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For the past 14 hours or so the temperature has hovered between 61° and 63°, with a heavy overcast. However the high winds and heavy rain never materialized at least in this part of Jersey. Sustained winds of 14 with gusts of 22, will make the surfers happy, but otherwise it's no different from an ordinary rain. And certainly not the reincarnation of Tropical Cyclone Sandy, as seen on TV.
I think I resolved the "derailment" problem on the Branchline Pullman. I found that the coupler pocket is somewhat sprung, so I loosened the screw holding the assembly to the body, I also loosened the trucks a little more, which I presume provided the flexibility needed to remain on the rail. Next test is to try two Branchline Sleeping Cars together.
Good morning. It's 69° with 90% humidity. The high will be 85° and will feel like 90°.
My father and step mother left within the last twenty minutes and are on their way. Me, the cat and the dog have the run of the house. I don't know about the cat and the dog but I'm going to watch some movies. Sometime this weekend or next week I may get started on writing a text adventure type computer game on the IIe. I've been putting that off because the Apple's keyboard and disk drives are noisy. I don't use it while my father is asleep during the day (weird work schedules) and I don't want to disturb him. I've used it when he's at work but then my step mother is here and complains about the noise of the keys drowning out the TV. That's total BS. The keyboard is nowhere near that loud and there's two walls, two room width closets ad two doors between it and the two places she watches TV in the house. I've told her there's a simple cure. Turn the TV up. My father tells me there's a better cure. Ignore her. She was used to living alone so there was no one around. Now there're family members around and she can learn to put up with some noise. She's going to have to put up with it too. I'm not stopping the use of my IIe because she doesn't like the clack-click-clack of the keyboard and the chatter of the disk drives or the beeping of the computers speaker.
In other news, I've dropped AVG as my antivirus solution and I'm trying out the free version of Avast!. This system only has 1GB of RAM (120 MBs used for video RAM) and a dual-core Pentium Celeron D processor, quite possibly the slowest 'high speed' processor they've ever produced. I can click on a 'quick-link' for something on a USB drive and I can count off the seconds, usually eight to ten until something happens. It's like it has to go search for the flash drive then file a MIA report about it. I'm sure anybody who has had a computer with a Celeron D processor has had similar experiences. Well AVG was taking up so much of the computers resources that the memory would crash or the computer would quite literally 'forget' what it was doing. So far Avast! is doing very well. It's running a full system scan and I can't tell that anything's going on unless I check the stats.
For the past 14 hours or so the temperature has hovered between 61° and 63°, with a heavy overcast. However the high winds and heavy rain never materialized at least in this part of Jersey. Sustained winds of 14 with gusts of 22, will make the surfers happy, but otherwise it's no different from an ordinary rain.
Joe
Joe
Its Monsoon season in central MD! Theres been talk about animals congregating in places, lining up 2x2. Since you guys are lacking, we'll send some your way!
Joe
Its Monsoon season in central MD! Theres been talk about animals congregating in places, lining up 2x2. Since you guys are lacking, we'll send some your way!
Another stunning sunny & warm autumn day here in the ancient cobblestone village. Decided a few of these stretch-limo extra long 85' boxcars would be nice.......they've already shipped out for arrival next tuesday. Con cor with microtrains couplers.......on sale of course.
Joe
Its Monsoon season in central MD! There's been talk about animals congregating in places, lining up 2x2. Since you guys are lacking, we'll send some your way!
Thanks! I did notice some heavier rain this afternoon, and even heavier rain after dinner. So it must be the rain Karl sent up. Miss Bad Hair-doo, the weather guru on News 12 announced that all the rain was situated in Pennsylvania............about the time the sky opened up.
A tourist excursion train on the Durbin and Greenbriar Railroad was apparently rammed by a logging truck today near Elkins, WV. Many people reported injured, not sure about fatalities yet.
Trying to get more info.
Edit:
Temperature in TIPTON IN
High temperatures will range from 73 to 70 degrees with clear skies. Winds will remain steady around 8 miles per hour from the south. No precipitation is expected.
Happy Columbus Day. Today is the anniversary of Columbus landing in the new world, even though the official holiday is Monday.
When he left on his voyage, he didn't know where he was going.
When he got here, he didn't know where he was.
When he got back home, he didn't know where he'd been.
Good morning. It's 72° with 100% humidity. The high will be 85° and will feel like 96°.
My 2¢, it's a good day to relax, watch some movies and get a massage.
There's nobody else here. Yes, I'm home alone. That's a welcome change. I may get started on writing that computer game today. Depends on how I feel later.
It's 60° and overcast this morning, and as Terry pointed out it is the traditional Columbus Day! The NYC Columbus Day parade on 5th Ave won't be until Monday, however.
We had something like .76" of rain over the past two days. Most fell yesterday. It's almost "Leave" season here, so I have something to keep me occupied for the next couple months.
I have been digging out "forgotten" rolling stock of late, and now have a 5 car Rivarossi (1930s series), passenger train on the layout. Other than Mc Henry knuckle couplers on either end, the cars still have x2f couplers and pizza cutter wheels. As I recall, this was going to be the nucleus of my version of the B&O Capitol Limited. Today, I'll find out if it stays on the track.
Amazing what lurks in the bottom of storage boxes, eh?
