Another day, another railcar

It’s finally here. The 50 ton, thirty-four foot hopper. Complete with reporting marks. The hopper is owned by the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad. The car number is 32018. The color is solid black. We are very proud to have this example of a common type railcar on the property. We plan to build many more, relatively speaking. So, where to now? As omscaler has stated before, a number of needs for the OSR are always competing for priority. But since we are on a roll with railcars, the next car project wil be...(drum roll), dah, tah, dah, dah, a covered hopper. Truthfully, I hope to have parallel projects working. Having done the hopper, omscaler thinks he can do this. Wish me luck! again, optimistic, omscaler

Back on track

Yes, we are back on track after the major debacle. And yes we are posting from home. Many of you probably were not aware that I have using the public library to get online. I am happy to report that now things have improved so that I can get online at home. Oh happy day! Speaking of a happy report. Let me give you a little report on a train show I attended recently. The show seemed better that last year. Turnout was favorable. I was glad to see old friends and meet new ones. I even took my youngest grandson. I took a number of pics. A good time was had by all. If you have the opportunity, go to a show in your area. I am now working on the planned hopper. Going slowly, that’s s l o w l y. Too slowly for me, but slow down I must. Yours, slowing down, omscaler

Holy cow, another disaster!

Yep, we got bit. Fortunately, it was one of those times when I decided to post ahead. Last week’s post was already posted and scheduled before disaster struck. I posted early due my plan to attend a local model railroad show. Boy was I glad I did so. The only thing was, I had placed the newest railcars on the layout without reporting marks. If you recall, I mentioned this last post. After the disaster occurred, I realized I still needed to do this. I tried not to remonstrate myself too much and worked on the problem as best I could. The problem, in fact was the failure of my personal computer. No booting, no nothing. I took it to a local vendor of electronics. They were nice enough to get an initial prognosis. Same thing. No booting, no nothing. There was power and the screen kept coming back to the “choose last good configuration setting”. That was all it did. Dead in the water I was. Well, the upshot was, it was time to buy a new processor. Oh what fun! The thing came with a new key board and mouse. Our friendly manufacturers always change the connecting hardware it seems. So, no use of old peripheral with the exception of the monitor. (But give this time as well. }:>) The bright spot in all this was that I had a major backup of all files. The only exception to this was that I had to grab the last two blog posts off of my “carry” jump drive. If I had not done this, I would have probably voluntarily committed my self to Belleview*.  Anyway, I worked and worked and got almost everything sorted out, with one exception. (Enough exceptions, already.) My camera transfer software had to be downloaded from the web. No web at my home. This may be changing soon. I did get to transfer pics with the new processor. Another win for the omscaler. Planning to win some more, omscaler

*Historic New York hospital for the insane :)

Getting good marks

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that the gondolas were on the property, i.e. on the layout. I also mentioned that they were without reporting marks. No, the gondolas were not attending school. How would they raise their hands to respond to the teacher anyway? No, reporting marks as I have probably already mentioned, have the initials of the owning railroad as well as the individual car number, or equipment number if a locomotive or other vehicle on rails. These marks are mandated by Federal law. Sometimes the car will have the initials or roadname in large letters on the side of the equipment if there is enough room and the owners chooses to do so. How many of you readers know of an actual example of what I am referring to? Please post your response in the comment section. I will get us started. The SOO railroad comes to my mind. Looking forward to some fun examples being posted, omscaler

What about the terminal? 

Last post I wrote about the sandhouse and how sand was handled. This got me thinking, “What about the terminal?” I wasn't thinking about the passenger depot or the freight house. I was thinking about the railway shops. Many posts ago I wrote about Murphysboro being the headquarters for the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. As stated the main shops were located here. The facility had a roundhouse, car shops as well as the coaling tower and sand and water and other buildings as well. Seems like I need to think about filling out my little railroad. Hopefully the future schedule will allow me to get busy with all these things. Thinking out loud, omscaler

They are finally complete 

Yes, the much vaunted gondolas are now complete. Well, almost. They still need reporting marks. I am debating about brake wheels and brake stands as well. Maybe I should have a contest about which reporting marks? Perhaps not. These things can get a little heated if not handled correctly. Now with the  gondolas at work, we can haul sand, gravel and more. We can get sand to the forthcoming sandhouse. You may be wondering, “What is a sandhouse?”. Well, dear readers, sand is used to give locomotives traction when the wheels slip. Ice, snow, rain, bugs (yes, locusts can be so numerous they cause problems with slippery rails). The air system blows sand from the sand dome or sand container in the case of diesels to just where it is needed at the wheels. So the locomotives get their sand from a container elevated above the locomotives height. The container gets sand piped to it by air. The sandhouse gets sand from a large bin on the ground. The bin looks like a pen with wooden fences. A load of sand is brought in and emptied into the bin. This sand is called “green” sand. It may be wet or damp. A worker moves the sand into the sandhouse where it is dried with heat and then piped to the above track container. Betch'a didn't know all this about sand, did you? Well, anyway, see you next time, sandy and gritty, omscaler

We were back at the shop 

Yes, sometimes what the omscaler does has to be redone or more correctly repaired. Recently I experienced a couple of retainers coming off the railcar. Close examination revealed components that were somewhat over sized on the lower “shoe” or plate. It may have been that I thought I had modified this equipment but apparently I did not remove enough material or possibly skipped these cars in my mad rush to enjoy my model trains. Anyway, the suspects were apprehended and modified and returned to duty. It is incidents like these that sometimes delay current efforts. But this is all part of a smooth running model railroad. We are still moving forward. As a side note, I recently had the opportunity to attend a festival. The name of the festival was “Whistle Stop”. The location of the festival was located at a shopping area in west Leeds, Alabama. The Whistle Stop restaurant is located in Irondale, Alabama. It was prominent in a book and movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes”. When I first learned of this, I thought “What gives?”. I finally learned that some politics and finances had levered the festival away from its original location. Oh well, the only constant is change. See you next post, omscaler