Welcome back from what may have been for some of you, a long weekend. For those of you who had to work during the weekend or even during the holiday, thank you for your service whatever it may be. Now let us see if we accomplished anything. THANKSGIVING: Sleeping in just shy of 7:00am, I got up, made coffee, cooked a pumpkin pie and started the grill for the turkey. The morning was spent cooking all the familiar dishes from the Thanksgiving of my youth. By 2:00pm, Angela's dad and grandma showed up and we soon sat down to a feast. Unfortunately, Angela's niece could not make it as she was called into work at the hospital. We had a good feast, and the smoked turkey was better than last year. After pie and the last bit of visiting, our guests departed, Angela and I cleaned a mountain of dishes and rested by watching my favorite Thanksgiving movie. Friday: I slept in only until about 6:30. I had an appointment to look at the neighbor's truck. So once up and cleaned up, I went to the bank then to the neighbor's sons house to look at the truck. The truck in question was a 1996 Ford F-150, long bed, standard cab, 2WD with the 300 inline six. While the truck has just over 200K miles, I wasn't concerned as these engines if taken care of last for much longer. I called my father-in-law for a second opinion and long story short; I was able to make a deal that didn't cut me extremely short for Christmas money. The bonus is the truck has a cap which will help for next year's Galesburg RR Days. We spent the rest of the day, flushing the coolant and giving her an oil change and filter. Saturday: Slept in, had coffee, got cleaned up and left for Angela's dad's place. On the way, Angela stopped at Royal Donut in Danville. It is safe to say this donut shop is an institution of sorts as it has been around for decades. Dunkin, Krispy Kreame, Tim Horton, they all pale in comparison. After this stop it was on to her dads to finish the Falcon and change the oil in the family Truckster. I totally rebuilt the carburetor and solved the excess gas situation. The first test drive felt (and sounded) like a new car. We still have some fine tuning but turned our attention on the primary car, then had dinner and headed home. Sunday: I had every intention of working on the Christmas train and/or the shadowbox project. The attic however won. After months of threatening, I finally managed to clean, organize and burn a huge pile of empty boxes. I did get a chance to use my new plastic bins for most of the model railroad supplies which is the only model railroad thing accomplished this weekend. The rest of the day was spent decorating the house for Christmas, but we still have a long way to go. Finally, at 7:30pm, we stopped and watched a little TV before realizing our long weekend was over. The holidays have truly taken over and I see no real progress on my modeling until after the first of the year. So how about you? How was your Thanksgiving if you celebrated it? Did you manage to slide in a few hours here and there on model railroad projects? Let us know. We're back on track until Christmas with our regular schedule. That means we'll return on Friday December 1st to start off a new weekend. Until then, have a good week, be safe and as always... High Greens!
Good mornin to Y'all Hope Y'all had a great and very safe Thanksgiving weekend. Mine went well. Enjoyed our Daughter, Son-In-Law and Granddaughter's visit on Thanksgiving. The rest of the weekend was a mixed bag. Friday I wanted to do oil changes - thanks to Amazon losing the oil -- that was a bust. I reacquired the oil - so, next Saturday morning will be oil change time. The rest of the weekend (Off and on) - I started painting the used cars for Jr's lot (Samples' Sales) Y'all have a great week, Wolf
Greetings from a chilly McLean, VA morning. Wednesday: Planned the weeekend, (LOL, be serious). Thursday: Stayed in train room putzing around and out of the way of the cooks Friday: Started build on 'Corner Mountain'. It will be the first 'object' you see coming down the hall to the train room. Putzzed around and did other layout related stuff Saturday: Started serious mental designs for an incline leading to interchange track. Sunday: With help from my wife cut the pieces for said incline: The incline support was cut diagonally along a 45" piece of 2" thick 3" wide foam. I used a stiff back saw and a 4' metal ruler for a straight edge to cut the wedge. My little loco will only push 5 light cars up the curved grade. But that is okay since that is all the cars in a typical train anyway. ☻ Corner Mountain showing over hang:
Good morning! Trust everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday. T'Giving week here was busy with not as much time for modeling as I'd like, but c'est la vie. Tuesday and Wednesday were consumed with getting my daughters house ready for the market. Had the garage floor repaired, epoxied cracks, ground down, and then a speckle coat. Plus, the painters finished up on Wednesday as well. Thursday was T'giving meal here at our home with my son and oldest daughter, their spouses, and my youngest grandson. Friday and part of Saturday were modeling day. I managed to do some more ground cover at the tanks for Afton Fuel. Also worked on the scene at SL Cabin. Put in gravel for the employees parking and built a grade crossing over the main line so there is now vehicle access. Late Saturday we went out to the stadium for a tailgate dinner and then watched NC State beat our main rival UNC. Great football game (for Wolfpack fans). Although the temp was in the high 30's the way the 'Pack was getting it done on the field took away much of the sting of the cold. Yesterday was all Christmas decorating and honey-do's. Everyone have a great week!