Good morning. Still dreary and drizzling here in central MD. So that leaves me no choice but to stay inside and attempt to build my first in a series of FasTracks do-it-yourself turnouts.
Joe, I also have a few rivarossi streamlined passenger cars leftover from 25 years ago, collecting dust. Originally I was going to upgrade them and add details, but I stumbled upon some Walthers Pere Marquette passenger cars at sale prices that look exactly like what was running on the B&O [inherited from C&O] during 1970-71, my modeling era. As you probably know, at this time B&O passenger trains were only a mere shadow of what they had been during their "glory years." I'll only run this train once in a while to make op sessions a bit more...um...challenging for my guests!
I had a somewhat unpleasant experience this morning. When I first signed onto my 'puter, there was a message saying I ought to update to the newest version of my Chrome browser. I figured "what the hey", I probably need the more up-to-date security patches anyway. So I decided to go with it. Everything seemed normal until I saw a second screen telling me to accept the license terms...WTF? I clicked 'cancel' on that one. My chrome update continued to install, but there were still a bunch of new toolbars on the upgraded browser that I didn't want. I spent close to 30 minutes pinpointing and uninstalling the unwanted junkware until I finally got my browser to display the way it had done previously. NOW I remember why I rarely, if ever, accept offers to "upgrade" my software!
Yep! I had a similar experience last month. I WAS going to change to the Chrome browser. I unchecked all the previously checked boxes for software that somebody felt I absolutely couldn't live without then clicked the download bar to download Chrome ONLY. Yeah, RIGHT! It downloaded seemingly every Google related piece of software on earth then started in on a bunch of stuff I absolutely DID NOT want. I stopped it before it got to tips on untangling the legal system, figuring out income tax, understanding politics and how to buy bakeware every housewife must have. After spending nearly an hour uninstalling things I didn't want there were still a bunch of other things I didn't want. So I deleted the whole damn mess and decided I really could live without Chrome. I'll stick with Firefox.
It's a bright, brisk fall day. We have partly cloudy with highs in the mid 50's.
Normally I love it as the temps fall but now I need them to stay somewhat warmer. I decided to change out all of the trim and doors in my basement. Menards delivered over 650 feet of casing and baseboard trim as well as six six panel oak doors. I'm now racing against the clock to stain and varnish everything before it's too cold in my garage for things to dry properly. My garage is insulated fairly well so I should have enough time. One of the doors is for the train room. I elected to have it open out into the basement family room since my layout caused me to remove the previous door. I thought about just trimming it out without a door but then thought it may be nice to close the door to keep the cats out. They are fairly careful when walking on the layout but I find cat hair everywhere, including in the running gear of my steamers. I also have to try to slide the whole layout away from the wall to remove the baseboard trim. Either that or I need to unbolt everything again and pull it apart. Good thing I didn't reconnect the track yet!
This house renovation stuff is consuming all of my time and resources lately so no progress on the trains. I have however been informed by my train loving nephew that the trains had better be running by Thanksgiving! He even offered to help! I think I'll at least have them running in a loop by then.
Time to get back to work. I hope all are doing well.
I've gotten a start on the new game. The 'tentative' name on it right now is 'Native Fury'. So far I have the introduction screen done. That explains what the game is about, where it takes place, what you'll be doing, what the commands are and how they work. That's all for now but it's a start.
Another nice day, temp is 75*, very slight breezes.
Last evening before dark I was with a few of my motorhead friends who were working on a go-kart outside a garage at their residence. All of a sudden we all smelled a super strong petroleum/gas type of odor. My friend said he thought it was natural gas....so he went in the house trying to find the source. He returned quickly, it was not in the house. I knew it was not the typical rotten egg sulphur smell they actually add to natural gas to alert people to leaks. We kind of walked around the area looking and wondering what the heck it was and where it was coming from. After a while it went away completely. It smelled like a release from a refinery......but there are none anywhere nearby. Very bizarre.
Joe, I also have a few rivarossi streamlined passenger cars leftover from 25 years ago, collecting dust. Originally I was going to upgrade them and add details, but I stumbled upon some Walthers Pere Marquette passenger cars at sale prices that look exactly like what was running on the B&O [inherited from C&O] during 1970-71, my modeling era. As you probably know, at this time B&O passenger trains were only a mere shadow of what they had been during their "glory years." I'll only run this train once in a while to make op sessions a bit more...um...challenging for my guests!
The Walthers "Pere Marquette" cars are perfect for your B&O era. An additional benefit of this series is that Walthers will be releasing the sleeper in "trditional" B&O colors sometime this fall. This will be the smooth side version. They also lasted into your era before being sold after 1971. At least one retained traditional B&O colors to the end, so I'm told.
My Rivarossi "Capitol Limited" made it around the layout behind the Walthers B&O E7. It even made it around my reverse loop without problem, and the Pizza cutter flanges even survived my Code 70 trackage. But they need work. It will be easier to "fix" my Walthers cars, which look better. So it looks like they go back into the box.
I'm not a perfectionist proto exact modeler by any means, but what's on the layout has to look right, (even if it prototypically isn't). The Rivarossi cars no longer look right when compared to contemporary availability.
I just removed Chrome from my computer this morning - I loaded it a couple of days ago, to try it. Firefox is so much better.
I think I'll at least have them running in a loop by then.