Good Morning All. Clear and 47° in this part of the world. Should warm up considerably today to 75° and then return to more seasonable mid-60's for most of the next ten days. NWS has removed the thunderstorm chance from our forecast for Thanksgiving. Yesterday, I had to finally open the blue jeans drawer this fall as the temperature started off close to freezing and remained cool all day. It will be off and on shorts and jeans for the next week or two before switching to the jeans until February. We regularly see 75° on Christmas Day though.
My younger daughter and family including the two grandsons came up yesterday to visit grandma and drop off the granddog while they fly out to Philadelphia this morning. From there they drive a short distance to South Jersey for their annual Thanksgiving visit with my SIL's parents. Very nice couple, too bad that they have to live in Jersey. Daughter brought Texas BBQ for supper with her. My twelve year old grandson ate most of it.
Good news regarding my wife's knee surgery is that after the hospital visit yesterday, the next surgery got advanced by four days to 11-30. That is all dependent of course on the lab results from yesterday's procedure.
Thanks as always for the likes and comments regarding the loco line-up yesterday;
IB Ken, Patrick, Karl, Steve J, Troy, Chad, Tom O,, Christian, Mikey, Hughie, Jaz, Curt, Sherrel, Rick, Tom, Louis, Joe, OB Ken, Gary.
Good morning Flo. I see that you have leftover chili from yesterday on this morning's white board. I'll take a bowl with cheese and onions with a bowl of spicy salsa.
I had a limited time in the train shed yesterday due to the visitors. Unfortunately my grandsons are no longer as interested in what I am doing out there as they used to be. Even though I let both of them run trains.
My time was not well spent though. I had a train that all cars seemed to derail as they left my upper level staging yard. It turns out that a closure rail on an Atlas #6 switch had detached! I fiddled with it for a while to no avail; it appears that I will have to remove it for either repair or replacement. It happens to be in an unballasted part of the trackwork, and since I use only track nails, that shouldn't be hard to do. I haven't looked to see if I have a replacement. It is a RH, but I don't know whether the only one that I have left is RH or LH.
Not having any project update photos to post today, leaves a few from the archives. They're not really archive photos since they are of the present state of the layout.
Here's an "end-on" view of the Maultown Industrial Park on the blob at the end of the upper level island. That train is waiting on the passing siding. Along the wall on the far left is the town of Charlottesville named after my granddaughter.
In the back and on the right is the town of Vernon named after my late father-in-law.
A before picture taken in 2016.
Here's a cropped shot of most of Vernon.
On the lower level blob, there is the not yet completed downtown Ft Wish.
This is an older picture before I added the figures to the bus station last month.
Note that I have not yet added the fascia to the upper level blob yet. I am still debating with myself whether or not to have it extend above the ground level. In the five years since the track was laid, I have not had a single derailment on either the inner passing siding or the outer main line. The lower level one (which is incomplete on the right at this point) is extended 1" above, but that is mainly to prevent body parts and clothing from snagging anything there. No derailments there either.
Patrick - I am no stranger to cooking turkeys, both in the oven and deep-fried. But this is the first time cooking the whole meal by myself. I start tomorrow with making some homemade cornbread for the eventual dressing. Monday I will make the whole cranberry sauce to get that out of the way. As a Yankee by birth, I like white-bread/sage dressing, but in deference to my Southern wife I will make cornbread dressing. I am really going to miss going to my brother's home with the rest of the extended family this year. I always chop up the boiled giblets and add them to the gravy with the broth. The neck goes to the vultures that live in my barn loft. They eventually get the carcass as well.
I am also regularly on the forum for a couple of hours before I get around to posting. It also sometimes takes me a lot of time responding/composing before I hit "Post Reply".
Guy - I also missed the moon thing, but it was because sleep is more important to me. It was clear all night here, hence the near freeze yesterday morning.
I thought that I read that if one travels through Washington to access South Vancouver that a Covid test was required to return to Canada?
I didn't ask or care whether the workers were illegal or not. I suspect that a couple were, but they may have had Green Cards allowing them to work. But they did a fine job and it is not uncommon to have them here. For the most part, we have lived with that reality for the last 50 years in Texas. They have jobs, so they are paying taxes including sales tax and property taxes through their rental payments. It is not the Mexican immigrants that give us problems in Texas. They all tend to be law-abiding, Christian, family oriented and to the surprise and dismay of some politicians, they also vote conservatively.
Curt - I am in agreement that I like the blue/yellow paint scheme better than the red/silver. But they are both outstanding in my opinion. To me, a close third is the cream/orange of the Frisco (SLSF).
OB Ken - Enjoy the party.
And sometimes I forget to hit the "post Reply" icon like this morning!!! Duh!!!
Everybody have a great day and weekend. Stay safe.
). I spent about 3 hours on the layout. I put in a 30" x 12" triangle of the combo dirt ground cover then green WS ground cover in spots. I also put in the base of the dirt road and parking lot. Tomorrow I hope to do the static grass and finish the dirt road.
