under ICC rules then in effect, an overhaul that cost in excess of 50% of the purchase price was capitalized. Brown's study points to that problem in assessing repair costs for diesel-electric locomotives.

The "new" cost of a diesel engine (the engine, not the locomotive) is approximately half the cost of the overhaul of that same engine, because an asembly line can produce that engine much more efficiently than a shop doing the overhaul because at that point it is, essentially, custom work, losing all the efficiencies and economies of scale of an assembly line.

When this was factored in to the maintenance cost curves, the results were interesting. As I mentioned earlier, the cost per 1000 rail horsepower-miles of the average of Class I railways was about 23.5 cents at the age of 10 years for a Diesel-electric locomotive, and about 15.5 cents for a Steam engine of the same age. At the age of 20 years, the cost of maintenance per 1000 rail horsepower miles was nearly 40 cents for the Diesel, and 20 cents for the Steam locomotive.

Brown showed an average. Interestingly, the study also showed several individual railroads with substantially worse diesel maintenance costs, reaching as high as 44 cents for a ten year old diesel-electric locomotive. [p. 270].

I think those observations, which are drawn strictly from the published data, suggest how age significantly impacts complex machines more dramatically than relatively simple machines. That has little to do with the motive power type, just simply a reasonable result of aging and wear factors on thousands of moving or otherwise critical parts compared to the effect on far fewer, more robust moving parts.

However, and this is the crucial "however", if the data for overhaul costs is excluded -- treated as a capital expenditure and not as a repair cost -- then the diesel maintenance figures would look much, much better.

Either way, of course, there is the indisputable effect on ROI, which declined on American railways during this time. That is a fact of the rail industry than cannot be denied and is reasonably explained by the statistical data that shows that when all costs associated with Dieselization are included, they consumed a higher share of revenue than the motive power costs did prior to Dieselization.

Some claim that the statistical data shows, somehow, that "Brown is a loser.' It's an interesting phenomenon of this forum that people who don't even post here end up getting called names. Classy bunch.

That's simply an emotional reaction that has no reasonable rhyme or reason. If the data is "wrong" -- that is the ICC reports are in error -- it raises the question as to why they would be, or why the railroads would report something against their own self interest. Data is data.

On the other hand, If you were a rail executive who had staked a career on an expensive judgment call, which way would you portray it?

Best regards, Michael Sol

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by espeefoamer

It is amazing that this debate has been going on for 26 pages on this forum when the railroads setled the matter in the 40s and 50s. It took several more decades for the rest of the world,but they,too decided in favor of diesels(or in some cases electrics).Even China recently dieselized the last steam operated line in the world.I am sure there are still some pockets of steam left here and there,but for the most part steam has breathed its last. This is sad but true[:(].

You see Espee, the debate ISN'T what happened, or if steam is better or worse than diesel. It's to see if you can quote another obscure study that noone else has ever heard of, in an effort to prove that what happened, didn't happen, or shouldn't have happened.

Remember, everything you know is wrong.

[art11758]

Actually that Gettysburg boiler explosion report was pretty interesting. I've followed this thread and learned a bit, despite what has transpired. Regardless of how railroading got here, we are dieselized. And it does not appear that it was as effortless as I thought.
Thank you to all who have contributed.

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Old Timer

Let me see if I can recap 27 pages of BS in just a couple of paragraphs.

We've had reams of people objecting to Sol's conclusions, and Sol has gotten ever more verbose in trying to refute these objections, leading to his getting somewhat snippy with TomDiehl, a couple of pages back.

Old Timer

Really?? I hadn't noticed. LOL [:D]

[bobwilcox]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73

QUOTE: Originally posted by solzrules

You people are nuts.
I just got done reading your conversation and I can't believe someone would acutally debate this topic in such a ridiculous context. I kind of feel like I have been cheated out of the last 40 minutes of my life somehow. I thought these forums would be interesting, but all I have seen so far is something akin to a sandbox in a playground.
I think I am going to go outside, get some fresh, non-stale, non ***ing air. Maybe I will walk down to the Wisconsin Southern tracks and watch a railroad succeed with cast away GP38's on a track that the Milwaukee(Ogilvie) figured was worthless.

There is a 21 page thread on the Milwaukee Road which is somewhat similar-
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=22066

Do you remember the GREAT MONTANA WHEAT WAR! There seems to be a common influence in all of these discussions. Pettifogs rule.

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by solzrules

You people are nuts.
I just got done reading your conversation and I can't believe someone would acutally debate this topic in such a ridiculous context. I kind of feel like I have been cheated out of the last 40 minutes of my life somehow. I thought these forums would be interesting, but all I have seen so far is something akin to a sandbox in a playground.
I think I am going to go outside, get some fresh, non-stale, non ***ing air. Maybe I will walk down to the Wisconsin Southern tracks and watch a railroad succeed with cast away GP38's on a track that the Milwaukee(Ogilvie) figured was worthless.

There is a 21 page thread on the Milwaukee Road which is somewhat similar-
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=22066

[MichaelSol]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cementmixr

amusing that the folks who complained about too many pages back on page 24 added about three more pages to the thread with their complaints.... and now here we are on page 27 still complaining .... (uh oh, incoming tomato... cementmixr scurrying for cover again... [:D] )

Touche'.

Best laugh I've had all day.

Best, Michael Sol

[Anonymous]

amusing that the folks who complained about too many pages back on page 24 added about three more pages to the thread with their complaints. [:D]

Good night and best wishes all.