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

[ezdays]

Good morning good people, cool and dry for another day, then temps ramp up, to where it'll be pushing 80 by next weekend. As the temperatures climb, so do gas prices. Most stations are running $3.79 while gas in Tucson is still under $3.00.

Today is the first day in over a week that I show signs of being close to normal. Whatever that bug is that's going around, I'd recommend staying far away from it, a real doozie. As for getting help, my doctor is three weeks out on appointments, urgent care appointments are over 24 hours away unless you want to go in without an appointment and wait around 4 hours, and going to the ER would be insane. The last time I went there I spent six hours sitting in a hallway with about 50 other sick people. The object there is to make you feel so miserable that you forget why you came there in the first place and you just want to go home.

What's going on here today? Spring Training games are in full swing, they showed a shot of one of the stadiums on the news, like 16,000 sitting all over the place. Cheap seats are in the outfield grass. After what I just went through, I wouldn't go where there are crowds if they paid me. I go shopping early, and I'll try to hit the Post Office before they open, they have self-serve kiosks so I can mail Charlie's package today. I might start working on that display case for my wooden engine. I have all the material, just waiting to get the energy.

Take care, have a great day and watch out for snow.

[sir james]

Hello Blue.
The hospitals here are the same way. I sat 7 hours with kidney stone pain before being treated. I do believe many now going to an ER could have gone to a doctors office. Word for today is SNOW and a heap of it. Expected to start this afternoon. No matter it's March and won't be around long. It could cause the club to have a snow day though.
S.J.

[tompm]

Good evening folks

It is currently 36. Temperature has been dropping all day. It was 45 early this morning. We are supposed to bottom out at 34. They are saying we are in for heavy rain and wind tonight and tomorrow.

It has been a crazy week. Work has been busy and I have been feeling rundown in the evenings. I did add screws to the coupler clips on an Athearn blue box kit boxcar, and add screws to the trucks and coupler lids for a couple of Accurail boxcars. I also built my Atlas Trainman boxcar kit. The kits remind of the older Branchline kits. Easy to put together and look good finished. I began sorting my locomotives into three sections, DCC installed, DCC ready, and DC.

This weekend we need to do some restocking of the food stuff. I would like to run down to Delaware to grab gas. My wife went yesterday and paid $3.08. With the rain and wind predicated I will probably work around on some of the inside chores and projects and that includes laundry.

I would like to continue sorting locomotives and figuring out a better way to store them. I have about 8 or ten boxcars I need to finish tuning up. I am beginning to plan the next project on the layout. Not sure what it will be.

I hope everybody has a good night.

[ezdays]

Good morning, 'tis Saturday, a good day for sleeping in, and as usual, I did just that... Feeling a lot better, hard to tell what I had, but they're saying that the Norovirus is going around, some 14% have been infected in Arizona. It doesn't matter, just another statistic to make you wonder. I just wouldn't want to be working on the city sewer crew right now, cleaning clogged sewers with so many folks spending so much time in... well, ...yuck.

Temp forecast seems to be lower than it was a few days ago, still high 60's to low 70's, no rain. Apparently we're doing good with our watershed, they've taken most of the state out of the drought designation. One dam is releasing water into the river in anticipation of a good spring melt. Lakes Mead and Powell are still way down though.

Going to try to get back out into the workshop today. Spent a little time there yesterday working on my tools, but it was a bit chilly since the garage is not heated or even insulated.

I hope all is well for everyone and the storms are past you all. No new snow for the high country here, means that I-40 will stay open for a while Take care and enjoy the weekend.

[FiatFan]

Greetings, gang.

Cloudy now but it's supposed to clear off and get to the mid 40s.

Pretty quiet day yesterday and today. Laundry is done but I need to do some house cleaning. My sister-in-law is stopping by for a while tomorrow. I hope she doesn't get here too early. I want to see at least the start of the first F1 race of the season.

All stay safe.

Tom

[BR60103]

We were snowed in today.
The streets were plowed early but they left a major ridge across all the driveways. Lady across the street tried to back out but got stuck on the ridge. Couldn't open doors because of snow. Neighbour shovelled her out that much. She was gone later in the day.
Our driveways were plowed between 5:00 and 6:00.

Newspapers were not delivered. We had eMails that there would be a delay. Usually the eMails arrive after the paper.
Our late neighbour's children (I hope) were taking stuff out of his house -- two pickups and a car.

