Good Morning All. Mostly cloudy and 61° on the SFW estate. Thunderstorms this afternoon are still in the forecast.
Spent a good part of the morning and early afternoon, cutting and stacking firewood from the branches trimmed off the oak tree last week. Then I shredded some of the smaller stuff and leaves to provide mulch and soil conditioner for next spring;s garden.
Just a bowl of Corn Flakes and milk and a glass of apple juice this morning Francine. I see Flo in the kitchen helping Mel this morning.
Thanks for the likes and comments regarding the bus populating project;
Steve J, Troy, Christian, Guy, Patrick, Sherrel, Hughie, Mikey, Curt, IB Ken, Tom. After viewing the results, the next bus is getting a driver only. I'll be yanking most of these out and using them in more visible situations.
Nothing new out in the train shed yesterday. I finished up the out and back switching run that I started Monday and then just ran other trains for almost an hour before coming in to fix supper. That run was to switch out the fertilizer distributor and the flour mill in Vernon. Just to vary things a bit, I ran it backwards this time so all of the moves were facing-point spurs. I used a pair of GP38-2's as power. Could have used just one since there were only three cars and a caboose, but I like to run everything in pairs.
Note that these GP38-2's are the only EMD power ATSF owned that do not have dynamic brakes. 11 of them were acquired in the acquisition of the TP&W in 1984. These locos are Athearn blue box units with only minimal internal upgrades.
They came into town on the passing siding since they had to be out of the way of a manifest freight that came by first. Then the new cars and caboose were moved over to the main, a load of fertilizer for the distributor, a loaded hopper of wheat for the mill and an empty airslide covered hopper also for the flour mill.
Had to remove the empty fertilizer hopper first since that tail track is a short one with room for only the engines and one car.
Then it was over to the flour mill to remove the empty grain hopper and the full flour hopper.
At that point, all three cars and the engines made a run-around move back to the main and backed up to the caboose. At the same time, they pushed the three new cars down past the north siding switch. They then went back around to the south switch and returned to the siding after dropping off the removed cars and caboose on the main near the switch for the return trip.
To be continued tomorrow since I have run up against my picture limit for one post.
Guy - Regarding the neighbor, I only refuse money for something that I would do for free once...after that I'll take it. Usually no sense in arguing. At the same time, I only offer once when it's the other way around!
Hughie - I agree with
Mikey that older plastic structures can almost always be upgraded with additional details and weathering.
Tom O - That is so great that you have a SIL who shares your modeling interest.
Sherrel - Outliving your 401 is both good and bad. Too bad that you didn't take that opportunity to buy the Tesla stock you posted about a couple of years ago. I've always stuck to safe ETF's instead of lucrative individual stocks, occasionally seeing what I thought might be sure picks (like Tesla and Moderna) skyrocket immediately afterward.
Curt - I have thought about using real dirt before but never attempted. Thanks for posting your experience so I can be prepared if I ever do.
Dave - Too bad that pine makes such lousy firewood except for a fire pit. I like the covered bridge.
Joe - The local (to me) Target has 26 check-out lanes and 8 self check-out registers. I rarely see more than two of the 26 manned with checkers.
Jesse - My next project is actually going to be adding figures to the inside of a bank. Big windows and lots of them.
Today is the Marine Corps birthday.
Gotta go and take care of some of my wife's needs right now. Everybody have a wonderful day and stay safe.