|
|
Post by rhpd42002 on Aug 13, 2012 3:32:18 GMT -8
Good Morning to all the Forum Folks. Terry had a good suggestion on making the lounge a weekly event, instead of daily, to try and maintain some continuity with replies, so let's give it a try.  It's Monday, again, and the coffees are hot & fresh brewed. none of that day old stuff, re-heated for you guys. Eggs, cooked to order, with plenty of bacon, sausage links & patties frying away on the grill. Pans of oatmeal and grits on the stove, with the bowl of fruit, donuts, yogurt and cereals on the counter. The milks, juices and canned drinks are in the cooler. Jim, click on this link for more info on "grits".  southernfood.about.com/cs/gritsrecipes/a/grits_recipes.htmHeading in for another long week of work. Hope that everyone has a good day/week. |
|
|
|
Post by bnsf971 on Aug 13, 2012 3:38:48 GMT -8
Happy Monday...  Heading off to another fun-filled day at work. I'm trying to decide if I want to go to a man's house next weekend, he is selling off his train stuff. It's 2.5 hours away, which is the rub. |
|
|
|
Post by Christian on Aug 13, 2012 3:53:46 GMT -8
Three over easy, biscuits and slobber, grits and butter. Small V8. Brought my coffee from home - Community, of course.
Pondering concrete silo paint. The huge pair from the Walthers ethanol series. My usual layering of paint, pastels, ink and so forth isn't moving as quickly as it does on smaller concrete jobs. Simply working with a larger brush was not a good idea at the start and I'm paying that penalty with each additional layer. Getting there, but it's slow going.
|
|
|
|
Post by dti406 on Aug 13, 2012 11:44:47 GMT -8
Good afternoon, at home while the new A/C is installed, had a bad last month waiting for the installation after the original one went belly up.
Had a good time this weekend at the DT&I modelers group get together in Washington Courthouse, OH. Slides by Jim Hediger, walk around the old DT&I facilities in town and good visits with people I had not seen in years.
Rick J
|
|
|
|
Post by bnsf971 on Aug 13, 2012 15:01:16 GMT -8
Good afternoon, at home while the new A/C is installed, had a bad last month waiting for the installation after the original one went belly up. Rick J And of course, last month was the hottest July on record. |
|
|
|
Post by bnsf971 on Aug 15, 2012 16:38:00 GMT -8
Looks like I'm heading to an open house in central Virginia this weekend. I hope the weather will be better for travel than what I see in the forecast. We'll see. In the meantime, I'm back to running trains, now that I again have a reliable system.
|
|
|
|
Post by calzephyr on Aug 16, 2012 13:59:56 GMT -8
Good afternoon, at home while the new A/C is installed, had a bad last month waiting for the installation after the original one went belly up. Had a good time this weekend at the DT&I modelers group get together in Washington Courthouse, OH. Slides by Jim Hediger, walk around the old DT&I facilities in town and good visits with people I had not seen in years. Rick J It is good to hear your AC is now working. We try not to use ours often but the past week has forced us to turn on the air just to keep the 100 plus outside and not in the house. It does cool off at night back to the high sixties most of the time so the whole house fan is a great help at night. Winter will soon be here and I really like snow pictures on Donner so all is looking up soon. The 844 is coming past next month and I will certainly do my part to record pictures of it working over the Hill out of Sparks to Roseville. This should be fun times ahead!!! Just to be cool, just out the photobucke below taken over the past two winters on Donner. Larry s806.photobucket.com/albums/yy345/Trainsforyou/Snow%20trains%20and%20Snow/?albumview=slideshow |
|
|
|
Post by rhpd42002 on Aug 18, 2012 4:25:08 GMT -8
It's been a very loooooong work week once again. I plan on getting out back to run a train or two and maybe some switching. Haven't done anything with 'em for a week. No ambition or energy to even think about a tear down on the most recent "dead" loco.  Rain in the forecast for the next 6 days and temps are still in the upper 80's/low 90's. Hope that everyone has a good day. |
