Gibbon, Cozad & Western - "The 100th Meridian Line"

[davefoxx]

Blasphemy! Shame on you, Gary! (I know. The thought has crossed my mind.)

We are HOers.  Resistance is futile.  Your life, as it has been, is over.  From this time forward, you will service us.  We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own."

Sincerely,
The HO Borg

[peteski]

We are HOers.  Resistance is futile.  Your life, as it has been, is over.  From this time forward, you will service us.  We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own."

Sincerely,
The HO Borg

Oh hush up HOer Dave!  We don't need more of your kind here!   
I suspect when the it comes to up-scale  Mike will skip the unspeakable scale, and move directly to S, O, or maybe even G.   

[Lemosteam]

The HO Borg

Bunch of HO’s in the Borg.

 

[GaryHinshaw]

[Jbub]

Why can't I upvote this more

[C855B]

No room on the display shelf for an auto rack. Fortunately. I think. But it does appear 6936, 727B, the boxcar, and the caboose will fit with mere fractions of an inch to spare.

I need to thank ScaleTrains for the great job on the GP30B... and ask 'em (Pretty please! With sugar on top!) to do the same for N. GP30s and the 30Bs were iconic for UP in the 1960s once you could avert your eyes from the double-diesels.

[dandopinski]

Some of it, aspects from the set that's published with JMRI, UP-2008. It's not really what I want, which is UP rules proximate to 1970. There are a few speed signaling aspects, but not nearly as many as the later set. Problem I'm having with fudging the 1970-ish signaling rules is lunar instead of flashing red for "restricted" indications. Don't have lunar available.

Yes, UP signals used a lot of lunar in their aspects

[John]

Yes, UP signals used a lot of lunar in their aspects

NCE Light It could work here   https://ncedcc.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002094233-Light-it-and-Illuminator-Manuals

[C855B]

Lunar? Oh, it's not the wiring or control circuits, it's the availability of LED assemblies for both SA and 3-color heads in R-Y-L.

[C855B]

[GaryHinshaw]

Layout is coming along nicely!

But geez, even with the room you have, it would sure fill up quickly with HO DDA40X's.

[nuno81291]

Man those engines were BEASTS. Watch out a display is a slippery slope to a layout!

[oakcreekco]

Yep, that BIG UP power of the past was impressive.

I remember seeing these rolling through the Platte River Valley. Also loved seeing the Turbine units too. You could hear them coming from a mile away.

I'm dating myself, but getting to see, hear, and smell these beasts is still a highlight in my train world.

[C855B]

Oh, yes. The over-the-top power of the '60s and '70s is why I model the UP. And hood-unit B's.

I've mentioned it before, but seared into my childhood memories is a scene from a family road trip in '65 or '66. We were heading west on US30, up on the bluffs approaching Green River, and I spotted an eastbound down in the valley. Power was GTEL8500 #16, on the RBB&B "red" train. Incredible coincidence of place and time. Same trip a day earlier along the main in Nebraska introduced me to DD35s and DDA35s, which seemed like they were all over the place. I don't know if there were U50s or any of the three 855s in the mix, it was the DDs "with the hole in the middle" that got the attention of this pre-teen.

My fave personal photo, a road-weary 6900 on a cloudy day crossing the SP in Colton, weeks away from being put out to pasture:

[C855B]

OK, Mike, picture of some computer thingie. What is it, and what does it mean?

1) Most importantly, it means I'm back in the layout room, doing things on the layout. You may or may not notice that my last entry was 6-1/2 months ago. It's been a busy and interesting summer, for sure.

2) This is a Raspberry Pi 5, in this instance running the latest JMRI production version, 5.4.0. The Pi 5 was released into the wild three weeks ago and somehow I managed to slip into an availability slot.

The Pi 5 is alleged to be 2.5-3X faster than the Pi 4 and Pi 400. I can verify that it boots in half the time, and JMRI seems to respond about the same - twice as fast - in both startup and operation. Power-on to running the layout now takes 50-55 seconds. I really wasn't having issues with the 400, but it was nagging at me that the increasing load from signal logic and serving web-based control panels was likely going to result in WiFi throttle response issues.

We'll see how it goes. And I'm happy to be back in the cab, so to speak.