Good Morning Gang. 32° and cloudy this morning. Temperature isn't supposed to go up or down for the next 30 hours, there is a 70% chance of rain around 4 pm later today. Could get interesting. My doctor visit yesterday was uneventful as far as that went, but the Interstate was shut down due to an accident and a fuel spill and I was 45 minutes late (and then had to wait another 30 minutes), from taking a 15 mile detour on a back road that lots of others were using. There's not too many alternate roads at that point where the highway crosses a large bridge across Lake Lewisville. Those that stayed on that road were subject to a four hour delay. In the old days, instead of calling a HazMat team, who generally take their time anyway, passing traffic would dissipate the diesel fuel along the next few miles of highway with the added benefit of successfully eliminating weeds along that stretch of highway. Supposedly the driver of the 18-wheeler fell asleep, but fortunately there were no injuries. Road was closed from before dawn until almost noon. Needless to say, I lost the entire morning and part of my afternoon instead of just part of the morning.
When I finally got to the train shed later on, there wasn't really enough time to do anything meaningful but put some more miles on my new SD40-2's. These Scale Trains locos are really nice runners, right up there with my Athearn Genesis (F45's) and Kato (many) power. They are quite a bit more detailed (and thus fragile) than the Kato line. I don't have any Athearn Genesis SD40-2's to compare it to. Not even sure Athearn ever made any in the Genesis line.
Jesse - After randomly buying freight cars and engines when I first started out, I finally settled on a broad era of late 70's to mid 90's...til the BNSF merger. I really like the blue/yellow "Warbonnet" paint scheme (and later including red/silver) that ATSF used. Since that paint scheme was introduced in 1972 about the time most roofwalks were eliminated, I retired those boxcars and any freight cars that I had that still had solid bearing trucks.
Ken (D&J) - It does sound like you got some bargains. I like the Scale Trains SD40-2's (see above). Don't you already have some Gevos made by them?
Chet - It's not fair that you woke up to warmer temperatures yesterday than we had here! LOL By the way, thanks for your service in the Sheriffs Posse. You posted it a couple of years ago and it generally involved "dumb" skiers or snowmobilers.
Joe - Regarding Philly fans...we all remember them booing Santa Claus years ago, but the thing that really shows their true colors was when they threw snowballs at Tom Landry; snowballs that included 9v batteries inside.
Bob - Thanks for the sale flyer. I saw a couple of things that I could live without.
Johnny - Have a good recovery.
Curt - Very nice work on the tower.
Justin - Ah! That video brings back memories of good old fashioned mixed freights. Different RR's here though.
Everybody have a great day.
Willie
The Moron Lamp might actually be useful for these old eyes as I'm working on putting structures together for the layout - how many watts is that thing, anyway? 
