Howdy Jeff and All,

Thanks for opening Jeff. I put coffee on and there is toast and fresh strawberry preserves on the kitchen table waiting for you all to get up!! Hope it is still warm when you read this!! Sorry, didn't have time to cook you all a breakfast since I had to be at work by 6:30A!

The thunder was cracking last night and it is still lightly raining and quite warm this morning. Well I'm at work for the next 8 hours so if it stops by mid afternoon, I'll be happy!!

Hope all have a great day![^]

Good morning, Jeff, Andy and crew. We had a bunch of thunder showers move through last night, leaving us with a very humid morning. It’s gonna be in the upper 80’s today, so I’ll be turning on the a/c later this morning.

I didn’t do any MRRing yesterday and may not get to the workbench today.

Have a good day.

George

As I was starting for home after my daily railfan experience (commuter train, but I pass the Lawrence, MA yard and I see Amtrak's Downeaster regularly) Somebody drove out of a side street and right into the driver's side of my car in Haverhill. It had to be towed, no damage to me. But I still had to get ready for my airbrush clinic for the Hub Division tonight, so once my wife fetched me home, I finished prepping a Model Tech Studios resin tenement and a styrene retaining wall and bridge abutment. Now I've got to go borrow my (simplification here) b-in-l's spare car and load it with my spray booth, nitrogen tank etc. and drive to work....

I think I saw sunlight, this morning. Barely.

I am thinking of heading over to MRPO to pick up a few things. Hopefully, they have what I need in stock. otherwise, I may have to order a few things...which I hate to do since I don't get there very often.

Not much work on the RR, last night. We had a landscaper come and show us a plan for part of our backyard. We need to hide the neighbors mess, which is at least contained within a vinyl fence of his. But, we can still see the mess of a yard he has.

Chuck

Good morning crew. Sunny so far here in southern ON. but the rain and thinderstorms are to be here by noon. Went to the club last night. We sure have a bunch of fun guys. Won't be getting much MRing this weekend as we have a bunch of family things. Have a great day.

Good morning Jeff and crew. We had another 1.5 inches of rain yesterday.[:-snorkel] Today looks dry, before the rain comes back tomorrow. I will get out in the yard and see what I can get done today.

Jeff, the last rail fanning I did was two weeks ago in Three Bridges, NJ where the BR&W interchanges with the NS.

I'm sure I'll be working in the yard until dusk, so there will be no modeling in my plans for today.

Have a great day!

Good morning folks

It was 67 F this strange morning. High will be 81 F. Odd things going on. There is this strange yellow thing in the eastern sky this morning. It is all over the news. They say it called the sun, but don’t worry it will be gone by late this afternoon and the ever present rain clouds will be back for the weekend.

Nothing happened last night. My daughter’s softball game was called off due to the rain. I just puttered around the house taking care of a bunch of little odd jobs that needed to be done. The most excitement of the evening was when the youth music director from church called and asked my daughter to do a flute solo during one of the services this summer.

This weekend will get off to an impossible start. We have my son’s guitar lesson followed by a trip to see a Merit Badge Counselor since they had to reschedule from last week. At the same time my daughter is supposed to be going to a friend’s mother’s house for a birthday party/sleepover. The house is about an hour away. Tomorrow if the rain holds off and the fields dry out my daughter is supposed to play in an All-Star game and my wife has to go to the museum to feed the animals. Sunday who knows? My wife works at the Zoo. We were going to celebrate Father’s Day tomorrow instead of Sunday.

If I can I am going to get some modeling in this weekend.

I hope everybody has a good day.

Grey and wet, between storms, here in the mitten. A fair bit of thunder in the night and temps stayed above 60. Everything is super soaked this am and the garden, too dry to work in 3 days ago now is too wet, but I still have to go out and try and secure a couple of tomato plants in case the forecast windy comes later. Then off to town to do errands.

No modeling the last couple of days except ordering the next car in Walthers' NYC 20th Century Limited series, ordered from Kleins.

Hope all have a good day.

BE SAFE!!

Mornin' all!

Very grey, still dry, 68F and very humid in the northern mitten, with Doom and Gloom in the forecast for later this afternoon. Could be worse, though! I don't have to shovel this!

I drove home from Boston last week. Saw an endless wall of auto racks while on the NY Thruway, all of them sitting stock still, stashed wherever the railroad could find to park them. Very, very depressing, as it's a highly visible indicator of economic distress.

The flip side of this is that there were scads of people running for the Commuter Rail train just outside Beantown, so apparently there are still folks with jobs....

Make it a Great Day, folks!

Pete

in Michigan

Good Friday Morning Everybody.

It's 63 at the moment with the sun breaking through the clouds after the storm. While typing my first post the electric went off. Computers don't work very well without electricity. The weather forecast calls for a wild and woolly afternoon with lots of earsplitting louden boomers. Hopefully we won't have to go down into Das Bunker.

With the rain on Wednesday I was going to mow the grass today, but didn't count on a 2 hour long t-storm. So we'll mow grass Sunday. I have some work to do in the backyard before the weather gets nasty later on. After that I'm going to putter around with the new track plan.

Well its time for another cup of coffee and look over the forum while things dry out. Have a good day and God Bless.

With 14% unemployment in Michigan there still are 86% employed. The last time I was by the CSX's Ensel yard in Lansing, Tuesday, there wasn't a car in the yard except maybe 2 miles of stored autoracks, in Battle Creek, the CN is tearing up much of their yard. NS's Saginaw yard in Lansing is empty and the GM plants they serviced have been torn down. There are just coal unit trains for the Lansing electical plants in the CN Lansing Yard. Some auto racks are still being loaded at the GM Delta Plant SW of Lansing and served by the new Cody Yard. I did see three CN trains and Amtrak in BC while there last Fri and again Wed. CSX seems to be a 2-3 day a week outfit here but is installing quite a few rural grade crossing gates and lights W of Lansing. NS has 2 GPs, 40-2 and 38-2, in Albion yesterday on the local train. There the storage tracks are full of covered hoppers.

Hey Karl, great update. I don't get around to many of these places these days. It's really sad to see the old GTW Battle Creek yard disappearing. It was a great place for railroading at one time, much like Michigan Central's old facilities in Jackson. Not much of anything left.

I drove by Michigan Central Depot last weekend on the way to downtown Detroit to pickup my dad. That is one sad looking building. I doubt that anyone will have the money or desire to save it. That would be a great loss if it was to be razed.[V]