Not much to report from the land of Buckeyes on this sunny Tuesday morn other then my eye test didn’t go to well.Thankfully there wasn’t any signs of cataracts or other eye disease.He felt the cause may be cause by the new medication I am on and after he talked to my heart doctor I was told to discontinue the use of the new medication,return using my old prescription and return in two weeks for another eye test.I knew my vision had blurred over the past 2-3 days but,not as bad as the test showed.
Modeling wise there isn’t much going on and while in Mansfield I stopped at the hobby shop and picked up a pack of KD 38s for the SW1500…I have put Slate Creek and any major purchases on hold till I see how this eye problem works out.
I found an Alaska shell on Ebay and ordered it. Even though it’s a GP9 with dynamic brakes it’ll still look good. I’ll also be able to slap a patch on the Alaska.
Got rapped up in the Rio Grand SD-50 from 8:45 AM till 11:45 AM. While trying to press on the flywheels I managed to turn a good motor into parts! [banghead] I am using a bench vices to press on the flywheels. Of courses one when on way easier. So I placed a pair of needle nose between the flywheel that I did not want to move and the motor it self. Kept cranking to get the other flywheel where I wanted it, seemed like a good idea! Plastic casing CRUSHED and ruined the motor. [:-^] Well, I got good parts now.
It lives and that is the main thing. Motor I installed pulls .49 amps on the test track with me holding the engine in places. Stalls at .91 amps. Now if I can just fine the coupler pockets and screws I will be set.
Guten Morgen, Janie, I’ll have a Rio Grande mug of coffee and one of those apple struedels, please. Danke schoen!
Ulrich, thanks for the info and photos you’ve been posting. [yeah]
It’s warming up in Cape G. today, supposed to reach 81 or 82 F today. I can deal with that! [:D]
NS Joe, you sound like you’ve been pretty busy with everything going on for you - I can see why you haven’t been able to stop by the Diner as often!
Ray, from your track (re-)laying project lately, I’d guess you’d appreciate Lance Mindheim’s article on hand-laying switches in this month’s MR issue.
Bama, hope your CFO’s Camaro’s problems aren’t too difficult (either to fix or to get the parts for) to get ‘adjusted’ .
Garry, lest you misunderstand - I enjoyed your photo also! [oops] But I think your layout is excellent (and way ahead of mine (or maybe some other Diners’, except definitely for Ray’s and others’… You have a bunch of “drool-worthy” elements in your layout. [bow]
Lee - all that stuff only ran you $35? Amazing! (And did I understand that you didn’t get stuck in the mud and have to pay one of those tow trucks to get out, right?)[:-^]
Todd, that’s great news on the prospective buyers for your Mom’s house. I’m guessing you have a trip to Menard’s on your ‘Do-list’ for today, yes? [swg]
Ken, had to chuckle at your yearbook comment (though no way that anyone would say tha
***Ray, what kind of fuse do you suggest (that does not require soldering)? And would you put it near the battery end or inside the cab near the push-button?
***Lee, sounds like a nice excursion and haul, except the parking lot part.
***Todd, hope that works out.
Opened up the train room windows today to air it out a bit. Perhaps tonight (energy providing) I can vacuum the floor down there.
Had to run some errands (fuel, fence nails, etc.). Local Napa store was closed so the truck will have to wait until the next time I’m in town. Now ready to get busy. Tis’ a perfect day for working outside.
Ken: Well, so far doc is not too concerned about it…although he did schedule a biopsy for Oct 18th. He just wants to be sure it did not become something else…
Curt: Layout looks good there…[tup]
Neighbour has decided to take down the big Ash tree he has in his backyard…so far all but the trunk is down…
Chloe, I’ll just have a coffee and a rib eye steak with baked potato please…I’ll be at the RC for now…
Good afternoon all…Greetings all from beutiful Austin Texas. It,s about 85 degrees here and the wife and I are having a wonderful time. Tommorrow we will visit L.B.Johnsons Library and the Congress bridge. The Congress bridge has the largest number of bats anywhere. At night they all leave at once, I,m told it,s really a site to see.
Ulrich: I’ve been enjoying your pictures of Germany. Reminds me of when my daughter and her partner and his 13 y.o. daughter spent a couple of weeks in Germany two years ago. He grew up in Germany. Beautiful scenery, beautiful buildings, beautiful cathedrals. It made me go back and look through her pictures again. She really enjoyed the food in Germany and also the apfelwine. One of the highlights of her trip was attending a concert by Rammstein. Not my kind of music, but she likes it. Keep those pictures coming.