Happy Monday all! Thanksgiving came and went. Enjoyed the day with the wife and JP being home was nice. Two of his friends from school came and shared Thanksgiving dinner with us and spend the night before they returned to school on Friday. I spend a good deal of Friday and a little bit of Saturday morning working on the layout. Got a good bit of the wiring mess cleaned up. Already looks a ton better but a long way still to go. Saturday afternoon, we took JP back to school and then came home and dove right into the Christmas decorations. That of course rolled into Sunday and that was about it. Last big project for the year at works goes live today so promises to be a hectic week but then maybe things will settle down until January. Hope you all have a great week!
Thursday: I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Our dinner came out better than expected. No issues with the turkey cooking. We finally figured out that the temperature displayed on the oven is about 75 degrees higher than the actual oven temperature. Our side dishes were delicious, and my daughter’s made from scratch including the crusts, pumpkin pie and chocolate pecan pie were the hit of the day. I moved the train bins out from in front of the Christmas tree box. Friday: Unfortunately, the overnight was not good. My wife had a major asthma attack that required a call to 911 as her rescue inhalers and nebulizer were not helping. After a four-hour visit to the ER, she was better and able to come home. She has been getting better each day, but the medication is driving her blood sugar up. After she was settled in and with both kids home, I had to go into work to finish up a bunch of paperwork. So no Black Friday shopping for us. I organized and put away some rolling stock that had been sitting on the layout and began inventorying my stack of unbuilt kits. Saturday: We drove to Bethlehem to the site of the old Bethlehem Steel Mill now called Steel Stacks for the Christkindlmarkt. My wife, my daughter, and I had a good time walking around and shopping. Each of us was able to knock a few things off our gift lists. We stopped for a nice dinner at the Coopersburg Dinner on the way home. Sunday: The day was spent around the house. While my wife and daughter went out to Target and Dollar Tree my son and I brought the outdoor tables in and set them up in the attic and brought the potted plants in from the garage and put them on the tables. I also began taking down the Thanksgiving decorations. I made the turkey noodle soup from the leftovers. I did some laundry. Later my daughter set up the Christmas tree, so the cats and dog get over their curiosity of it. I continued inventorying the unbuilt kits.
Good morning everyone, Got a lot done in the layout room from Wednesday to Friday. Was able to suppress the electrical noise on one Tortoise motor in the staging yard that was causing most of the problems. Others have same issue to a lesser degree and will be modifying those when I get the needed parts. Made good progress on the hillside at the east end of the layout. The handrail paint arrived, and I got handrails painted on several locomotives. Then assembled and tested one of the trains I will take to run at the show in two weeks' time. Saturday was the trip to the Western Railway Museum which was 95 miles. We enjoyed getting out for the day, the museum, an interesting ride on an interurban trolley, and afterward a late lunch at a waterfront restaurant in Rio Vista. When we got home late in the afternoon, we found that our furnace was not working. The built in diagnostics indicate that the starter capacitor on the blower motor is not working so I ordered a replacement on Amazon that should be here today. If that does not fix the problem, I'll need to try to get an HVAC guy out to look at it. With the portable heater from the layout room in service in the house, I was not able to do much else out there for the remainder of the weekend.
