Pere Marquette, Flint, Michigan

[Bigsteel]

could you try to boil them and then bend them?,they are probably zamac or zinc so not much heat is required and thick gloves and some pliers would probably do the job after heating.--josh

[Russ Bellinis]

How unusual are the tender trucks for your "mike?" I think I would just replace them. If they bend that easily, can you even get them straight enough to track correctly, and if you get them straight, will they stay straight?

[iis612]

I mis-stated something in my post about the mike's trucks. I can easily bend them with just 2 fingers, but getting them straight is the problem. I am afraid if I try to manipulate them too much that weak points will develop and they will break. I may have to go with Russ on this one, and replace them outright.
I have a bachmann spectrum consolidation that no longer wants to function, so I might take the trucks from it's tender and retro fit them to the mike.
Or, I might shop around and see what else I can find, as the bachmann trucks aren't exactly right.

Thanks,
Matt

[iis612]

I will post some pics of the trucks in a few hours.

Matt

[sgtcarl1]

Viperman, do you have a State Labor Relations Board you can appeal your "dismissal" to? I sure would like to see it become law that an employer can't dismiss a person on the grounds they are "phasing" out that position, and then hire someone to take your place. California has such a law, but I don't know if other states do.

[viperman]

Viperman, do you have a State Labor Relations Board you can appeal your "dismissal" to? I sure would like to see it become law that an employer can't dismiss a person on the grounds they are "phasing" out that position, and then hire someone to take your place. California has such a law, but I don't know if other states do.

I talked to the Illinois Dept of Labor, and they said in IL they can do it, because IL is an "at-will" state. I knew that applied to hire/fire, but didn't know they could do that with layoffs

[iis612]

Most states are "Right to Work" or "At Will" states. It is supposed to protect employers from frivolous law suites by pissed off former employees. However, it has created an environment where employers can do what they want with their employees. Take me for instance, I was injured on the job in October of '07. My boss arbitrarily placed me on "Family Medical Leave" (Which is NOT supposed to apply to Worker's Compensation Injuries) and nobody bothered to inform me of this. Then in July of '08 I get a disbursement check from my 401k. When an empoyee is fired due to "No Call-No Show" company poliy is to send them a certified letter stating as such, and an insurance "COBRA packet". I did not get those. The reason stated on the check stub was "Termination". I called the HR department and found out that I was terminated for failing to return from leave. In the company that I worked for, terminal managers (i.e. my boss) does not have the singular power to fire someone, it has to go through HR. When I told the HR rep that I was out injured, she was dumbfounded.
Now, today, the work comp company is cutting off my benefits and further medical. To date I have had 1 surgery, when I was supposed to have at least 3. I am not employable in any field that I am trained in because I don't have the dexterity in my hands, or the ability to endure the pain in my wrists. I am on the verge of losing my house. If I take ANY job it incriminates me in the eyes of the court. If I don't, I have to accept a settlement offer and live with the pain. The settlement offer will not be enough to support my family. It would not come close to matching 1 year of my former salary. If I choose to fight, I am looking at at least a year of litigation. Furthermore, if I accept a settlement offer out of court, I will have to sign a "Resign and Release" waiver, protecting my former employer from a wrongful termination suit.

Even the work comp rules favor the employer. I am allowed to pick up to 2 doctors outside of the companies contracted medical provider. The inurance company can pick as many as they want. They shopped for a doctor who's opinion would support them cutting me off. These doctors are called Independent Medical Examiners. The last one they sent me to spent 3 minutes examining 1 of my wrists. He never looked me in the eye, he never examined any of the MRI, X-Ray's, Bone Scan, or EMG records. All he did was poke me a few times. It hurt like hell, but I am not one to say Ouch. If he would have been looking at me he would have seen the pain on my face. He did his job, he gave the inurance company what they wanted. His report said that I was at Maximum Medical Improvement, and any injuries remaining are not caused by my job. Which, the latter is true. The job itself did not cause the injuries, it was the 9' fall onto a concrete floor that did it. He reviewed a video of someone performing my job and said that there was no reason why I could not return to doing the same thing. I can barely pick up my 29# son, let alone drop all 200# of me onto a draw bar. Which is funny, because the first 2 IME exams where done by a leader in this field and he said that surgery was absolutely needed. The last doctor they sent me to works at a plastic surgery facility.

Where is the system of checks and balances? How is it that one side gets all of the power? How can we, the employee fight back? Unions are, in essence, a great thing, but they do not bypass statutes. I have been a union memeber before, and they did nothing for me. What is happening is a miscarriage of justice, but is supported by case after case of court precedence. The work comp system is widely abused by malingering people, but I am not one of them, but I do get to bear the cross of those that have been.

Matt.

PS No pics, the camera is broken.

[iis612]

Now that I have climbed off my soap box, I need some help. I am trying to determine how long the lead tracks into the roundhouse shoud be. I do not have the turntable built to a point where I can use it as a reference point. It is a 6 stall roundhouse, exactly the same as jglfan's.


