Weekend Update 9/29/13

[C855B]

...  He's modeling PRR through the Rockies.  After living a few months out here in Colorado I can vouch the the skies are often bluer here than you could ever imagine. ...

+1. Western skies are consistently clearer and bluer, and you aren't dealing with the constant haze. Around here (rural Illinois), an afternoon with a crisp, blue sky is called a "chamber of commerce day." We get about five of 'em a year. Robyn and I laugh at the local restaurants who spend thousands on outdoor eating areas, only to discover that nobody uses them because you can count truly nice days on your fingers.

It was a point of contention between me and the late Stan Lytle. His high standards for rail photography meant that Midwesterners need not apply; the lighting conditions he demanded for publication just weren't going to happen here.

[johnhale]

Spent the weekend working on my newest oNeTrak module of the Waste Management transfer facility in Jessup, MD.

[TrainCat2]

Looks great! My pair suffered a cat attack last week. I had them on the very top of my compuyter desk. The cat never goes up there. I come back in the room and there are DB4 containers everywhere. Nothing was ruined, but I do need to glue some things back together.

Meow fitchoo !!

[ryan_wilkerson]

I've never seen cars with mixed 2axle and 3 axle trucks, crazy UP...

Thomas

It's always strange to hear an odd numbered axle count on the radio.

[bbussey]

Looks great! My pair suffered a cat attack last week. I had them on the very top of my compuyter desk. The cat never goes up there. I come back in the room and there are DB4 containers everywhere. Nothing was ruined, but I do need to glue some things back together...

I've solved that problem by having no cats in the house.

[C855B]

It's always strange to hear an odd numbered axle count on the radio.

Yes. This is sort of how I tell when there is a particular private varnish observation car on Amtrak through here - it's a six-axle car, so the axle count isn't evenly divisible by four as it would be with a normal consist.

BTW, centipede tenders (UP 844 and 3985) have seven axles, with the same effect. However, put that particular power car on the train and the count is even again.

[VonRyan]

I've heard odd axle counts (here in the north east) and it usually means that the device missed an axle. No one ever seems to care.


-Cody F.

[kalbert]

I've heard odd axle counts (here in the north east) and it usually means that the device missed an axle. No one ever seems to care.


-Cody F.

I've heard the same here, every so often the hot box on the edge of town will come up with an odd count and there's never any fuss about it. Sometimes it's a small odd count, like 7. I assume that to be MOW things going by but I've not been able to get out and see before whatever it is would have passed. They pulled half a train across it and backed up, then forward again one day. That was a long one

[Kisatchie]

All this talk about axle counters reminded me of something I read in "Campus Comedy" in Reader's Digest. There were a Volkswagen Beetle full of college kids who stopped for one of those axle counters one sees on roads every now and then. They drove the front wheels over the counter, then lifted the rear axle off the ground and carried it past the counter. When I read that, my first thought was that a car with a single-axle trailer would get the same results. Those kids weren't getting much out of college.


Hmm... Kiz got a useless
English degree out of his
college...

[eric220]

Lee,

It's worth remembering that Eric isn't modeling PA.  He's modeling PRR through the Rockies.  After living a few months out here in Colorado I can vouch the the skies are often bluer here than you could ever imagine.

Then again, Eric, another constant out here are clouds over the mountains.

True that, at least partially.  I am, in fact, modeling PA and OH in addition to CA and CO.  It is also true that the blue walls are a bit bluer than I'd intended.  Having said that, I think the blue that I've got makes a good starting point.  Beginning with that blue on skyboards, I can spray white toward the bottom to create the sky illusion.  The lower level, representing OH and PA, will include more white to represent the additional humidity.  To help with the illusion, the lower level sky boards will likely extend all the way to the bottom of the upper level.  The only place that the current blue will really be seen is high above the CA and CO skylines.  In the meantime, y'all will have to deal with the biliousness.

[rickb773]

Since several of you got a kick out of what I got for Christmas (https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=28239.msg294986#msg294986), I figured I had to show you what I got for my birthday:


Some $18.95 BLW close-out Dash 8s and a Klingon Bat'leth. It is marketed as a letter opener but if my ex-South Philly neighbor across the street ever gets out of hand I'll trump his  brass knuckles with my "letter opener".

[davefoxx]

It is marketed as a letter opener but if my ex-South Philly neighbor across the street ever gets out of hand I'll trump his  brass knuckles with my "letter opener".

Sounds like you have a petaQ for a neighbor.   

[eric220]

As I said on other forums, pure unadulterated awesome.

[Cajonpassfan]

Doug, that's beeutiful, nice job assembling it! But, it's just screaming for BLMA or FV wheels... 

[ednadolski]

it's just screaming for BLMA or FV wheels...

Would love to see it with Brian's scale working couplers