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

[FiatFan]

Greetings, gang.

Partly cloudy and 64 going to the low 80s. 90s by the weekend. A brief shower overnight but less than a quarter inch.

Nothing much planned for today except pay a bill and go for a bike ride. Only one game tonight at 6 and only 15 minutes away. Big day tomorrow. The green ash tree in the back yard will be coming down. It got hit by the ash borer and I tried treating it but it was too far gone. Once it's down I'll plant a new one in the fall.

Gas was $3.33 when I filled up last night.

All stay safe.

Tom

[LiveSteamer]

Good Morning Everyone,

Not much planned for today other than baseball playoffs for my step daughters tonight at 7:30. I have been resting up from my surgery and working on my blogger website the past few days. I did manage to the other day get a front loader down onto the workbench and get the decals applied. Other than that, everything has been sitting in the same spot since the night before my surgery. I go to the doctor tomorrow to have my first cast removed along with the stitches. He did say he wasn't sure if he was putting my in another cast or putting me in my walking boot. He really is trying to avoid me being a cast over the summer months because of all the heat. I can see his point but at the same time I am worried that if I have the walking boot on, I'm going to try and put pressure on my foot without thinking. I guess I will talk to him tomorrow about that. 

Other than that, I am going to relax until it's game time tonight and work on my blog website here and there today. Hope you all have a safe and wonderful day today. Take care my friends.

[sir james]

Wednesday 6/24/26
Hello Blue
Sun and 70s for the day. Home from Aldi's, we don't shop often but when we do it's a carload. Got to visit with one of the few cousins I have left. We had a nice visit with lunch and a couple beers. I think it's home for the day now. Oh gas was 3.99 one place the others over 4.
S.J.

[tompm]

Good evening folks

It has been busy the last few days. My sleep schedule has been a disaster. I worked 4 nights last week and I still have fully recovered. Guess what, I am working tomorrow night. We are closing down the Fort Washington Interchange from midnight to 5 am to put a new sign structure across the roadway. Tonight the fun starts as I have to drive the entire job to inspect the construction signing. I start at about 1:30 am and finish at about 4 am. Come home and sleep until noon. I have to be back at work at 8 PM. Hopefully we finish before 5 am. Friday is a recovery day, and I will be doing reports at home for a couple hours of my choosing.

I am hoping to get downstairs for a little bit tonight before I take a nap. I am running an old IHC B&O Pacific pulling a set of Broadway Limited B&O heavyweight passenger cars. When I took the locomotive out of the box for the first time in 20 years. I gave the wheels a good cleaning and tried it on the layout. It was rough at first but after 90 minutes it was running smoothly.

I hope to have some photos for the Photo Threads.

Here are a couple of tidbits from our last sign structure install.



https://i.imgur.com/51yUrco.mp4

[FiatFan]

Greetings, gang.

57 and some scattered clouds in the area. During the course of the day they will be banding together to hopefully bring some rain overnight tonight. highs in the 80s til Sunday when it turns brutal highs are predicted to be in the 90s for the next several days after that.

Yesterday was pretty quiet. I did get in a nice 13 mile bike ride with no ill aftereffects. Also went to the local bike shop and picked up a new speedometer for the pollution solution vehicle. I just need to figure out how to reset the trip odometer after a ride. Then a baseball game for one of the great-grandsons at 6 last night. Today the green ash tree comes down so lots of pictures will be taken.

All stay safe.

Tom

[FiatFan]

Greetings, gang.

64 and cloudy this morning according to the thermometer in my very empty back yard. Upper 70s today, 80 tomorrow, then 90s for quite a long stretch.

The tree removal guys showed up just a few minutes after 7. They were gone by 9. Then the guy showed up around 10:30 to clean up the debris. He was gone in about 20 minutes. Very professional and efficient work. Unfortunately the back yard will now be pretty much unusable for a while with the impending high temperatures and lack of shade. Any work out there will have to be done in the early morning. After the tree people left I spent some time plotting my route on old highway 20 to the west coast. Making progress on that. Current goal is to leave from the doctor's office after my 8 AM appointment.

Today is going to be baseball followed by baseball followed by more baseball. Games at 10, 1:30, and 5:30. I also need to make trips to Menards and Walmart. Both are open now so I think I'll just go and get that over with. Also need to stop at the grocery store but that doesn't open til 7. If I go now the grocery store could be open by the time I finish at the other two stores.

Gas was down to $3.29 last evening when I was out.

All stay safe.

Tom

[FiatFan]

Greetings, gang.

Cloudy and 65 this morning in the remote reaches of northern Iowa. Low 80s today then 90s for the next several days. Slight chance for some rain tonight.

Yesterday was a very long day. Got my shopping done early. Then I left at 9:15 for the first game. Round trip 50 miles. Back home at 11:45. Left at 12:45 for the next game. Round trip 50 miles. Back home at 4. At 4:30 I left for the last game. Round trip 80 miles. Today the only things on my agenda are laundry and resting.

