Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Rivrdog MoPoo, ready for assignment

After a 25-mile road test in the Cascade foothills, I pronounce the M35A2 ready for duty, combat or otherwise. Tomorrow, the Gudwife joins her TEA party bretheren and sisteren on the protest line for the Obama campaign visit, so there might be a last -minute assignment there, and this weekend, the M35A2 will be the primary logistics vehicle for the RivrSon's move to better digs, commensurate with his better station in life with his new job at Nike, and his increased fambly size of TWO chilluns now (all three were guests aboard M/Y Lofoten Girl this past weekend).

We can probably move his entire apartment furnishings in two trips with the M35, with it's 12'X8' bed, with my LBT pickemup thrown in for escort duty.

The RivrGranpa will be good for the incentive pay for the volunteer moving labor....cases of cold brews at both ends. Since I'm the M35 driver, and that involves CDL work, I won't be imbibing, but will take a raincheck...

Today, I detail-scrubbed the M35, with Softscrub to remove the algae which had accumulated in the places that don't readily dry after a rainstorm. I also retired the Winter Tarp, which had given it's last. I left the Cargo Cover Hoops on, so as to have tie-down points for furniture, etc. I will NOT engage the first gear without the load adequately secured. The RivrSon is moving from a less-toney 3rd-floor walk-up in Garden Home to a tonier ground-floor apartment in Bethany (both Washington County locations), closer to work with more room and laundry machines, so it's a major step up. If I can get close enough to his new ground-floor patio, I can drop the loads there and then all there is will be guard duty while the gear is stowed, and we BOTH know Guard Duty, and so does my 1911A1...the weapon of choice to defend a 1972 M35A2 Deuce and it's load with...

Yep, that's my HD Bug-Out truck, but it has other uses while waiting for the Bug-out mission...I thought about the offer of a Ma Deuce mount on a gun ring over the cab, but decided if I'm going to spend that kinda moolah on the M35, it's gonna get a change to a 6X6 configuration instead of the stock 6X10 that it has now. That would give me about 4" more ground clearance, as if 30+ inches fording depth wasn't enough...the new configuration is simply new tires and wheels, with single wheels and tires of a larger size replacing the treads of 9.00X20 that are on there now on all three axles. It's about $600-800 per wheel to make the change, so $3600-$4800, but when it's done, I also get about 5-8 mph more road speed, and can keep up with normal truck traffic on the freeway (road speed now is 52 mph @ 2200 rpm in 5th OD). Traditional "road march" speed for these was 45 mph, but their replacements can tool along at 70 mph per their specifications.

 

 

Rivr Logistics Division, standing down

Aye, standing down.

The Coast Fork of the Willamette River, normally a small stream, large creek really, that flows by the Rivrsis' Rivr Cottage in Cottage Grove, OR, has had a hungry eye on her place recently. Seems that the Corpse of Engineers got taken in by some failed weather models, and let the reservoirs upstream of her get too full, so they had to have an emergency max opening of the floodgates at the dam just a couple miles above her.

That raised her River to it's max known flow rate and max gage height.

Then it commenced to pour. We have a Pineapple Express in progress, it's tropical connection going straight to the coast of Vietnam. It's been SERIOUSLY raining. In the inches. The tributary streams, and there are a few above her and below the dam, rose, and contributed their flow to the river.

I didn't like the look of this after she reported the second level of her three-terrace riverside lot going under, so I put the M35A2 at her disposal, and she began to make up a list of stuff which would be dragged out of the cottage and tossed into the truck (which can handle 30 inches of water with no problems.

The Corpse of Engineers lowered the reservoir level enough with the emergency opening, though, so now they've partially shut the floodgate, and the Coast Fork is receding.

The steep climb of the trace on the 28th is when they opened the gate, the steep drop of the trace today (just 1.5 hours ago) is when they closed it....

Standing down now (and saving the 50 or so gallons of diesel it would have taken to make that trip).

 

It was a family affair...

...the reason there has been no blogging for almost a week.

For the first time, I had all my daughters and my son, with all their families, for a long weekend together from Friday to today. We went up to Odell Lake in the Cascade Mountains, where a good friend has a nice lodge which he loaned to me for this fandamily gathering.

The affair featured "dueling chefs", since I have a son and a daughter who have cooked professionally.

