The Hobo Camp Fire Is going well #X.. Stop In!!!

[tompm]

Good evening folks

It has been crazy in these parts. In some ways I am still recovering from last two weeks of night work. I put in 110 hours over those two weeks and witnessed a bunch of sunsets and sunrises over the PA Turnpike. With the holiday coming up we are now under restrictions for the reminder of this week and until Monday. Restrictions means no work that requires taking lanes, all work must be off the road and behind barriers. Also, no deliveries are allowed, which means no concrete pours or paving. With the hot temperatures coming the contractor is considering not working Thursday thus making it a four-day weekend.

The wife and I have been spending the last few evenings getting the gardens ready for the heat. Some plants have been moved to shady spots and a few really delicate ones have been brought indoors.

I have been running some trains for the past few days. I ran an older IHC B&O Pacific with a new set of Broadway Limited heavyweight passenger cars. It took me a little time to get the loco running consistently. Once it was running, I treated it like a new loco and ran it through a “breaking-in” session for a couple hours running it at different speeds and directions. For a 27-year-old loco that hasn’t been running in probably close to 20 years it did well. Pulling the five heavyweights brought the loco to its limits. The only issue was with stuttering going over frogs on some switches particularly #8’s. Since it is an older locomotive, the only contacts are on the drivers so on the longer frogs it was not picking up any power. I would love some day to figure out had to increase the number of contacts.

Now I am working on another IHC Pacific. This one is Chessie System. We will see how it does with BLI heavyweights.

I hope everybody has a good evening.