The Driver took me to look at a new diamond yesterday! And it is much bigger than just a one carat and so beautiful!!!
If you followed the saga of the Lincoln visit a couple of weeks ago, you read that there was some concern about some problems at our watch site with the track, the crossings and the Amtrak and north/south traffic diamond.
Well kudos again to BNSF just in case they were reading over our collective shoulders (or maybe I am just fantasizing as usual). They fixed what looked like 1/2 of the diamond a few days ago and yesterday they finished the other half.
We didn’t stay very long - they were very busy - but we watched a Tonka Toy Cat 330C just shred the old diamond and very carefully lay the pieces in separate stacks (what a handy toy to have around the house for picking up clutter!) and another Tonka Toy munch the ground up for the new ballast! That I could watch for hours - which is probably how long it takes at those slow speeds!
AND - they fixed one of the two bad crossings. The “back” one - east of the watch site was incredibly rough and the rails would sink when the trains passed over it at a crawl. Millie had to tiptoe over the crossing - but no more. It is so smooth!
Our regular crossing is still bad, but they seem to be studying it. (good idea since it will become a major traffic route when they close our main street viaduct for two years!)
did you see how deep they had to go to replace the diamond? some guys in deshler dissappeared in the pit when they replaced it.they also put in gates on some crossings in deshler too.
We got there just in time for the cleanup. That was impressive by itself, so can imagine how the first part looked! They even put out a derail and a flag!!
Think the roadmaster’s troops might be sleeping-in today after that? Watch and see if the roadmaster saves any of the parts of the old frog (especially the inserts) for repair parts if it’s the same type of crossing frog.
In mid-August I watched a BNSF track gang upgrade some of the yard trackage and it’s lead which crosses 14th street here in my neighborhood. They had a lot of different pieces of what Mookie refers to as “Tonka Toys”, and I photographed much of the work with my trusty old Nikon FE. I will eventually figure out how to share my pictures with the other forum members here, but it will be a while before that happens. Right now I am unemployed and trying to find work and today it looks like I will be applying for food stamps, and then applying for heat assistance later this week. I at least have a part time job working for an oil company in my neighborhood.
I took your (very amusing) remarks on the Depot diner entirely in the spirit in which you made - no offence taken in the very slightest degree, except that I’d give you only a “one-carrot” diamond.
What are “finners” ? Are they the extensions to your hand as applied to the keyboard ?[swg][:)]
…Glad to hear the bad track at your eyeball spot has finally been repaired Jen…There has been chatter about this for some time and one would wonder how long they were going to let it unrepaired and with hearing of the much traffic crossing it including Amtrak…it makes one wonder why conditions such as this must have been, were left to fend for itself so long…
Heartfelt congratulations to you (and Driver) on what must be a beautiful diamond!
Should you ever be in the market for more, I would welcome the opportunity to be of service to you. I can arrange for showings of solitaires, or settings of two, three, four, six, or even twelve diamonds in intricate interlocking arrangements. If you let me take you downtown, I can show you diamonds in amazing, if “puzzling”, settings. Of course, these diamonds have little value unless you have something to keep them polished; we can supply that, too!
If one of those is for a pinky, the asparagus grown out on the border better be the size of redwood trees. (I wonder if Rocky Flats or Cotter could loan me time to mix plutonium with next year’s seeds?)[%-)]
And as if the new diamond isn’t spectacular enough - we watched them work on the north rails (#1 or #4 - not sure which side they count from) with Thermite right in front of our watch site. AND - they were working on my favorite crossing - with what looked like long crowbars (replacing ties maybe?), a trencher (they are putting in fiber-optics, I think) and a very sturdy young man throwing chunks of something square around (looks like heavy duty rubber?) And my favorite Cat is back ready to do some more heavy lifting!
So give me credit here - I either am a good reporterette with a weak pair of binoculars or I have a very vivid imagination.
BC - I think I “felt” a diamond in your area. The setting was a big bruise!
Mutt - your diamond has better wallpaper than ours does. Ours just has weeds around it.