I had a problem with the lodge's boat (seized tilt mechanism on the trolling motor), so I couldn't troll for all the big mackinaw and trout the fish-finder showed lurking in the lake. I could sort-of troll by drifting on the wind, but that's tricky because the direction or speed of the drift isn't being controlled. Result: no fish, but we did catch enough crawfish in the lodge's traps to have a tasty snack. High lakes crawfish have no muddy taste at all, so they are just boiled up and eaten in their natural flavors.

The only downer to the trip was my poor physical conditioning, which resulted in yet another lumbar spine injury episode from hauling heavy gear from the car to the dock, then into the boat, boat over to the lodge, off-loading it, then hauling it up a short but steep trail to the lodge, then doing all that again in reverse when I left. I had some help, or it would have been impossible, but I hurt now. It's a "good hurt" though, if there's such a thing.

No pix, I don't put family pictures on the Internet much...

Train Mountain recap

The short of it: I went down to have fun, and I DID have fun...I'll be back!

The long version: my train nut buddy and I were quite bummed out when he had electrical control problems with his locomotive, but neither of us let it spoil our search for fun. Separately, for the most part, we operated as crew on others' trains, did three days volunteer labor each for the host club, and put in some pleasant time meeting folks from all over the nation who are engaged in this hobby.

New equipment: Getting to a 1:8 scale train meet with your equipment is ALWAYS a logistics hassle, the hassle part being loading/unloading your train. This trailer simplifies things, and as an added bonus, eliminates motel bills when you get to the meet. The trailer is hell for stout, and the folding parts are heavy-duty welded steel mesh, all with a nice powder-coat paint job, and carried on a single 3,500# axle. It is easy to assemble rails onto the trailer to carry the rail cars on, and the rails don't interfere with raising the tent afterwards. The sleeping bunks are side-mounted, instead of the traditional arrangement of tent trailers, where they are mounted over the tongue and out to the back. This gives a lot more floor space inside the tent enclosure. With big road tires and wheels, this trailer could also work off-road for SHTF purposes, being towed behind a 4X4.

The bicycle Speeder: I never got a photo of one in operation, since there were only two on the pike, but I'm now involved in a search for a bike builder who can put one together for me. You start with a basic recumbent bicycle, but it will have two 1:8 scale railcar trucks (bogeys) under it, one of them being a geared truck which will transfer the power developed by the rider's legs to the rails via gearing.

I'll probably wind up with a non-prototypical electric loco, though. I might even go wildcat and try to build one which runs on alternating current, and use a box-stock Honda 3000 generator to power it. They are the quietest and smallest electric-starting genset available. The thing about alternating current is that anti-slip controls are available to apply to AC traction motors, but are rare for DC. AC motors are also lighter and can output much more power for their physical size than DC. Of course, the genset will do multiple duty as locomotive power AND power for use around the house and yard.

Yep, I came away from the meet with some ideas of how to get into the hobby without breaking the bank. Now to start my searches for the networks where the equipment is listed. Of course, if I were to win the lottery, I could start with one of these locomotives. That's a 1:8 scale Big Boy, a mallet-type double loco, the prototype of which weighed over a million pounds. That model would set me back about a quarter-mil if I could find one for sale...

Hostling

"Hostling" is the term used for using a railroad engine for anything but it's primary job of pulling a train from A to B on a timetable, or as a way freight.

Yesterday was a hostling day. All meet participants with trainsets were assigned a train number, and most were way freights, but way freights which first had to be made up into trains. There were also a few passenger trains assigned to the various engineers who wanted to do THAT complex exercise, complex because of things like timetables, tickets, railway express (remember THAT ?), passenger lists, etc.

My crew chose a way freight. After morning briefing, and getting the steam engine fired up, we ran "light" (engine and caboose) to the marshaling yard, where the day started to go to hell in a handbasket.

About 10 trains had the same idea at the same time - go to the marshaling yard, hostle the unorganized cars into trains, and get out on the High Iron to do the day's work. Fine idea, and a well organized yard, with a yardmaster, could have had that work done in a jiffy.

Except, there was no yardmaster, and no organization at all in the yard. Little problems developed, such as the waiting trains tying up the only through tracks in the yard. Trains stacked up at the yard entrance. It took us two hours to get our one chemical (haz-mat) car and get down the pike to deliver it to it's assigned siding.