[Charlie B]

I haven't had much to post in this forum.
Everything is fine at the Wilderson division and all of my kids and grand kids that were evacuated for the wreck are all fine. 
I am watching a small village commit suicide with the help of the media hype and the lawyers looking for a big payday. There were no injuries nor was there any property damage off the railroad with the exception of a fuel storage tank on the property of a local fuel oil distributor.  Had there not been a big black mushroom cloud to keep replaying the media would be reporting on other things more dramatic. 
     They are testing all of the homes and all local wells as well as the village water system and to date no traces of any of the released substances been found. I am 1.6 miles away from ground zero and the bottom of my well is still 100 feet higher than the derailment site so I am not worried about our water. (surface elevation 120 feet higher too)
     The lawyers are having a field day convincing folks they can never go home again. 
      The wreck should never have happened. The crew should have stopped the train and checked it out. Why they didn't is a mystery to me. 
NS has a site here http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/...ssage.html about the clean up. and the NTSB report is here if you care to read the report  https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Docu...Prelim.pdf
It is past time for the railroads to start thinking of the crews and safety. This wreck was caused by a hot bearing but it is my opinion that trains need to be limited to 100 cars or less and no unmanned helpers. The one man crew already was outlawed by congress this week and I hope it passes the other branches. Too many times folks forget that a railroad is run by people and those people need to be treated like flesh and blood, not machines. 
If management can't make money with 100 car trains 2+man crews and proper notice for call out times then get out of the business. 
I saw a lot of stuff running a shortline and some of it just makes my skin crawl. Lets hope the right things get addressed. 
Charlie

[FiatFan]

Greetings, gang.

Cloudy ad 28 at the moment with a 60% chance of rain and mid 40s for a high.

Just a quick visit this morning. Sister-in-law on her way for a visit and I have a few things to do around the house yet. No mail delivery again yesterday for the second time this week. Since I'm only getting 2/3 of the service expected of the post office I should only have to pay 2/3 of the price of a stamp. Getting really tired of this.

All stay safe.

Tom

[ezdays]

Good morning everyone, we did finally hit 70 yesterday and will be around that until next weekend where they keep messing with the numbers, but we could hit 80 by then. Great for those watching Spring Training games since none of the stadiums are covered.

Charlie, when you have one lawyer for every 250 people, they need to stay busy and find all sorts of things to sue for. They usually get millions out of a class-action lawsuit and the recipients get a pittance. I'm still trying to remember if we drove close to Camp Lejeune, a few years ago and stopped for a sip of water, I get a stomach ache just thinking about it. It must be a big payday for the lawyers, some are still advertising. I'll bet those that join the lawsuit will wind up with less than $100, while the hundreds of lawyers will each wind up with several million, all paid for by us taxpayers. The same will go for all those folks in Palestine. We have one lawyer ad after another here, some are just plain stupid. One touts themself as the, "anti-lawyer lawyer", I guess you use him if you want to sue one of his buddies....

Costco gas is only three cents cheaper than QT and Fry's, not worth spending $1.50 in gas to get there only to save $0.45. Many stations now over $4.00, the only one that hasn't changed is the one up on US60 that's been at $4.99 for months now.

Take care, enjoy the day....

[sir james]

Hello Blue
Cloudy 38/40s for today.
We had a lot of snow melt yesterday, could be all gone before this day is over.
Haven't been out to see gas prices but we all know it will be up for the summer.
No train plans till Saturday.
S.J.

[ezdays]

Good morning good people, we're back into the 70's, a few degrees below normal, but still good. They've put the 80's back in starting next weekend so everyone will know why we live here. We're going target shooting today out in Tonopah, there's a flood warning, so I read it. They're releasing water into the Salt River that runs through Tempe and Phoenix. They're also releasing water from the Bartlett Dam into the Verde River, all in anticipation of the snow melt, all of this is well over 60 miles from Tonopah. I hope it refreshes the ground water tables. We are still building new housing like crazy here. What once was farmland is now new sub-divisions and open-air malls. I just wonder, where will all the food that they grew here come from now that there are houses and stores on that land? Farmers pass on and their families would rather become instant millionaires rather than work the land. I can't blame them, but someone has to grow our food....

Gas is approaching $4.00, Costco and Sam's Club at $3.76, most others $3.79.

Gotta load the truck, not sure were we'll eat breakfast, the truckstop restaurant is still being renovated and there's not anything else out there, so I think we'll have to find someplace that's open early here in Surprise.

Everyone have a great week, stay warm and stay safe. I'm not sure if all the storms have passed, but be careful anyway...

