Rainy Sunday
Mood:  lazy
It is raining today, rained last night and will doubtless rain tonight and Monday. According to the weather folks it will rain most of the week. With any luck it will clear up in time for the pre-schoolers visit on Friday. I didn't let you know about the new conductor car that I built for watching young riders. It is a good idea to have a conductor on the rear of the train when you are carrying small children. The conductor carries a whistle and a radio to alert the engineer and the children. Can't be too careful. No picrures today, soggy.

Drop Center Flat Done!
Mood:  happy

The drop center flat is done, brakes werk well. I'[ve ordered a brake conversion kit for another ste of Tom Bee trucks and will soon be installing an air brake kit on those trucks.

I tried the air brakes on a long down hill run and they worked well, certainly better than putting the locomotive in partial reverse to slow it down.

 

Visit the live camera at http://railroadcam2.viewnetcam.com:50003/CgiStart?page=Single&Language=0

Winter Project
Mood:  energetic

Building an "Easy Kit" drop center flatcar. Well, easy is a relative term and no relation to the term "easy." Easy means someone who built it before, from scratch, thinks thaqt this thing is easy to do because all of the holes are drilled!

So far I've been working on it for a week. There is much to go on the kit. The sheet metal was a little long, I'd rather have it cut with a shear so I'm waiting for the local sheet metal shop to open so I can get it 'square cut.' More as this develops.

Amonth ago I added a little building along the main line. The cedar 'line shack' came from a dealer and was delivered quickly. It is bigger than a dog house but smaller than a garden shed. You can see it on the web site on the live East camera. ( Http://mr-train0.tripod.com )