afternoon
Went out and saw what CSX had to offer.A unit grain train is filling up west of town.Problem is the engine will be facing the wrong way when it comes out.An ethanol train came by with CP,Bnsf and a Up unit.Ran errands as well.
stay safe
Joe
I gave my wife a lump of coal for Christmas, it looks great on her finger. Of course, it was under extreme pressure for a very long time before it was mined.
I haven’t had any problems since I “ate” all my cookies. [;)]
Quoting Brian "I haven’t had any problems since I “ate” all my cookies. "
I didn’t eat mine; I threw them out because they apparently were rotten.[:)]
We have plenty of cookies left here, and came home with more different ones besides.
We left for Michigan on Christmas Eve and came home today. Not a single worthwhile train sighting the whole time, and none in the days before our trip as I was concentrating on getting a report out. I’m well overdue!
Linda, Chris, and Linus arrived here Sunday morning, and came up to Michigan with us. It was great having our entire family together on Christmas Eve. We’ll have another gathering with just daughters, spouses, and grandchildren Friday. Meanwhile, we’ll put Linda and family on a dinky to Chicago tomorrow afternoon to spend some time with friends who will be taking Amtrak down from Milwaukee. Linda currently has some mobility issues, so we’re using BNSF instead of UP, to put them in the same station. It’s nice to be able to do that.
afternoon
Rain has arrived in Nw Ohio.Was able to go use one of our gift cards for luch.The Amtrak Lake(Late) Shore was about 2 hours late as it came west in Delta.Looked around the csx yards on the east side of Toledo as well. Tomorrow we get the oil changed in Stacey’s vehicle.Get to use another gift card for lunch.
stay safe
Joe
Evening
Took Stacey’s car for service today.Also used gift cards for lunch and supper too.Ns looked like they were busy digging around the fuel pad area in the New Haven Yard.Traffic came in on the NKP and Wabash while we were there.The high hoods were still being used for yard power.Wasn’t much in Garrett on the way home but Csx ran a few westbounds.Need to take Stacey’s car to the wash tomorrow.Didn’t go on any Indiana backroads but we still brought home some Indiana with us.
stay safe
Joe
Was Southbound and down - left Central Maryland just before midnight in the rain and had rain all the way to about Mile 40 in South Carolina. Hit Jacksonville at Noon. Saw regular gas prices as cheap as $1.859.
Good morning
Heard some csx trains coming through town this morning.We have church and then need to give hugs this afternoon.Grandma’s snowman kit is going to be put up for awhlie.Guessers calling for rain to move in tomorrow.Wishing Houston Ed a happy birthday tomorrow as well.Off to get cleaned up.
stay safe
Joe
Good Evening
Rain all day today.Under a flood advisory and a high wind watch as well.Going to stay in and watch the ball drop from here at home.Matt is busy in the train room working on the wiring system.2018 wasn’t the best for friends and family.Let’s hope 2019 is much better.Happy New Year.
stay safe
Joe
They told us it would get windy around 2 AM and it did.
Decided to go out and lower the lights on the “Christmas tree” in the front yard before it blew over… One stake had already pulled out of the ground. More were sure to follow.
Today is just cold and gloomy. At least we didn’t get the icy weather that had been promised us yesterday.
I was able to end the year on a high note yesterday. We had errands at the post office (north of the tracks) and the med-group pharmacy (south of the tracks). Which means, of course, an intervening railroad crossing. We chose Finley Road, and arrived just as the gates were going down. It was an eastbound coal train on Track 2, headed by UP 1996, the Southern Pacific heritage unit. The train was moving very slowly (perhaps starting from a stop).
Soon after the coal train started across a westbound stacker came through on Track 1, rapidly overhauling the coal train. It had only a single unit, but was moving pretty well…perhaps the ArroWedge box on the first car really did help it along. It was fairly short, and cleared the crossing before the coal train had gotten much of a roll on.
With the stacker gone, I could concentrate on the coal train, which had cars mostly from Wells Fargo Rail, in an assortment of FURX, WFRX, and BBLX reporting marks (with a few CRIX cars in as well). The rotary-coupler ends on these cars were red, orange, yellow, and yellow-green. Looked like I was going to have a fine time researching them, but when I did, I found that I’d seen all of the groups represented. It was a grim reminder of the decline of coal business at some Midwest Power companies, such as Wisconsin Electric, NIPSCO, Detroit Edison, and Consumers Energy.
The train was rolling faster when the hind end
North Florida - 81 and sunny
Chicago, 19 with flurries expected. Enjoy the Florida weather Balt.
A balmy 11 degrees all afternoon in Denver with two inches of powder from yesterday. Our brief taste of winter will be gone tomorrow. (The scottie snow snark will be so disappointed. At three degrees he is a furry black bundle of energy on a leash.)
(still issues logging-in. Still bugz in da software up in cheezelandia?)
Suspect the software now points somewhere in Texas.
Have you tried clearing the Kalmbach cookies out of your browser? (If you haven’t done that in a while, you should probably go through when you have an idle half an hour and get rid of all the trackers and such anyway)
OverMod: cookies have been swept twice. What’s odd is that it does not matter on which machine I use. Same outcome.
Company truck still comes equipped with a sixteen pound circuit breaker. I feel a road trip coming on. (Or I can walk in their building with all the tin-foil protection removed [:O])
Salt Lake City–+15 and sunny.
I have a nice large capacitor bank in storage that will help finish the job. Send me time and location for the meet-up and I’ll see you there…
Me, too. I’ve not really had that much action (or productive action, anyway, if you count the post from 12/31). Friday it’s supposed to get into the 40s and be sunny here; that should be a good day for the walk/scoot/lunch/scoot/walk trip to Elmhurst and/or Oak Park. I’ve gotten over the disappointment of my favorite Five Guys restaurant being closed in Oak Park, as there’s also a good barbecue place there. And Elmhurst has many good lunch spots, all with the advantage of a view of the tracks.
Saturday’s supposed to be even better, as far as weather goes (upper 40s, maybe increasing clouds). I might use that for a foray into northwestern Indiana. Pat has not expressed an interest in this one, either, so I’ll probably go solo.
Today we both went shopping. I wan’t required at the places we visited, but Pat plied me with a trackside restaurant in LaGrange. And though nothing went by while we were at the restaurant, we caught a couple of good freights at Downers Grove and Western Springs, on our way there. How good they were, I’m about to find out.