Since the lake is a huge reservoir of heat, early in the winter, the air over the lake remains above freezing, even when the air temperature over land is below freezing. This creates a mini-front between the lake air and the land air. When the wind blows off the lake, the evaporation from the lake hits the much colder air over land, and you get lake-effect snow. It usually falls no more than a few miles inland.
Here, this should warm you up.
Edit: Top of the page, so French toast all around, on my tab. And keep the coffee coming for those who take it and the hot cocoa for those who don’t.
That sure looks a lot better than the “Waffle” and “Pork Patties” they had for breakfast in the hotel lobby.
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Amazingly, I am not cold. They have this hotel lobby and hallways heated up to about 95 degrees! I had to uncover and turn off the heater in my room last night.
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I need to find something to do… this is going to be a BORING week if I don’t get out.
If you have a lot of free time, you could rent a car, drive up to Waukesha, and tour the MR offices. (Or take the Amtrak Hiawatha, and Uber from there.)
Stranded at home because our road is being paved right now. Canceled plans .
Kevin … I’m sure you can survive winter weather . You should visit the museum suggested by Steve O. … I recall going there as a kid growing up near Chicago. Back then, the big model railroad was provided by Santa Fe Railway. O scale. They had both passenger and freight trains in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s era. All Santa Fe. … In recent years , I have seen the current HO layout provided by BNSF which is fabulous.
We go to Florida in two days.
Hopefully, we see a lot of posts in the Diner pertaining to railroads (real and model) in eastern PA in the days ahead.
We have a Portillo’s in Tampa, been there several times. There is one right around the corner from my hotel that looks exactly like the one in Tampa.
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Is there an original one to go to? Kind of like going to the first Hooters in Clearwater, FL., the first Zaxby’s in Statesboro, GA., or the first Sonny’s in Gainesville, FL? I have been to all those. I would not mind adding another “first” to my list.
Got it. None of the other “originals” are still around either.
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The Hooters “1” in Clearwater received a major remodel a few years ago. The Sonny’s “1” on Waldo Road in Gainesville was torn town and replaced with a new building. The Zaxby’s “1” is also gone now. I made it to all of them when they were still original.
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I also ate at the original 4 Rivers Smokehouse in Orlando. It has been closed now since the are expanding into the whole South. I ate at what I was told was the original location of Shane’s Rib Shack, but I am not sure.
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About Hot Dogs… Not wanting to start a fight about this since I am in Chicago… but I am not a fan of Portillos hot dogs.
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Garry: There are three places in Florida that make a Fantastic Chicago Style Hotdog that are worth checking out if you are nearby in Florida:
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Heavenly Hot Dogs on Colonial BLVD in Orlando.
Joey D’s Chicago Eatery on Bee Ridge RD in Sarasota.
Mel’s Hot Dogs on Busch BLVD in Tampa.
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The best Chicago Dog I ever had was at a place called “UB” on Franklin ST in Chicago.
Nice to see a picture of the Bethlehem station in better days. In 1968-70 while I was a freshman and sophomore at Lehigh with no car I spent a lot of weekends riding the Reading commuter train (an RDC) to Glenside and back to visit my GF. Some weekends she would return the favor. At that point the station was falling into ruin and decay. The ticket office and waiting room were usually locked up. You bought your ticket from the conductor. Really a shame the way these buildings were allowed to deteriorate.
Southest of Bethlehem is Hanover, home of Utz potato chips, the best in the US, and formerly called Hanover Junction. Lincoln, traveling to Gettysburg traveled on several railroads from Washington, to Baltimore, to Hanover and to Gettysburg.
This photo maybe fake history. There is a Lincoln appearing figure, and it is Hanover, but there are conflicting accounts as to whether he got out of the train, the size of the crowd and it may have been dark by the time he arrived in Hanover. This could be a recreation of his trip from the 1880’s. Nevertheless we get to see really old trains in Pennsylvania.
Chloe, just a cup of decaf for me right now please. Nothing more to eat for the day as I will get a blood draw tomorrow morning (fasting) as per usual a week before I see the Doc for my semiannual visit with him.
