Good Morning All. Clear and 30° here. Temperatures back into the upper 50's to mid-60's for the next ten days, my kind of winter. This will work out well for the farmer next door who just planted his winter wheat last week. Although he was 45 days late planting due to rains earlier this fall, I have seen years where it wasn't planted until almost Christmas and still provided a spring crop, albeit smaller than normal. While I was out for my daily walk yesterday, I had to stop (for my own safety, they weren't going to yield) and let a herd of wild hogs cross the road in front of me. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera with me to get you all a picture. There was at least thirty of them. They've been around for a while as I have seen their muddy trails across the pasture and road prior to yesterday, but just hadn't actually seen them before.
Expecting delivery of the new bathroom vanity today, although it will be a few days before I can install it due to having to wait on the paint crew (my wife) to do her part.
Meanwhile out in the train shed yesterday, I tackled a bit of a different project. I am short-handed on cabooses and have a self-imposed moratorium on rolling stock purchases, so I went to the "back room" and dug out an old Bachmann caboose that I have. It is the first caboose that I purchased with a train set back in the late 70's. At one point in it's life, I had added 36" metal wheels and had converted the horn-hooks to Kadee #27 underset couplers to attain proper coupler height. But they are still truck mounted. Time for an upgrade. I started by adding clear styrene to all of the windows, there's too many but it's easier right now to add clear styrene than to filling them in. I am not a rivet counter! I then cut off the truck mounted couplers and added styrene pads and Kadee boxes to the body. I chose to keep the 36" wheels for now so I had to use Kadee #22 overset couplers. If I reduce the wheels to 33", than Kadee #5's or equivalents will work. I had to file off the sides of a "Dust Monkey" so it wouldn't bind on the axle. I also painted the molded on grabirons yellow. Any further improvements would require a whole new paint job. I'll try this out for a while before deciding whether to refine it some more.
Louis -
Not really. Other than being to identify a Big Boy or a Cab Forward, I don't know diddly about identifying steam locomotives. Yeah I can identify wheel arrangements like 2-6-2 but have no clue about a name.
In continuing to keep a tradition of celebrating beer in it's various forms, today is National Lager Day. Hoist one or two to honor the day if you indulge.
Everybody have a great day, just 15 more days of this non-stop Christmas music in this house. Always glad to spend time in the train shed with its loud raunchy rock & roll music.