Thanks,
Matt

[BR60103]

Matt: you may have to do a practical test. Do you have the base of the roundhouse together and can it be used by itself?
Put the base down on a large piece of paper or foam or plywood. Draw a line along the center of each stall and extend it out to where they meet. 2 stalls far apart should be enough. You also need to trace the door side of the base. You now have the center point of the turntable and can mark where the ends of the rails need to come.
You can get approximations using one side of the gap where the track will go; if you do all the stalls you get a check on how accurately you assembled the base.

[jglfan]

As I recall the dimension from the center of the turntable to the front wall of the roundhouse is printed in a small drawing on the back of the box the roundhouse came in, do you still have the box? The drawing shows a 90' turntable, but the distance from center point to front wall will be the same regardless of tt size. I used a 105' tt, so my roundhouse is closer to the pit than it would be if I had used a 90'er.

I did as David suggested above, and assembled the bases together. However, I did also build the turntable to the point where I could drop the pit into its hole, and the bridge to the point it could sit in place. Then I was able to glue rails to the bases, I left them a bit long and trimmed after final installation, using the flat side of a Dremel cutoff disc to grind the rail. You can see in the photo I posted that I also soldered leads to the underside of the rails prior to installing the roundhouse, I actually did so prior to glueing the rails to the bases, makes life much easier, IMO.

Gary

[iis612]

I wish I could have held true to my catch line in my opening post, "Stay Tuned, more interesting stuff to come..." I am sure that at some point there will be something to come. I have done nothing with my layout in at least 2 weeks. Come to think of it, I have done nothing, at all, in the last few weeks.
I have alot of 3D stress about alot of things that I won't go into detail about that has caused my mood to become really bleak recently. I don't want to work on a project and get mad because it isn't measuring up and throw it out. So, until my mood improves, and the stressors in my life slow shrink away, I will pick back up, until then I will enjoy the works of others while mine gathers dust.

I really do have some stuff planned that will be interesting. Most of it industrial in nature. In my chosen era, and location, a very large chunk of the industrial war machine supporting WWII was produced. The Sherman Tank, aircraft parts, jeeps, trucks of all varieties, howitzers, ammo, weapons, etc...
Their is going to be an aluminum forging plant, a portion of the GM defense plant (Buick City), AC Spark Plug (which was churning out ammo at that time), Grand Blanc GM facilities which was producing the Sherman as well as aircraft components and engines. Given the evils of selective compression, I will only be able to provide a representation of these places as each and every one of them could be a layout unto itself. I will admit that I am probably biting off more than I should, since in all reality, I will probably never have a real operating crew. I might have a few people come by from time to time to operate on it, but that is about it, as I am just not a people person. I would say that 99% of the time, I will be the only person operating this layout. For me, it is less about the layout's operation, and more about the homage to the history of the location, and time. I might go and run a switcher for a while and just move cars around, for no other reason than to be in the moment. Other times I will work with switch lists and a fast clock running a through freight setting out and picking up along the way. Maybe it will be all passenger service bringing "Our Boys" home.

Matt

[iis612]

Well, it looks as though further construction has hit another bump in the road. Earlier this week we had some strong storms pass through, and my sump pump stopped working causing the basement to flood. I had ALOT of my stuff on the floor. When the clean-up crew came they took wet stuff and set it on top of the layout so it could dry out. As a matter of fact, they set several soaked items on my box of flex track.
Both of my bowser locomotives where on the floor, all of my unbuilt structure kits where on the floor, the majority of my rolling stock was on the floor.
Aside from my bowser locos, I also had a spectrum consolidation (with a brand new sound decoder in it), an atlas S1, and a Walther's FT-A where on the floor.
That reduces my power units to 2 running locos. More than 80% of my rolling stock is trashed.
The adjuster is supposed to be coming today. He has already started trying to call my railroad items "Collectables" which renders them as lost forever, since my home owners insurance does not cover collectables. Some of the items are not made anymore, such as the bowser locos and some ambroid kits, but they are far from collector's items.
I know that the adjuster is going to do everything he can to satisfy the claim, while parting with the least amount of money possible, I just don't want my railroad to fall victim to the insurance axe.


Matt

[viperman]

Sorry to hear that Matt! They were some pretty good storms...hope you can work through this with the insurance

[Russ Bellinis]

Call a lawyer, and threaten a lawsuit! I had to have a lawyer write a letter to an insurance company once to scare them into doing the right thing. They were going to "kiss me off" until they got the letter from the lawyer. They ended up paying me $2500.00 for a loss that they were first going to ignore. I think I paid the lawyer $50.00 for the office consultation and another $50.00 for writing the letter. It was $100.00 well spent. In spite of all of the ads on tv that try to make insurance companies seem all warm and fuzzy, they can really be cut throat. The only thing that scares them is the threat of a lawsuit where they would have to face a jury where they would be painted as a big, bullying, faceless multinational corporation trying to take advantage of a poor soul down on his/her luck.

[Bigsteel]

pardon the french but put a lawsuit on those bastards ,dont let them write your valued and nowhere near "collectables" off,because if they go by age,that means my muscle cars are worthless too.im tired off seeing people get screwed by there insurance companies.sorry,but i had to say it,dealing with cars all my life i've seen to many people get screwed by crappy insurance companies.good luck,i really wish you the best.--josh