This morning four of our Division Members drove over to a guys house in Kendall, NY to judge/evaluate five structures for the NMRA Structures Certificate. I was one of two that did the judging. The guy has done some excellent work and 4 out of the 5 recieved Merit Awards. The next time we go over, I can be certain he will complete the requirements for the Structures Certificate.
I just got home from and MLK committee meeting. We were meeting with the group from the church that will be hosting the January MLK Service and Dinner. Looks like everything is going well for the event.
Tonight I will show you the train we rode on back in 2004 for our excursion from Steamtown to the Ice House near Moscow, PA.
Here is the Loco, CN Mikado #3254. Beautiful and powerfull!
That area has dozens of snack food plants. Snyder’s, Hanovers and Hanover of Berlin. All the folks must have brought their good pretzel recipes with them from Germany.
Let’s not forget the great Chocolate works of Hershey. Although, I don’t especially find the Hershey taste all that remarkable. As a kid I was always a Nestlé fan. My tastes have been further refined since.
I made several treks to East Broad Top for their Winter Rambles throughout the late 1960s and '70s. Got snowed in for a couple days at Breezewood, PA when all the roads were closed.
In 1976 I recall riding the M-1 for a night-time trip. Must have been near zero outside and I was riding right alongside the engine, looking over the engineer’s shoulder. The exhaust manifold was glowing red. Toasty warm.
When I got home from the 1976 trip the weekend of February 13-15th, my brother-in-law wrote “It’s a Boy” on the snow over my windshield. That was the birth of my nephew, Tom. Great memories.
I have some decent stereo sound recordings made that weekend. There’s no easy way to post them here. Maybe I’ll dub them to a Youtube video sometime.
It´s in the middle of the night here. I am up for a couple of hours and just can´t go back to sleep. A bad case of insomnia [xx(]
I have always wondered why pretzels are spelled pretzel in the English language while the German word is “Bretzel”- Outside of Bavaria, where they wolfe down dozens of them with their beer, they are not that popular any longer. Around Christmas time, you´ll find pretzel-shaped cookies, but that´s about it - again, outside of Bavaria.
Talking of chocolate, I find Hersheys chocolate no match for Swiss, Belgian or German chocolate. I actually was quite disappointed when I first had a Hershey bar. Milka, Alpia, Cailler, Toblerone, even the “brand” you buy at Aldi´s - any time, but Hershey, I´d rather not.
Pantherphil - [#welcome]! I can relate to your feelings of sadness about letting the old station buildings decay. The station building of my home town is a beautiful brick building built in the 1870s, which was taken out of service when the line was revamped for high speed service in excess of 125mph in 1970. It was stripped of its freight shed and the old canopy over the platform. Later on, it was sold to someone genuinely neglecting. People arriving by train are now greeted by a sad looking building in desperate need for repairs. The modern (ugly) single-stoty, flatroofed replacement is in an equally sad state by now. The ticket office and waiting room are closed, as you now buy your ticket at a vending machine. The rest of the station, i.e. platforms, overpass etc. were renewed recently, as ridership figures have gone up quite a bit.
Well, I´ll give it one more try to get some sleep!
My first visit to Sonny’s #1 in Hogtown would have been in September 1970. They served what was at the time an outrageously large glass of ice tea (sweet, of course). Nowadays, given modern food portions, those would be called ‘medium’.
Some new faces here in the diner, welcome everybody!
Well not much going on.
Kevin, perhaps try some authentic “Chicago Deep Dish Pizza” I’m personally biased to NYC Style thin crust wood or coal fired (coal is better BTW) cheese pizza, but Chicago pizza is supposedly alright.
You still haven’t said why you’re in Chicago? Matter of national security, need to know basis, or something!?[(-D]
Did you guys know that GHWs last words to GW were “I love you too”, thought that was a nice piece of info.
I mainly lurk here at the diner- but had to chime in on the Chicago food- try Portillo’s Italian beef- Gotta get one of those in Chicago as well as either Giordano’s or Lou Malnati’s pizza. If you get over on Montrose in Ravenswood there is a great little hole in the wall called Slims that has a burger with Italian beef on it- really good.
