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Post by rhpd42002 on Jul 6, 2012 16:28:37 GMT -8
Good Friday Evening to all the Forum Folks.... Doesn't appear that we are hitting 100F, but the heat index is at 101 to 105. Highs are forecast for 99 both days of the weekend, with fair chances of rain on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday. I'm hoping to get up early enough to mow the yard while the temps are only at 75 to 80!!  That means around sunrise.;D Not long been home after leaving work and taking LD out to our most favorite dinner restaurant and as luck would have it, waited on by our favorite waitress, too! It's a great, small, ribeye steakhouse, with the best salad bar to boot!! Mmmm........ I hope to get to the trains for a bit tomorrow. Douglas, nothing wrong with spending time with your son before he heads to the lower 48. The trains will be there when you get back to 'em. Work has been keeping me from mine, but I hope to remedy that for a while after the yard is mowed.  Hope that everyone has had a good day. |
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Post by calzephyr on Jul 7, 2012 6:40:42 GMT -8
Good Friday Evening to all the Forum Folks.... Doesn't appear that we are hitting 100F, but the heat index is at 101 to 105. Highs are forecast for 99 both days of the weekend, with fair chances of rain on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday. I'm hoping to get up early enough to mow the yard while the temps are only at 75 to 80!! That means around sunrise.;D Not long been home after leaving work and taking LD out to our most favorite dinner restaurant and as luck would have it, waited on by our favorite waitress, too! It's a great, small, ribeye steakhouse, with the best salad bar to boot!! Mmmm........ I hope to get to the trains for a bit tomorrow. Douglas, nothing wrong with spending time with your son before he heads to the lower 48. The trains will be there when you get back to 'em. Work has been keeping me from mine, but I hope to remedy that for a while after the yard is mowed. Hope that everyone has had a good day. The best of days this week since I get to fly home for the weekend. Having spent the last three weeks in Denver on a project and flying home each Friday, I realize how great it is to be home and not in a hotel. I did get to visit North Platte on the fourth of July and viewed the yards from the visitor center. It is a great thing to view the yard from that vantage point and read the history of the yards. The Union Pacific is a busy railroad dispatching and receiving trains out of North Platte. The three track mainline hosts about 135 trains a day. It is an amazing place to watch trains. Larry |
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Post by rhpd42002 on Jul 7, 2012 8:30:15 GMT -8
Larry, I don't think I'd enjoy that much travel very much anymore. At least you are making the most of it with the railfanning. |
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Post by calzephyr on Jul 7, 2012 10:29:55 GMT -8
Larry, I don't think I'd enjoy that much travel very much anymore. At least you are making the most of it with the railfanning. You got that right about not enjoying that much travel. At one time, I did much more traveling including many trips overseas, but it was always an adventure in some way. My trips to the UK always include some steam trips on the Museum trains. These trips to Denver with all of the smoke from the fires have been boring except for the occasional trip to Caboose Hobbies, The Greeley Freight Station and this last one to North Platte. I got to see what is the most amazing amount of train traffic on one mainline and visited the 3977 again at Cody Park in North Platte. I had first seen hte 3977 in 1970 and again in 1993, but I always enjoy seeing the Challenger there in the park along with the 6922 and various pieces of passenger cars. The 3977 still looks good even as the 3985 can be seen running under steam, I always enjoy the ones in the park also. Larry |
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Post by rhpd42002 on Jul 7, 2012 17:33:10 GMT -8
That all sounds pretty interesting, Larry. I don't know if I could even "handle" that much train activity at one time! ;D Never been to the UK, but did get to ride some passenger trains in Taiwan, while on leave from Okinawa, as a Marine in late 1980. Other than a small bit of railfanning the SP, a cab ride and opportunity to operate an SP, GP-9, in Yuma, Az., in early 1980, I never spent much railfanning time out west. Been living in southeastern NC since early 1981. |
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Post by calzephyr on Jul 8, 2012 15:24:09 GMT -8
That all sounds pretty interesting, Larry. I don't know if I could even "handle" that much train activity at one time! ;D Never been to the UK, but did get to ride some passenger trains in Taiwan, while on leave from Okinawa, as a Marine in late 1980. Other than a small bit of railfanning the SP, a cab ride and opportunity to operate an SP, GP-9, in Yuma, Az., in early 1980, I never spent much railfanning time out west. Been living in southeastern NC since early 1981. You should have the NS with all of their new heritage painted units near you from time to time. Post some pictures if you can of the new units!!! I operated a GP9E at the Portola railroad Museum twice. That is a lot of fun to open the thottle and feel the unit move out. They have many units there that can be run and I want to run an F unit in the future. When I was twelve years old, I got to pull the thottle on the 2804 on the Illinois Central at Bluford Illinois. I had some trouble pulling the thottle, but the 2-10-2 just sort of moved forward slowly and it was a thrill of a lifetime for a kid who just loved steam locomotives. I was not allowed to run it into the roundhouse, but rode many times with the personnel moving locomotives around the yard. The large steam complex is long gone now but the coaling tower is still visable on Google in the tall weeds and trees at that location. The picture below is Bluford in 1956, a year that steam was still king for the IC on that line!! I spent many days there riding the locomotives down to the coaling tower for the outbounds and riding back on a locomotive that had just come in from the south. Larry  This is the parking lot and the 2518 in the picture is one of my favorite mountain types. It ran the mainline for almost a year after diesels took over the northbound traffice out of Bluford to Chicago. It was used on locals but the service facilities were maintained until late in 1957 when it made the final northbound runs out of Bluford. We got to see it in Effingham several times that year and finally got to see it in Kentucky late in 1958. I got to ride on the 2518 in the yards many times. Sorry about the quality of the pictures, but the old box camera was all I had.  |
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That means around sunrise.;D 