|
|
|
Post by calzephyr on Aug 18, 2012 12:30:36 GMT -8
It's been a very loooooong work week once again. I plan on getting out back to run a train or two and maybe some switching. Haven't done anything with 'em for a week. No ambition or energy to even think about a tear down on the most recent "dead" loco. Rain in the forecast for the next 6 days and temps are still in the upper 80's/low 90's. Hope that everyone has a good day. That is great news that you have rain forecasted for next week. The heat wave of over 100 broke two days ago in Northern California but we still have a fair amount of smoke from several fires in the Northern part of the state. Smoke is a regular feature of California in the summer and fall and this year is no exception. Depending on the wind shifts and directions, we can see haze in the air of it can clear up for several times at a time. At least on Monday and Tuesday, the Union Pacific is running a safety train around Roseville to alert people not to cross in front of the trains. I plan on watching the train and taking some pictures. They use the local Police and stage run bys with the three passenger car special with officials on board and the local police watch the crossings and give tickets to people who do not wait for the train and drive around the gates. I got to ride one of the safety trains running north out of Davis on the Sacramento Northern two years ago. It was a great day for riding the train and watching how people will not wait for a train with one passenger car is amazing. Larry |
|
|
|
Post by calzephyr on Aug 18, 2012 15:56:04 GMT -8
This is an article about the possible coal loading for export to ships at Coos Bay. The track out to this town has been out of service for many years but they obtained Federal money and possible state funds also to put it back into service for lumber processing loads.
The terminal would have to be built for the ships to be loaded but it would create some jobs. Interesting how people are worried about coal dust in areas that no one even lives around. We went up to Coos Bay in 2009 on the way to Portland when the 4449 went east to TrainFest. They really need some work there from our short time stay there.
Larry
COOS BAY -- In what could be a blow to environmentalists, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio says he has few qualms with a proposal to build a coal export terminal in Coos Bay.
In a town hall meeting on Wednesday attended by 130 people, Oregon's 4th District Democrat waded into a debate that has divided the Port of Coos Bay from the Eugene City Council.
In July, the council raised concerns that coal trains en route from Wyoming to Coos Bay would spread dust that would harm Eugene residents and food production.
The council added that exporting coal fanned the flames of global warming.
Ill-reasoned, illegal
But DeFazio said protests against the plan ignore reality.
In regard to coal emissions, he said it implausible to assume that South Korea, the presumptive coal importer, will not buy coal from a different country if it can't get it from the United States.
'You're not going to facilitate closing down coal plants by prohibiting the sale of U.S. coal," he told The World in interviews.
Secondly, due to certain free trade agreements, DeFazio says it is illegal for the U.S. to stop the export of coal to Korea.
DeFazio separates that argument from concerns about coal dust. He says using enclosed coal cars on the rail route could guarantee that no dust escapes.
Opponent agrees
However, enclosed cars come at a steeper price, and there are legal problems with charging an importer for those extra expenses. DeFazio says he is discussing ways that problem could be solved.
DeFazio's stance is rare ground for agreement between himself and his Republican opponent in November's election.
While Art Robinson says he has not been following the coal-export proposal closely, he has not heard any convincing argument for it to be prohibited.