Weather: We’re enjoying a beautiful fall here. Almost like summer. Daytime temperatures are at least 8 deg. C (15 deg. F) above normal and nighttime temps are 2.5 deg. C (5 deg. F) above normal. And there’s no end in sight for the rest of the week at least. But the trees are dropping their leaves so there’s a big job soon. Fortunately there’s a neighbourhood kid who will rake the lawn for a fee.
Ulrich: The tour of Germany is great so far, really enjoying it. I have a good friend of mine living in Germany at the moment in Berlin and she loves it.
On the layout front I’ve been running my different locomotives around the layout to see if any of them foul up anywhere, whilst the Kato loco’s I own are bulletproof and never derail, my Fox Valley ES44 always jumped the rails at one particular spot. On closer inspection I found the rails had twisted on the last part of the curve causing the lead truck to jump the tracks. Other than that I think the FVM loco is just not as well built as Kato’s. When I go DCC I’m going to see how it runs in consists because at the moment it runs pretty ordinary, but maybe I’m blessed by the Kato locomotives… [:o)]
On the DCC front, I’m going to go put one on layby at the LHS, his price is $265 for the NCE starter system compared to $150 from MB Klein but I have to factor in shipping so I figure for a $60 odd dollar difference I will buy it here. Decoders are also competitively priced, around $32 here compared to $27 from the states for a digitrax decoder.
I’m now on the look out for cheap DCC equipped locomotives, I don’t to be forever installing decoders!! Atlas seem to be more reasonable in the decoder equipped ranges than say Kato, not to say I won’t buy any DCC Kato locomotives. [swg]
Guten Abend Abendessen, ich hoffe, sie hatten alle ein super Tag!
Was trying to say.
Good evening dinners, hope you all had a great day!
Flo, I have Roast Beef Medium Rare, Ah never mind. Wife just came out and I lost my appetite. [banghead] Just give me a [B] and keep them coming! [:(]
Well, till the wife came out I had a pretty darn good day.
Rio Grand SD-50 is all button up and ready to pull some freight! Found a NCE D15SR that I thought was bad, and it was not! Hardest part (well after pressing o the flywheels) was making coupler boxes.
Santa Fe SD 40-2 Boy that went way better than I hoped for! [:D] Engine had been making a heck of a racket but was running. Lube the bearings up and got a little quieter, but noise came back quick. Guess it was a 9 months ago I pulled it from services before it ate a decoder.
I looked at the commutator, and it looked real nasty. Pulled the decoder and installed a DC plug and test ran it. Started making the racket. Blew out the junk and polished the commutator with 1500 girt paper. I be darn, the noise went away! [:D]
What really Amazed Me is how slow it will move now. Using a cheap LL transformer with hardly giving it any power it creeps. If I had not had the shell off and seeing the flywheels moving I would have never know it was running, it is that slow! Wednesday I am going to solder the lights to the light board, 3/4 of the time the lights won’t work. Then I will button it up and speed match it to the other tunnel motor engines
Today I’m working on a couple of projects and doing some ordering. There’s a new GP9 (Alaska) shell on the way and a Walthers Pennsylvania GP9. I got good deals on both of them. For my projects today I’m working on three freight cars. An Athearn Carnation billboard reefer, a Bachmann UP stock car and a Tyco UP MoW gondola. I could body mount couplers on the gondola but I decided to go ahead with truck mounted couplers. That’s enough time for that. On the stock car I’m cutting the truck mount couplers off and am installing Kadee body mount coupler boxes. I need to find doors for it. The Athearn reefer requires simple repair. One of the coupler boxes was damaged so I cut it off and installed a Kadee coupler box. I’m waiting for the glue to dry then I’ll install Kadee couplers. I also have two Bachmann locos I might do something with. One is a Path Mark GP40 #1998. It’s rear wheel pancake drive and it actually runs. It’s in fair shape with only the handrails and horns missing. The other loco is a SD45, Conrail #6203. It looks like maybe a Spectrum or Bachmann Plus model. It’s missing the handrails, horns and sideframes. It has a split frame mechanism.
Jim, been too busy trying to fix the sloppy job I did in the Hand Laid track to read the article in MR… I did see it and skimmed a bit of it. It will be read one of these days. Looks like a valuable one.