Thanksgiving Started early as our church is the epicenter of a community outreach providing free, delivered, Thanksgiving dinners. So I was at church by 7:30 am and there were some who were there probably an hour before that. Probably 18 or more large roasters were filled with turkey, green beans, gravy, while those in the kitchen were mixing mashed potatoes and stuffing, and several tables were covered with paper lunch bags filled with rolls and homemade desserts. By 9:00, more volunteers and drivers had arrived, things kicked into high gear, and dinners started going out the door. By noon, a total of 1250 hearty Thanksgiving meals had been fed to persons in our community, 600 from a church across town and 650 from our church. 39 turkeys, cash donations, and many volunteers came from a laundry list of churches, individuals, and civic minded organizations. It really was something to see. After we had mostly cleaned up, I left, got gas for my truck, and my wife and I left for our family celebration at my brother's house up the road 20 minutes or so. Friday, I most worked on reading my assigned homework pages and rested from the day before. Saturday, I finished my reading assignment, but in the late afternoon, my wife and I took the dogs to the dog park to stretch their legs (mostly Natasha, the German Shepherd as Frodo the Puggle doesn't really go far from his Mama) and then a quick stop at Kohl's to pick up something ordered online. Sunday, was church, but I wasn't preaching. Pastor Chris, a retired member of our congregation, insisted on preaching to give me some rest, and I asked if he would also preach next week so I can work on an assigned 10 page paper. He said, "Yes." In any case, I got to sit with my wife at church, which doesn't happen very often. Then it was a quick lunch and out to the Sebring Model Railroad Club where I had a lot of accumulated bookkeeping to do following our Open House and in preparation for our business meeting next Sunday. Final results are not yet in as I have a few outstanding receipts yet to be turned in for reimbursement. That said, it appears that our attendance increased by more than 150 adults, and our income for the open house increased by nearly $1000 over last year. I'll try to update the "How do you advertise your club" thread when I get final numbers. Although I am not preaching next Sunday, it still appears that this will be a busy and full week. Onward. Oh, and @Jim Wiggin , better that Krispy Kreme? Heresy!
None of my days went as planned, except for the appointments with the Retina Specialists, we did have a nice dinner and visit from my son and his wife on Thursday. Friday, I managed to build a couple of hopper cars while waiting for the paint to dry on a couple of cars I painted so I can decal them. Bowling went well on Friday, I managed to get better scores each game and the team won 5 points for the first time in weeks. Saturday, went to the club and ran my 30 car hopper train, the steam engine needs a little weight added as it struggled up the grades especially with the brass sled of a caboose on the end, those brass caboose trucks don't roll for beans. I started decaling the Sam Rea covered hopper kit I built the last couple of weeks. Sunday, got a gloss coat on a boxcar kit for the club gift exchange and began decaling it in the evening after I did the laundry and got up the outside Christmas lights, the Homeowners association planted a new tree in our bed to replace the one removed a couple of years ago and I added lights to it this year. I also ordered a bunch of Moloco Coupler Pockets of various types as they install so well and look so good, also some of the uncoupling levers to add to various kits. Rick Jesionowski
Royal Donut...Krispy Kreme pales! This must be the living end of donuts! Just call BR-549 and get your ride today! Big mountains rising! Friday and Saturday modeling. Good progress. More Friday and Saturday work. Hoping for improvement with blood sugar. Major inventory work underway. The problem with traction and trolleys is that it is too tempting (to do). Major food transport! Operation open house was a success. I spy a covered hopper lurking nearer and nearer. I have been working along on the passenger car project. I decided to redo floors for four cars to try to increase structural strength. Earlier today I noticed that the dining car windows did not come all the way down to the car side. Had to remove and reinstall. Once coach windows are done, roofs can be started. Everyone have a healthy and fun week.
Sounds like a lot of successful Thanksgiving feasts were had by many! We completed almost all of our prep by Wednesday afternoon and had a very full fridge overnight as a result. On Thursday we tossed everything into the oven around 12:30 and by 1:45pm the turkey was done and family had arrived. Friday through Sunday I didn't get nearly as much time to work on the model trains as I should have. But I'm hoping to complete at least the wood cutting in the afternoon today (need to cut a 2x8ft piece into four C shapes around 23 1/4in wide and 23in tall with 3 1/2in edges for the C shape). After those are cut I can look at painting the wood and installing a generic 16in tall backdrop to be painted sky blue. I still need to track down a source for homasote so I can start hand laying the track.
Thanksgiving Day was a work day for me and the rest of us Canuckians (I actually got some work done). Grocery shopping in a grocery store is an injury hazard on Black Friday , with people nearly running me over with their shopping carts looking for something to get drunk on in Canada for an American tradition . Fixed a wayward coupler on a flat car . Cleaned track . Looked for replacement heads for my shaver behind some brick and mortar and ended up ordering them on the interweb .
Thanksgiving was just another heavy night at work. 'Tis the season..... I did manage to find and get order a couple of items from my N Scale wish list. Sunday night came down with some sort of crud and been sick ever since. Light fever and a scratchy, tickly throat that has me coughing until the rib cage is sore! Ick. Anyhow, now USPS has delayed delivery of my newly acquired N items. Nice. Not. Oh well. Meanwhile received a flash drive from the archivist at Rayonier, once a famous Pacific NW logging railroad. Stuffed full of cool information, video and more. Wow.