|
|
|
|
Post by rhpd42002 on Aug 18, 2012 19:25:43 GMT -8
Not quite sure how far it is from the coal mine loader to Coos Bay, but I'd be willing to bet that if it's over 100 miles or so, there isn't going to be too much coal dust by the time it get's there, making the opponents arguments, specious/without merit.  Good news for the RR that is going to run it to the ship loading facility. Larry, while we're about 10" below our annual average, we're much more fortunate than many in the true drought stricken/forest fire burning regions. I hear thunder as I type this and it was POURING rain about 40 minutes ago, 5 miles south of us, when I went to pick my son up from work.  CSX's tracks end about 5 miles south of town, in Wallace, NC and we have 4 RR crossings that are less than 3/4 mile between the northenmost and southernmost. Only 1 has gates/lights, one has lights and 2, only have crossbucks. Fortunately, in my 19+ years here, we've only had two train/vehicle collisions and one minor derailment. I've attended Operation Lifesaver training classes and was an OL presenter for a number of years. I and my officers have written several citations for failing to yield to the train and/or ignoring the crossing lights/gates. |
|
|
|
Post by calzephyr on Aug 19, 2012 5:54:22 GMT -8
Not quite sure how far it is from the coal mine loader to Coos Bay, but I'd be willing to bet that if it's over 100 miles or so, there isn't going to be too much coal dust by the time it get's there, making the opponents arguments, specious/without merit. Good news for the RR that is going to run it to the ship loading facility. Larry, while we're about 10" below our annual average, we're much more fortunate than many in the true drought stricken/forest fire burning regions. I hear thunder as I type this and it was POURING rain about 40 minutes ago, 5 miles south of us, when I went to pick my son up from work. CSX's tracks end about 5 miles south of town, in Wallace, NC and we have 4 RR crossings that are less than 3/4 mile between the northenmost and southernmost. Only 1 has gates/lights, one has lights and 2, only have crossbucks. Fortunately, in my 19+ years here, we've only had two train/vehicle collisions and one minor derailment. I've attended Operation Lifesaver training classes and was an OL presenter for a number of years. I and my officers have written several citations for failing to yield to the train and/or ignoring the crossing lights/gates. The distance from the mines in Wy to Coos Bay is about 1000 or so and I have noticed that they are using some kind of treatment to the top of coal loads in the past year. I don't know if it is a water or chemical spray, but the UP and BNSF had to contain the coal dust from what I read recently. Coal dust is probably the least of our worries in the whole scheme of life. The Operation Life Saver is a good program to alert drivers that they should not take chances. Those crossing without gates are good candidates for the life saver program. I had to cross one of those last year on a backroad and it really was dangerous since you could barely see up the tracks because of brush growing right up to the crossing. Larry |
|
|
|
Post by rhpd42002 on Aug 19, 2012 6:58:54 GMT -8
Larry, the crossings with crossbucks have very clear views.
I have tried several times over the years to get the Town Board to close those two crossings, as those are Town streets. The other two are State roads. They won't even consider closing them. They have been kind enough to listen to a few of my presentations, which is immediately followed by negative responses as to why they shouldn't close them.
The State & CSX have asked the Town to agree to lights/gates at at least one of them, provided the Town contributes 25%/yr. towards their maintenance, but that too gets shot down, immediately.
As far the coal dust issue, I wasn't aware of that, but obviously, it's not a REAL issue.
|
|
|
|
Post by calzephyr on Aug 19, 2012 15:10:22 GMT -8
Larry, the crossings with crossbucks have very clear views. I have tried several times over the years to get the Town Board to close those two crossings, as those are Town streets. The other two are State roads. They won't even consider closing them. They have been kind enough to listen to a few of my presentations, which is immediately followed by negative responses as to why they shouldn't close them. The State & CSX have asked the Town to agree to lights/gates at at least one of them, provided the Town contributes 25%/yr. towards their maintenance, but that too gets shot down, immediately. As far the coal dust issue, I wasn't aware of that, but obviously, it's not a REAL issue. Mike I would hope the railroad and local authorities would reconsider and install the lights in lieu of the insurance payouts if someone gets hit at the unprotected crossings. If you can see down the tracks both directions for a thousand feet or so, it probably is not a big problem. Most of the major accidents in the past ten years at grade crossings are a combination of running around or into the crossings gates while the lights are flashing. It is obvious in those case, they were talking on a cell or doing something other than paying attention to the conditions of the road and crossing. I read about an accident two years ago in the bay area where a lady talking on her cell phone drove right into the side of a moving freight train. She did not survive the crash because of the lack of attention to the road. This crossing had lights and gates! The private type crossing I used one time last year is a blind one. I shut the car off and listened before I came back across just to make sure a train was not moving up my way. Several houses are located past that particular crossing and it is the only way in and out. I would not want to ever cross over there again. Amtrak is doing about fifty eastbound and several eastbound freights each day are running about 25 to 30mph. Larry |
|