Rob, the fuse should be anywhere between the battery and the push button. You should be able to get one at most any good auto parts center. They can advise you about how heavy the wiring and the fuse should be and how best to do it. Usually there is enough wire with the harness to do the whole job without doing any soldering. I hope either J. R. or Ken may be able to better advise you on it. Been 50 years since I have done anything like THAT… I have wired up the 120 volt power inverter in my last 2 pickup trucks. Done basically the same. Think the fuse is near the battery IIRC.
Barry, prayers to you that the biopsy comes back with no new problems!
Brought in some more of the Winter Squash while I was outside today. Here are three I brought in a few days ago. I will have about a dozen at this size and about the same number smaller.
I spent 5 more hours regauging the track near the quarry! Didn’t take terribly long to put in the remaining PC ties, but in checking it, I ran a spare truck over it, and noticed a couple small places still not right. In one curve, the places where the PC ties are were fine. Half way between them it was under gauge… Grrrr. Added an extra PC tie there and reshaped where two rail ends came together to cure a small kink. Now the truck ran through without any problems. I then grabbed one of the flatcars which are severely underweight to see if it woul
Not much happening this way. With the weather cooperating the call volume has decreased a little. It is actually very nice outside tonight with a light breeze which later may actually be a little chilly. I w**k again tomorrow but it is a short day and I get off at 4 PM. I have a training session I have to go to first thing then back to shift.
Ken- Thanks for noticing. I have been working on details since the major stuff is done. I also shoot about a dozen photos a week but for some reason the light is usually too dark or too bright. It really drives me crazy. One of the issues I have is when I zoom in on the camera it tends to leave a blurry picture.
As Seamonster mentioned the weather here has been just like summer. Although there has been frost our back yard is sheltered and we haven’t had any yet. I think this is a record for us.
Nothing much new on the RR front. I need to put together a CVM bridge kit I have before I can really start to lay track. It has been sitting on the workbench for over a week. I did open the package and read the directions but that is as far as I’ve gotten. One thing though, it says that the rail should be just glued to the bridge deck ties. Not sure I like that idea much as it is a scale 150’. I’m thinking of just laying a piece of regular track right on top of the bridge deck. What do you think?
I’ve been trying to get rid of a scuff left by a windshield wiper on my car. There must have been some grit on the wiper as it is in good condition. I took it to an auto glass place but they weren’t much help. The scuff isn’t enough to even feel or see sometimes but when the light hits it especially at dusk, it becomes one of those annoying things right at edge of my sight line. I have tried some paint scratch remover and it has helped a lot so I might just have to give it a few more treatments. I guess if that is all I have to complain about it is rather trivial.
Someone was asking about Jerry. He is often on a N scale forum I visit. He is busy working on his new layout.
Curt, your layout is looking great! I can’t believe how fast you have put it together.
Well I think I might go down and run trains for a little while.
I hope you all got a good night´s rest, after the many [B] and the hearty food we enjoyed yesterday here in Cologne.
Our today´s boat trip will take us to Königswinter, where we mount the Drachenfels cog railway to take us up to the Dragon´s Rock mountain. This is the place where Siegfried supposedly killed the dragon to make him immortal. Those of you who dig opera know Wagner´s “Ring der Nibelungen”. Heavy stuff, but good music.
I have not been up there since 1963 [:-^]
After hiking down the mountain, we will re-board the boat to take us to Rüdesheim.
We will have left the beer country and entered into wine country by then. Along our way, please enjoy such beautiful vistas like the ones following.
Got the big tree almost cut in half and with help from a chain and the tractor, got it to break. Patched the fence and for the first time since the tornado hit, the miniature horses & donkeys got to eat grass around the pond. Progress!
Thanks for posting the photos. I recognized the Ludendorff Bridge (at Remagen) towers instantly. The bridge was originally built during World War I. It was designed by Karl Wiener, an architect from Mannheim. In 1945 it was the last standing bridge on the Rhine. It was captured by soldiers of the 9th Armored Division on the 7th of March 1945. The first American soldier across the bridge was Sergeant Alex Drabik. The first officer across was Lt. Karl Timmermann. The bridge fell into the Rhine less than two weeks after it’s capture. By that time the US Army Corps of Engineers had built pontoon bridges at several locations upstream and downstream of the Ludendorff Bridge. In 1968 David L. Wolper produced an American motion picture, The Bridge at Remagen. The film depicts actual historical background, but is fictional in all other aspects. There has not been another bridge built across the Rhine here, mainly due to opposition from the people of Remagen , complaining that a bridge located at this point along the Rhine would spoil the view.
BOC: I love the sign on the building in your post. “Smile. You are on camera”.
