DRM Meet, April 13, 2003

[Peirce]

What a great day. Five trainboard members or guests met me at the Danbury Railway Museum this morning. The weather was warm and the friendship warmer. Here is the group.

http://images2.fotki.com/v20/photos/4/41513/148806/TheGroup-vi.jpg

Bill, Tim, Eric, Russ, John

I will leave most of the comments to them. I will just say it was a great pleasure hosting them for the day.

[Johnny Trains]

Peirce!

The feed back is coming in from the guys.......and we all agree..........

YOU DA MAN! YOU DA MAN! YOU ARE DA MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for such a fantastic day and we hope to be getting more photos on here by the end of the week! We had a blast!

Everyone, please visit the Danbury RR Museum if you are ever in CT!

I have a few photos from the Golden Age Of Trucking Museum I am sending to Russ! That was stunning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JT

[rush2ny]

Peirce,
Thanks both for posting that photo and taking time out to spend with us. I had a great time. You are very knowledgeable and I learned quite a few things and had fun!

I look forward to doing it again in the future as well as posting some of the pics when I get them developed. I too would like to invite anyone on this board to come to this museum. I would be happy to come along to meet you!

Here is one pic that came out with my digital:
http://www.railimages.com/album/Russell%20Hoffman/Image006.jpg

[Johnny Trains]

Russ, who is that handsome devil?

[rush2ny]

I finally scanned some of the pics. These were taken by Johnny:

#1
The Group shot with the entire RDC in the pic:
http://www.railimages.com/album/Russell%20Hoffman/drm2.jpg

#2
Our leader, Peirce giving us the history of the RDC. Notice the imaculate interior! On the right are Tim (Lakeshorelimited on other boards) and his father:
http://www.railimages.com/album/Russell%20Hoffman/drm3.jpg

#3
A nice shot of Steam and early diesel at DRM:
http://www.railimages.com/album/Russell%20Hoffman/drm4.jpg

Second part of the trip included a ride to the Golden Age of Trucking Museum. I will post those pics later.....(to be continued) smile.gif

Russ

[Johnny Trains]

Thanks so much Russ!

[Peirce]

Good shots, John. Thanks, Russ, for posting them. I hope to get more of my pix up over the weekend.

[ 19. April 2003, 02:56: Message edited by: Peirce ]

[rush2ny]

Here are some of Johnny's shots from the Trucking Museum. I will let him explain them, as he is more knowledgeable in trucks than I:

#1
http://www.railimages.com/album/Russell%20Hoffman/drm5.jpg

#2
http://www.railimages.com/album/Russell%20Hoffman/drm6.jpg

#3
http://www.railimages.com/album/Russell%20Hoffman/drm7.jpg

#4
http://www.railimages.com/album/Russell%20Hoffman/drm8.jpg

#5
http://www.railimages.com/album/Russell%20Hoffman/drm9.jpg

[Johnny Trains]

Thanks Russ!

Those trucks were clean enough to eat off of them!

The Kenworth is from the early 70's.
The Mack B tractor is from '63.
The Mack B pumper is as old as I am, a 1957! YAH!!!!!!!!!
The Diamond Rio I believe was from the early 70's also.
And the Plymouth tractor I bet is pretty rare and I do believe it was a '48!

There were more stunning trucks there also.
I hope members here can get there someday!

It sure makes the imagination run wild with WHITE LINE FEVER!

[Peirce]

The New York portion of the group traveled in this van. That's Russ at the wheel.

http://images2.fotki.com/v21/photos/4/41513/148806/Van-vi.jpg

[rush2ny]

Thanks for posting that pic of the "Rush-mobile" Peirce! Not in the picture is the car that I was parked behing, an old Chrysler completely covered in carpet!!! That was a riot!

Russ

[Johnny Trains]

I'll bet you can really "floor it" in that carpet car!

I'm not "lying like a rug " either!

Takes you the outer fringes! LOL!

[Peirce]

Aboard one of the DRM's cabeese, Russ is adjusting his camera for a couple of shots from the cupola...

http://images2.fotki.com/v22/photos/4/41513/148806/RussinCaboose-vi.jpg

...while Bill checks out the scene from the high perch on the other side of the aisle.

http://images2.fotki.com/v23/photos/4/41513/148806/BillinCaboose-vi.jpg

[20thCenturyLimited]

A tip o' the hat to Pierce! Great tour!!! Thanks again!

