What I don't like about football is it takes 3 hours to play a 1 hour game and the actual play time is only 15 to 20 minutes. F1 has a 2 hour time limit and most races are finished in about hour and half. Joe
I wrote this after Rick asked about what was playing, the other day, but forgot to send it: I just got the quadraphonic version of "Big Band Hits of the 30's, 40's, 50's" by Enoch Light and the Light Brigade in the mail today, so I will be shortly heading to the stereo/layout room to play it and run my Treble-O-Lectric trains as soon as I finish this post. I have heard some of these tracks on other records and they are fabulous. The original arrangements were used and the sound is fantastic! Doug
Super Bowl? What Super Bowl... Was that last weekend? Hmm... Guess I missed it... I found more important things to do such as helping a friend get his truck back to safe to drive by rebuilding the front suspension. I got hurt pretty good in the process, nothing that wont be gone in a few days, maybe a week or so. I found that much more rewarding and yes even entertaining than an over hyped game that you cant even call it for what it is any more. I am surprised that the NFL doesn't charge us $100,000 per use of the "name" whenever we type those 2 words here in the forum.
I'm not supposed to quote myself. Am I? I still have the three DVD's and two Cassette tapes playing in the background. These are basically background sounds to be played while operating the train layout. Ambience/white background noise. Best noise out there. Occasionally, I will run my Surround Sound with the Big Bands of yesteryear and some Rock and Roll and Country Western. The whole idea is to put on whatever turns your switch on. Football is over for yet another season. Going through football withdrawal. Not Super Bowl withdrawal. I'm still responding with disbelief they stooped that low. It's a football game not a place to protest. Or whatever the heck was going on there. My middle finger flew it's own kind of protest. Darn thing hurts now. Hey, George I got under the train layout and back out. I know what your thinking. Had I have gotten stuck there I might actually have most of it done by now. Later!
There is help out there my friend... https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/05446893 https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/35716745
With the way the legs are there isn't much room under the layout for those two portables. On a monetary note. If I had the ability to buy either one of those, I'd rather spend it on an Athearn Big Boy. If you get my drift. Working on something with a furniture dollie, the flat on the floor style and a Bleacher's chair. If it takes to much work to get on and off it. Well, that won't work. Thanks though for the thought. Good idea.
In Southern California, one of my favorite places to visit is the Train Museum in Balboa Park, San Diego, Ca. They do have an N Scale Model Railroad. The one you are about to see is HO. I know wrong spot for this video. Hey, it's where I got some of my ideas. If you ever wondered what the definition of Model Railroader is? Watch this video. If you aren't doing the things these guys do... your just a Toy Train Enthusiast. Nothing wrong with that. Most of us are! In the video he talks about the original club modeling a fictitious model railroad/train layout over what at first sounds like Cajon Pass. He's saying, Tejon Pass. He's right no railroad actually built over Tejon Pass. Today, you would know it as where Interstate 5 goes over the Grapevine. Early talk had it that Santa Fe had intentions of crossing over the face of the grapevine headed for Mojave, Ca. To come out of Taft, Ca. I think there is a spur line out to Taft. I can talk more about this at a later time. The Railroad Museum, Balboa Park, San Diego, Ca. My partner in crime, if watching trains and visiting railroad clubs is a crime. We are guilty. More about the club we used to tag along with if you are interested. Now back to the neck craning, sore shoulder and back that wants to nag at me. The "Wireus Repairus", project. Enjoy!
I visited the Balboa park facility several years ago. Even got an impromptu behind the scenes on the big HO layout - saw the CTC machine and all the staging yards. It is very worth the trip.
Yes, it would!! The best I can do is be inspired by it and build in locations that resemble some place I happen to like.
Good Morning Rick and company! It has been too long since I checked your thread, cause I knew it would take a while!! Way too much fun! You have been having too much fun with the wiring, but at least it's color coded! When you can see it, them tiny wires do get, cantankerous. Love the steam! Steam, steam, steam, steam!!! We got to get George a good 4-8-4 of some sort! To make 'the WIFE' happy and to help him see 'the light!' Your stories of the SF are great! Those would be from the days when the railroads were more people oriented. I had the distinct displeasure of working for the freshly merged BNSF and watched the 'new' SF management philosophy destroy morale, maintenance and peoples careers. "Pencil whipping" maintenance items to get the units back out the door, then doing the same again after it breaks down a few days later. Deferring maintenance, removing inspections and maintenance items, not fixing stuff at all, . . . . Enough of that. The old SF did some amazing things with steam! So, it has been a pleasant morning catching up! Now if I can only keep a head of steam built up as I get going on the NPBH now it is home! Time to go back out and stoke up the wood stove some more! It is a cool -24 this morning, last I looked.