All stay safe.

Tom

[LiveSteamer]

Good Morning Everyone,

I am sitting here watching the Formula One Race that is in Austria cheering on my favorite driver, Lewis Hamilton while I am finishing up Conrail #0. I finally managed to find a comfortable position to sit in so I can get back to my trains. It is a very overcast day here today but no rain is in the forecast so they say. I have no plans to go anywhere today as I just want to sit and relax some more. I am still in some pain but its mainly around the big incision on the outside of my ankle. There really isn't much more to report on other than I finally got back to my trains. Hope everyone is having a good sunday. Take Care My Friends.

[sir james]

Sunday 6/28/26
Good morning Blue.
Just checking in. Got no train news. For Michigan, very hot all next week. Gas is still hangin at four dollars plus.
Grass needs cutting but not on Sunday. It is rest day, a rule my parents always followed.
S.J.

[FiatFan]

Greetings, gang.

76 with 95% humidity under clear skies this morning. The high is supposed to be in the upper 90s with the heat index well over 100. Similar weather for the rest of the week.

Yesterday started out with some light showers. Then the wind picked up a little but mostly just in occasional gusts. Ok, let's get the pollution solution vehicle out. Did 10 miles but decided the wind was getting to be too much. The wind however helped dry out the grass so I was able to get the lawn mowed. Then one of the smoke alarms started going off and not the "battery is dying kind of warning. That was closely followed by the second alarm and finally the third one went off also. Apparently the humidity was too much for them. Pulled the batteries and later fired up the a/c. All is quiet in the house now. I'll be restoring the alarms to their rightful positions shortly.

On tap for today are ball games at 10 and 5:30. Depending on the weather I may skip the 5:30 one. Old age and heat don't always get along well.

Gas is down to $3.25.

All stay safe.

Tom

[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.

[FiatFan]

Greetings, gang.

78 with 80% humidity under cloudy skies this morning in the remote reaches of northern Iowa. 90s again today the chances of rain for the next 36 hours. Slightly cooler ((upper 80s) for the next several days.

I've been to a lot of baseball games in the last month and that all comes to a close with games this morning at 10 and the last game at 5:30 this evening. After that I can get back to a regular schedule of bike riding and gym visits. Of course I will interrupt that next week. Current plan is to leave next Wednesday to drive Highway 20 from here to the west coast. On the way home I plan to drive the Columbia River gorge and then maybe pick up highway 30 back home. Should be somewhere around 4000 miles.

All stay safe.

Tom

[hillyard999]

<< Current plan is to leave next Wednesday to drive Highway 20 from here to the west coast. On the way home I plan to drive the Columbia River gorge and then maybe pick up highway 30 back home. Should be somewhere around 4000 miles. >>

Tom, that sounds great!  I have always loved road trips, I like your "theme" of US 20.
Yellowstone is a great place, you can never spend enough time there, but parking can be tight at some spots.  Don't mess with bison or moose!  
: )

Myself, I like to see quirky things along the route (besides RR stuff, of course).
If you like that sort of thing, this site is a useful start:  https://www.roadsideamerica.com/

In Idaho, you can visit Craters of the Moon National Monument.  Wierd lava landscape.  what I remember most was the diorama in the visitor's center.  It shows the migration of the Yellowstone "hot spot" and makes sense of all those outcroppings.

You will also pass Atomic City and the Idaho National Laboratory.
Somewhere along the highway in this area is a submarine in a town park.  (actually, just the sail)

DONT MISS--
the Experimental Breeder Reactor museum!  Some very wierd RR stuff there, including a lead-encased Plymouth locomotive used to move the proof-of-concept nuclear reactors intended for installation in jet bombers.  Yes, really.

On your way back, I think you will enjoy the Columbia Gorge.  The word Awesome is really appropriate.  Every time I travel though it I ask myself, why don't I come here more often?  It's only 90 minutes away.  If you enjoy beer, try the Pfriem brewery in Hood River.  In tourist season, you could catch the Hood River Railway in action.  Based in downtown Hood River.
Lots of RR action both sides of the gorge.

Good luck on the trip! 
Hope your day is going great.

[FiatFan]

Happy World UFO Day, gang!

Also the anniversary of the day Amelia Earhart disappeared. Maybe that's a coincidence, maybe not.

76 with 88% humidity this morning with some good chances for rain and/or thunderstorms through Saturday morning.

Yesterday was the last of the baseball for the great-grandsons. Nothing now until football starts in the fall. Also had a blood draw yesterday morning by a lady who has mastered the art of inserting the needle. This morning I need to hit a few stores for an assortment of supplies. Also need to make arrangements for tire rotation, brake inspection, and checking the car's a/c.

Hillyard - thanks for the travel tips. Those are the kinds of places I enjoy also.

Gas price varies around town this morning for$3.21 at Walmart/Murphy Oil to $3.59 at QwikStar.

All stay safe.

Tom

[ngauger]

Gas is still around $3.99 Temps are still around 95