[FiatFan]

Greetings, gang.

34 and cloudy at the moment. Supposed to be a little foggy with a high around 40 later on. Had a brief thunderstorm last night. NWS is talking about a snow storm for Thursday and Friday.

Sister-in-law left about 3 yesterday afternoon. Among other activities we watched on line while two of her granddaughters competed in a dance competition in Houston. The young ladies did very well. Today I need to talk to the postmaster about the lack of deliveries and to the newspaper about their decision to move to mail delivery of the paper.

All stay safe.

Tom

[tompm]

Good morning folks

It is a brisk 38 this morning on the job site with a cold wind blowing off the Schuylkill River. The river is up from Friday/Saturday rain meaning we can’t access the riverside of the weir. The water is below the top of the cofferdam, but the causeway is flooded. High will be 51 if the weather guessers are right.

Not sure what happen this weekend as nothing went as planned. I did get to the bottom of the laundry hamper. Moved and cleaned behind the sofa. Found a huge cache of dog toys and dust bunnies the size of elephants. Couldn’t do anything outside due to the rain and then the wind. We did make the grocery store, produce store, and meat store runs. Drove down to Delaware to get gas. It was $3.25. My wife got it on Thursday for $3.08. With my grocery store points I paid $2.45.

I thought I would have gotten more done with the trains, but this weekend was a disappointment. I repaired a newly acquired Intermountain boxcar. It had a ladder off that required gluing. Granted this was new old stock I got off that auction site but this has been happening quite a lot lately with my Intermountain purchases. Four out of the last ten boxcars I acquired had either doors and/or ladders and/or some other random part loose in the box. To add to the disappointment I found a Walthers kit boxcar that someone else assembled that has the wrong trucks and they are causing the car to derail. I understand wanting it to look like the prototype but why did you not use the trucks that came with the kit? Instead you used trucks that have to be forced onto the bolster.

I did start planning possibly the next layout project. I finally figured out a solution to my grade crossing and passenger station conflict. I will move the road under the tracks. This will require obtain a bridge or two, retaining walls, and removing some pink foam. It will allow me to extend the station platforms and possibly install a fourth track at the station. I did enter a bunch of rolling stock into my inventory program.

Today hopefully will be uneventful unlike last night. Just as I was getting ready for bed heard a loud boom and crash. Went outside to look and saw a nasty car crash six houses down from ours. An SUV had slammed into a parked car pushing the parked car fully into the neighbor’s front yard. The striking vehicle was destroyed on the front passenger side including breaking the wheel off. The impact was so hard the striking vehicle spun around and the air bags deployed. Our street has a 15 MPH speed limit and the accident happened about a hundred feet from a stop sign. The only person involved was the driver of the SUV who appeared to be uninjured but was taken to the hospital. This is the second accident in the last six months at basically the same spot. Since we moved here in 1991 there have been at least 25 accidents on our block. It is so bad we tell visitors not to park on our street.

Maybe tonight I can get something done with the trains.

I hope everybody has a good day.

[jim currie]

Hi all. well its Monday again not much different than last week finished two more structures for Ludlow only 15 left been to cold and windy to do much outside but might change next week.
stay safe and warm.
Jim

[ezdays]

Good morning all, well, temps are back in the normal range, mid-70's, up into the 80's later this week. Went target shooting out in Tonopah, kinda chilly for a while, but the sun came out and the jackets came off. No wind, just a pleasant day, spent more time out there than we normally do.

Gas prices are leaping ahead, $3.99 seems to be popular, some stations at $3.79 a few over $4.00, however, go south around Tucson and gas is a dollar cheaper than here. Still not worth driving over 100 miles one way to save a few bucks. Traffic is out of sight here right now, we have snowbirds here to get out of the cold, and we have visitors that are here just for baseball. Gotta remember, each Spring Training stadium can accommodate between 10,000 and 20,000 spectators, and there are ten of them here in the Cactus League, each spectator and each snowbird must drive at least two cars to cause the traffic jams that we have near these stadiums.

We do have an auction going for an HO used car sales office trailer. A unique item, and personally detailed, so make a bid, of even a "buy now" offer. It's all to help keep Big Blue running smoothly and pay the bills.

Time to head out to breakfast, then maybe I can get some work done on the display case for my wooden engine. Got preoccupied there the past few weeks, but I'm doing OK now, so I can get out into the workshop and see what I can get done.

Y'all have a great day.