Naturally, my engineer decided to find a brass hat from the club and pitch a bitch about how ugly that yard was.

Guess what our crew is doing today?

Yep, you guessed it, running the yard. The engineer will be yardmaster, his lovely wife, the Conductor, will now run the engine as a Yard Switcher, and I will be Yard Dispatcher, Switchman, etc, etc, etc.

There will be stories about today, yes, I truly believe there will be stories to tell....

Working trains

In general, model railroading aims to get the equipment, track layout, and what’s done with the railroad as close as possible to the real thig, or “prototypical”. Much research is done to make this all possible, and model railroaders always have lots of old photographs, timetables, and other real railroad documents to aid in this goal. When model railroad clubs first began to be formed, 100 years ago or so, most clubs began to collect these items as a matter of routine.

It’s no different then with the actual operation of a model railroad. In operations, the goal is to get as close as possible to the way a real railroad goes about it’s business of delivering commodities, freight and passengers. To facilitate more reality in operations, some refresher training is in order for members of the club as well as those invited from other clubs, so yesterday was spent working trains by means of the most basic system, written train orders.

With train orders, the train owner takes his train from the preparation area over to the main yard, and the Operations director issues an order to pick up a certain freight car, or cut of cars, and take them to a certain siding somewhere on the railroad. The train’s crew must then decide the best way to get there, consistent with expected traffic enroute, grades and track maintenance delays. The train is then switched (“hostled”) around the yard to first, set off the caboose (cabooses are required on this pike), then couple to the car/cars to be delivered, then re-attach the caboose, then exit the yard on track that leads towards the destination. Lots of switch operating involved for the switchmen!

Remember this locomotive?

If you recall, I showed it earlier and pointed out that it was probably not prototypical. I was mis-informed by my lack of research (an embarrassing FUBAR around a model railroad club). It turns out that this is a VERY prototypical model of 1820-30s locomotives on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the first major railroad in the nation. It’s not only prototypical, it’s a working demon of a steam engine. I spent all day yesterday aboard this train as a switchman, the guy who gets off the train and sets the switches as the engineer moves the train to accomplish the ordered deliveries. At the throttle is John, the happy owner, who drove all the way from Florida with his train.

In real life, this was a very light locomotive, capable of moving only a few cars of the day, which probably weighed a tenth of today’s cars, and the most recent (1950’s) heavy steam locos could pull 100 cars. The locomotive has plenty of tractive effort, but was very inefficient in applying that pull to heavier trains or steep grades (a steep grade on a railroad is anything 9over 2%, or two feet rise in 100 feet of track). Here we are trying to negotiate at 2.49% grade while returning from setting out a car

Download Train Mountain 092

This stall was resolved by lightening the train. I jumped off and ran alongside until the train had re-established traction, then re-boarded on the fly! This gave me an opportunity to work on my (non) steady-cam video technique, and it gives my readers a look at the working of the ancient locomotive’s design.

Download Train Mountain 093

So, Rivrdog, your Switchman, got a pretty fair workout yesterday, got plenty of desert sun, and had ANOTHER great day at Train Mountain.

I’ve been working on the railroad…

…and at Train Mountain railroad, probably the most important work is done by the Track Gang. No, no one uses the old term “gandy dancers” any more.

A simple system is used here to assess the condition of the track: drive a train on it. Whenever a train is driven on any TMRR track, the train crew carries little green blocks (cut up cross-ties). when bad track is encountered, a block is set down on the roadbed next to the rails.

I was on a “block crew” yesterday. A train is made up with enough seats for the crew, and then the tool car is coupled, and off you go. whenever you come to a green block, you stop, assess what repair is needed, and make the repair to restore the track.

First, an angled mirror is used to sight down the track at rail level to determine if the problem is a low or high spot. Then a track gauge tool is used to determine if the track is gauged properly. If adjustments need to be made, a tool made up of a 4-foot steel rod with a T-section on the end is used. It’s called a Tamper, as one of it’s uses is to tamp the ballast under the cross-ties, but it is also used to pry under and raise the rail.

