The days are shorter and the air is cooling: It's almost model railroad season! October is traditionally a heavy railfan month for me. The midday light isn't so harsh, the sunrises can be foggy (not a bad thing!), and the sunsets are clearer. The haze of summer has lifted. And yet, the days are still long enough to make an out-of-town trip worthwhile. Soon, however, clouds will be the rule rather than the exception and some days I just won't want to brave the cold to do something "railroady" at all. By Thanksgiving I'm only shooting trains weekly, if that much. That's when it's time to pull out the weathering chalks or soldering iron and catch up with old friends. Yes, folks, it's almost time to play trains again!
And it is actually getting cooler down here in Houston already. First day since June that we didn't run the air conditioning. Opened the windows and let the breeze in, was a great day.
Gary S Wrote:And it is actually getting cooler down here in Houston already. First day since June that we didn't run the air conditioning. Opened the windows and let the breeze in, was a great day.
Already?! it's October! We suffered the second hottest september on record, and the 4th hottest summer overall. This week should be much better though - cooling off into the 80s! I can't wait.
R.O. you make me want to get my camera out and jump in the car.Hope the EBT trip cures my itch.
Heh. I almost joined you guys next weekend, but I can't really justify the Amtrak tickets right now. I feel the urge to spend New Year's Even on the Pacific again, though...
We've gone straight from the upper 90's last Wednesday to the low 60's today here in Kentucky. Turned off the A/C and turned on the heat today (Sunday).
Spent the day watching the endless parade of trains on NS in Danville, KY this past Saturday and it was sunny and cool - perfect rail fanning day. But today, overcast all day long. More of the same for the next couple of days, then maybe two or three more sunny days.
This is very often a the best time of year to photograph trains, but the days are getting shorter and long day trips will be getting fewer. Never was one to photograph trains in the snow either.
Time to start doing some serious layout building.
It's ALWAYS model railroad season - that's why heaters and air conditioners were invented in the first place.
Well, that did it. I went into a hobby store yesterday and came out with two Atlas N scale GP15-1s painted for Conrail. Model railroad season, indeed!
I agree with this -- that it's a good time to get outside to take pics and railfan. October is my favorite time of year.
I normally get into my "more serious" modelling in November as I also like to get out hiking this time of year a lot (i.e. I'll hike in the daytime and end up having to work in the evenings).
I've also been to a couple heritage railways this fall and hope to visit others.
Rob
Wow - temperatures in the 90s last week? Even 60s sound pretty good to me :-)
We've had to scrape ice from the car windows several mornings already. Right now we are at about 37 F right, so probably no frost on the windows tomorrow morning. Three more weeks (unless snow comes early this year), and it's time for studded winter tires on the car, and plugging in the engine heater to make sure the car starts in the mornings.
But we still have a fair amount of sunlight - about 10 hours of daylight still. We'll be losing about 4 minutes of daylight every day from now until the winter solstice on December 22nd, when we will be down to just under 6 hours of daylight and about 18 hours of night.
Thank God we live so far south that we get sunlight at all in December - up north in Tromso the sun goes under the horizon on November 27th and reappears on January 16th.
Grin,
Stein