Good Morning Everyone....right now the temperature climbed to a nice -6 below zero with cold winter chill factors. Not as cold as Mark in Minnesota, but still cold never the less.
When I worked at a nursery and landscape contractor during my high school and college years, the facilities had a 6 foot and 6 foot well house that during winter was heated with a 100 watt incandescent lamp. The exterior wooded sides of the pump house were covered with hay bales for insulation. Only a single, small window was not covered so we could see into the pump to make sure the lamp was burning. It was sort of my job to check the lamp when I walked to my car after work and the nursery superintendent work check on it on weekends. The entire project depended on that pump house for water. If the lamp failed and the water system froze it would of been an expensive repair job.
Today a train day since tomorrow I promised the Mrs. that we'll watch movies in the afternoon.
Louis: Like the photograph of the tube tester. I still have my Dad's vacuum tube tester that he built from a kit in the 1950's. He was a popular guy in the neighborhood when people's televisions didn't work and call my Dad to test the tubes. If he didn't have a spare tube, the local drugstore had a rack of common replacement tubes. I have a radio from the 1930's that stopped working so I bet its a bad tube that failed and someday I'll test all the tubes and find the bad one. I miss playing that old radio, it had great sound for a electronic device that's over 80 years old.
I'll have to show the tube tester to my nephew who's 30 and an electrical engineer and I bet he has hasn't seen an old tube tester in person.
My little 70 Ton Bachmann switcher is scheduled to be delivered on Wednesday. I didn't know it was a Bachmann Spectrum Model. Break in time for the critter on Thursday. At least a hour of run time in both directions at various speeds.
First project today is to find out why the cow sound effects stopped working after I rewired the terminals near the module. Maybe a rewire job, but test it first with temporary wiring.
That's all for right now.
Keep warm.
Greg
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No name town on the CM&NR. The pulpwood car in the far background is sitting in the SOO yard, a small four track switching yard off the main line. A Woodland Scenic's pool hall and tobacco shop has been since added to the town beyond the wood building.