A high spot is dealt with by raising the low area, and re-tamping the ballast to level the track. A low spot, ballast is removed from under the rail and ties. If a kink, or crooked track is detected, the whole track panel is moved sideways to adjust the alignment of the rails. Gaps between rails are worked by moving the track panel longitudinally, oar in the extreme, by loosening all the fastenings on the track panel and moving the rail. If there is too big a gap, a “dutchman”, or short piece of rail is cut to fill the gap, and an extra-long rail connector used to contain the dutchman.

Most of the 10 miles of mainline is signaled, so electrical continuity has to be established, but our gang didn’t do that, there is a signals gang specifically for signaling issues.

Here’s our Track Gang work train:

 

The train is pulled by a model 1920’s General Electric Steeplecab light locomotive, the real one powered by 700 volts DC, this one by golf cart batteries. This is a fine model, and even has real air brakes!

The crew worked from 0930 to 1600. We’re real railroad men here!

Train Mountain - A good ride

After a morning's work, and then lunch, what better way to end the day than with a train ride?

Not just ANY train ride, but a ride behind a magnificent, snorting  Pacific steam locomotive: 

 The operator is raising steam here, note the stack booster to increase the draft.

 Here we are, chuffing through the forest on the main line. The train is pulling it's own weight, maybe a ton total in the engine and 5 cars, and another half-ton of crew and passengers.

The pure joy of hearing the staccato beat of the double-acting steam cylinders' exhaust, with a backbeat of the soothing clicking of the wheels on the track joints, a pure symphony to MY ears, really makes this trip a joy. BTW, the engineer at the throttle is a retired Air Navigator from the Canadian Defense Forces, an even stranger coincidence. There aren't many of us left from the old sextant-and-chart crowd.

Enjoy  Download Train Mountain 058, especially the sound track. You will need quicktime to open it. 

Train Mountain, we’re here

Got in about 1030, unloaded the train quickly with the power scissors lift, and worked on a few maintenance issues with the train.

That’s Portland Pendleton and Eastern F-7 locomotive, Train # 70, Section A, with her full consist of cars made up as a maintenance-of-way train.

That flat car is loaded for track-ballast work, and firefighting. That’s a Southern Pacific backpack water-bag “Indian” extinguisher. Also on the car are shovels, tools and the re-railer lever to put the trainset back on the track should it derail. On the rider car, just behind the locomotive, is the engineer’s and Conductor’s seats, the conductor having the red flag ready next to him. The caboose is another tool and parts car.

Here’s our stalwart engineer admiring a live steamer of the “tea kettle” design. It’s a geared locomotive, fired by propane, and with considerable tractive effort. It’s really a free-form steampunk design, none like this really saw service.

Tomorrow, the work starts. I’m probably going to join a paint crew, so I have to go through my duffel and decide which clothes become “painters"

More later.

Summer Road Trip

...the trip this summer is to Train Mountain Railroad Museum. Yep, the 'Ol Rivrdog is a train nut. Not a RAVING train nut who can tell you how many gallons per hour of water a Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 used to make steam with, but enough of one so that some of my appreciation of the second-most efficient way of transporting things, railroads, extends down to modeling.

I had model railroads in my yute, but don't now. What I do have is a good friend who is a die-hard rail modeler. He belongs to a major regional HO-scale club, and now also to a Seven dot Five inch scale club, Train Mountain. Tomorrow, we will be transporting his big-boy's train set down to Chiloquin, OR, about a six-hour drive from here. To do that, we will use a one-ton maxi-van he has outfitted for the purpose, with two decks of 7.5"-gauge track for a total of about 48 feet of track in the van. Loading the train (the loco, a first-generation diesel model actually driven by 4 golf-cart batteries) goes in and gets tied down first, then the rider car (yes, this thing is big enough to carry adults), two flat cars and a caboose make up the rest of the load.

While at Train Mountain for a week, we'll stay at a local resort, and put in some days on track-building (the club has 25 MILES of track already, is building 5 more miles this year), and do some operating of the train (it can take 3 hours to do the grand loop all the way around).

I'll try to remember to take plenty of photos, and should have internet access to post them with.

There's the highball! Time for a brake check and throttle up, all the way to Run Nine! More railroad lore when time permits. I'm the Conductor on this train, so I'll have to take notes, keep the correct time and tell the Engineer jokes that don't require too much attention span.