Glad to have you back. Thanks for the likes! I agree we need to get George a good running 4-8-4. Not sure where to look or start. I keep hinting saying Kato would be my first choice for a locomotive. They know how to get'er done. We all know Kato unit's won't fail us. At least not by tearing itself up and apart, running around the layout for the first time. I love steam and lucky for me I was around to see them in action and then watch the Railroads slowly pull each one off the rails sending them to various dismantling/scrap yards. Some to the torch and later to become ships and planes. So as my pictures prove, I have some cheap steam on my layout. Don't get me started on the Suits in the offices. Some College Graduate, sitting behind the desk... thinking they know more about running a railroad then those guys that worked up the ladder who know the railroad up close and personal. Auditors, efficiency experts, many who have never spotted a car at a industry let alone work in a cab running a train. There should be a rule. You want to work for the railroad then start with the M.O.W. track gangs, then as a switchman, brakeman, engineer, conductor (not today's glorified switchman). Sure go to College if you want to work in the offices. Someone needs to keep track of where car loads are going and the best routing. Never mind money managers. For sure: Do know how a Railroad works and works efficiently before applying for said jobs. That said! It has been fun presenting different things that have influenced my attempts at Model Railroading. Well, that wiring isn't going to get done by it's self. This maintainer needs to get back to it. Hate it when a wire decides to tickle the inside of my ear. Later.
Keep up the good work on the wires Rick! Make sure you clean the wires good as you connect them back as I am fairly sure ear wax is not a good conductor of electricity. Just sayin'
This same thing has happened any time any company has let bean counters do the job of an engineer. The Auto industry has suffered time and again from that logic. Saturn was the best built brand in the GM family, when Saturn was run by the engineers that started the company. Once GM’s execs thought they could get even more profit out of the most profitable branch by doing the same thing to the legs of GM that had lost profitability. Shortly after that the quality issues that plagued the other branches of GM were now effecting the Saturn brand to the point of its failure. It ran nearly 20 years on engineering management and was successful, and profitable, but it only too 6 or so years for the bean counters to kill it. The same has happened to many other industries over the years.
I'll be sure to clean'er up. I wonder if that would work as good as solder flux paste? I'd never run out then. LOL Typical of what happens all to often. We are living in a world where "Common Sense" is bad sense. Say what? I have some pictures for you. The kind of scene I miss from having lived in the mountains. The kind of scene my rescued feline colony wants no part of. They know what it's like to be out there and try to survive. For the first time since I got her two years ago. February 12, 2021 we finally got... Snow! In Big Bear Country we'd of called this, a smattering of snow. Looking out the sliding glass door from the Train Room, into the backyard. I put this canopy up last summer to shade me while I was cutting wood. The temperature dropped out and I just stacked the wood on top of the tables and table saw. In hopes we might see and because of the white stuff. Yep you can see the snow in the pictures. No global warming going on here.
Oh and those wires I've been working on. Here they are. Humm, you've seen these before. I remember this fuzzy picture from earlier. The two sets of dangling wires actually go together. I need to up-date these photos as these wires have been stripped. It's getting under the table to the other set, that's going to be difficult. The problem here is as a diabetic, we tend to urinate more frequently then you health blessed types. Heck, I could pee on the floor but that isn't at all comfortable. Yuck! I hate cleaning up that kind of mess. My cat colony is bad enough. Humm, who did this furball? Don't look at me in that tone of voice. No, I didn't. Not to fear. I'll get'er done. Okay, back to work.
Some people think common sense is the change in their pocket. On the Boeing 747 there is an autodrive machine that installs rivets in wing sub-assembles really fast. We had a young bean counter who was supposed to time how long it took. He told the operator to install one rivet and had a stopwatch to time it. GO he said and before he could press the button that machine was finished, he tried several times but wasn't having any luck. After a half hour of this the operator laughing suggested timing a hundred rivets and divide the time by one hundred to see how long it takes to install one rivet. The young man was so embarrassed he just walked away. LOL. Joe