Nice pictures, thanks for posting them on here, I'll be sure to show them to Dad.

Hope to see you guys in Hoboken!

Tim

[LadySunshine]

Hi Tim Welcome aboard smile.gif Glad to have you here as well smile.gif


Babs smile.gif

[Johnny Trains]

TIMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!

You and your Dad make a great team!
You'd better bring him along on our next adventure!

Welcome Aboard TrainBoard!

Russ, you look good up in that cupola!

[Peirce]

Welcome to the Trainboard family, Tim. And, I am sure your father is represented through you, so, welcome to him as well.

[Peirce]

Here is one from Eric. That's Russ, Peirce, and John leaving the Golden Age of Trucking Museum.

http://images2.fotki.com/v23/photos/4/41513/84588/erics-vi.jpg

[Colonel]

Looks like you guys had a great time together. glad to see some of the trainboard team meeting together :D

[Johnny Trains]

I've met quite a few TB'ers in person.

ED, JP, MIKE K., WARREN, BRIAN, GORDY, RUSS, PEIRCE, TIM and of course my buddy, LONG ISLAND LOUIE......and forgive me if I have left out anyone that I have met in person.

They are all "good people" as we say here in New Yawk.

[ 27. April 2003, 13:22: Message edited by: Johnny Trains ]

[Peirce]

I don't know of any other board where the members are so anxious and willing to meet each other in person. This says a lot about the quality of our membership. Besides, I am having a lot of fun meeting the guys. I just wish I had the time and money to go longer distances to meet more of you.

[rush2ny]

I just relooked at this topic and realized that Peirce posted a pic of me in the cupola of the caboose (page 1). He said that I was adjusting my camera but it really look slike I am adjusting myself for a nap!!!! :D :D

Russ

[Peirce]

In that case, fasten your seatbelt. Yes, that caboose was equipped with seatbelts. Sort of takes away the engineer's fun. "Let's put it up to notch 8 to take out the slack and see if any of the rear-end crew is still standing." graemlins/noh.gif graemlins/yippie.gif

[ 27. April 2003, 19:15: Message edited by: Peirce ]

[Johnny Trains]

Some cabooses I have been in had rounded edges on counters, tables and other "normally square"things as to avoid a good poke in the ribs when the train lurched.

I can't remember if it was a paticular railroad that used that idea, or was it a one of the caboose builders that came up with that........or did it eventually become mandatory all around? Or, was it one of a kind?

[Peirce]

Since the interior design of cabeese seems to have as many variations as there were conductors using them, those ideas could have come from almost anywhere.

During the era when a conductor was assigned the same caboose for almost his entire career, he was free to fix up the interior any way he wanted. I have seen pictures of many varieties of design. Remember the contrast between the two cabeese I showed you at the DRM.

[Johnny Trains]

Yes Peirce, I remember them.
They were in good shape too!

I wonder how many conductors had pin-up girls adorning the walls of their cabeese!

Phew, I've been in dozens of cabooses from West Virginia to Brooklyn, NY to Maine to Iowa. I'll never remember where I saw that one, and I do guess that it was customized by a conductor!

[Colonel]

Originally posted by Peirce:
I don't know of any other board where the members are so anxious and willing to meet each other in person. This says a lot about the quality of our membership. Besides, I am having a lot of fun meeting the guys. I just wish I had the time and money to go longer distances to meet more of you. I am hoping to have an International Trainboard meet sometime in the next few years (more likely 3 years) where we can all meet somewhere in USA.

I would be hoping for Alan as well to come over for the trip :D

[Peirce]

That's good news, Paul. With the geographic diversity of our membership, that will be an ambitious project. I will predict it should be well received, however.

Let me suggest before a big discussion starts here, you might want to give this a thread of its own.

[Peirce]

Bringing this back to the top so Russ can check his links. It looks like they need a little fixing.

[rush2ny]

Thanks Peirce. Them pics seem to have got missing from my railimages folderI will have to find the pics that went with the posts and repost them :(

Russ