Train Of Thought

Ok, I promise, no more trestle pictures!

After this...

I decided to spray the trestle with a dulling spray. After I sprayed one side, I noticed I had just sprayed it with a GLOSS spray! Yikes! I then hit both sides with the dull spray.



You will notice that the spray ate the foam fillers I used at the ends of the trestle. Whoopsie!

I got the holiday Walthers catalog today. There was a neat picture of a Christmas tree cutting scene. I tore out the pic and placed it behind the trestle, and added a box car. I then edited the image in Paint and Irfanview, copying trees over to fill parts of the layout that the picture didn't cover. Badly edited, I must admit, such obvious cloning!!



Ok, I swear, no more trestles!

Until the next one...

Misc. Stuff

Pretend I took this photo yesterday for our 36 anniversary.



Pretend I took THIS picture yesterday, showing too-long spikes sticking out a smidge under the trestle.



You don't have to pretend here, I took this one yesterday, showing Spivey, the cat with the cut-off tale, in his favorite lurking place.



He does NOT look pleased to be disturbed!

LATER: I forgot! My new favorite song is Roadrunner, performed by The Modern Lovers!

Railroad Stuff & Cats

If I am to spike the rail on the trestle, for maximum realism, I need to put about a zillion spikes in. It really looks much better with the spikes.

It's a four step process.

1. Drill hole for spike, to avoid splitting the tie.
2. Trim spike so it doesn't stick out the bottom of the tie.
3. Dip spike in white glue.
4. Stick spike in hole, hopefully facing the correct way!

I made a little jig for cutting the spikes to a suitable length.

Aerial view:


Bird's eye view:


I stick them in the jig, cut a number of spikes at once (sort of). Saves a bit of time. I STILL can't see the darn things very well, though! Maybe I should switch to O gauge. Or On3 On30, because while it's a larger scale, it uses HO gauged track. Of course all the buildings would be the wrong scale, not to mention the spacing between parallel tracks would be, shall we say, TOO CLOSE!

Cat Stuff

This is Spunky.
















This is Spivy.

Spivy is missing most of his tail.

Saturday At The Pine

We went over to Torrey Pines State Reserve and wandered around a bit this afternoon. I took some Geocaching locations to look for, but the trail seemed a bit much for our foot attire, so we decided not to attempt it. That, and the lady geocacher coming up-trail who told us about the rattlesnake and the GIANT SPIDER she encountered at the caches...

Took a couple pics, though!

Looking eastish:



Looking southish:



And looking westish:



We then decided to do the Guy Fleming Trail. Very nice, and very interesting. I recommend it!

We went up to the museum afterwards and talked to the very helpful docents. They helped us figure out what the different flowering plants we had seen were.

Afterwards we went to eat at Roberto's Very Mexican Food on Carmel Valley Road. I took some pictures of a nearby trestle, of course. The Coaster went by several times while we ate.



I saw a flashing red light across the slough on the Torrey Pines Grade. I guess someone was speeding.



And finally, we ate!



I had a simple cheese quesadilla. It was good. I especially liked the hot sauce there. It seemed more interesting than one usually gets. It had little peppery thingies in it. It was thought there was not enough guacamole on the rolled tacos, so the thoughter went to get more. The lady was reluctant, but after some begging, she relented. Probably wanted us to pay for an extra dab. Probably should have. It DOES say 65 cents for extra guac (I HATE that expression. See guaC) on the menu.

Saturday Morning

Instead of going for a bike ride this morning I am eating chocolate anniversary cake.

This is not good!

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There is a Bogart movie on right now that I've never heard of, titled "Across The Pacific". It's a World War II spy flick. Mary Astor is the chick. Favorite quote by Rick Leland (Bogart) is, "Ah, there's a Canadian for you! Let them take their clothes off, and they're happy."

At one point Mary Astor says something about the ship they are on, and Bogart says something about it being a boat, not a ship. It's a fairly big freighter, for the times, so I'm wonder what he means by that. Straight Dope says that, generally, a (motorized) ship is big enough to carry a boat, and boat is small enough to be carried on a ship. It's a mystery, for sure!

Back to Desktop Tower Defense...

More Trestle Pics

More trestle pics...

Well, one here...



Several more over at my Zooomr place, click the image, go there, wander about, read the humourous captions.

And yes, I painted that lettering on the boxcar by hand. With a little tiny brush. And if you believe THAT...

Also, vote on whether I should start a model railroad only blog.

Mixed Media

On Weekend America this morning there an interesting segment about a prop shop in Santa Monica. They made reference to a "huge, double-pole, triple-throw knife switch". With my limited and obsolete knowledge of things electrical I tried to figure how a triple-throw knife switch would work. I decided what they meant was a triple-pole, double-throw knife switch. Like on those monster movies. And indeed, that is what the pics on the site show. And the first commenter comments, too.


Over at the Reader, reader Rico Gardner comments in a letter in the Oct. 1, 2008 issue ("We’re Cornball Rednecks"). I feel a lesser person for even responding, but I wonder why he even stays in San Diego if it is so awful here. I think he would be much happier in the wonderful cosmopolitan New York. There's no racism there, the weather is never sweltering, and I'm sure he will find many wonderful restaurants without burritos. I personally never go downtown, do not frequent restaurants, rarely go to the beach, never pay much attention to sports, and hardly EVER drink beer. Give me a library, a model railroad store, and an internet connection and I'm happy. But that's just me.

A Motley Crew

We did a little Geocaching Sunday. Found two out of four caches.



It was pointed out that the bushes had what looks like spit on them. A result of the rain Saturday night?



What say you?

We've a trio of these Laotian dolls at work. Very pretty, but I don't know what the dress represents. Do YOU have any ideas?



Yes, yes, the middle one is a weaver, I figured THAT out!

Of Trestles and Beads

I added some more nut/bolt castings to the trestle. Rusty ones!



Boy, that track sure looks naked without spikes. Hey, I forgot about guardrails!

Then I test-fitted it in place.



I had to scrape out a layer of the foam base that the railroad is on, and that left a mess of plastic popcorn beads all over the place. Even after vacuuming there were a few I missed!





I also brushed an alcohol/ink warsh over the new front-end loader, but we didn't take a picture of THAT!

Picture by Matt, giant pictures on the Zooomr page, click an image to go there.

Train'n'Trestle Stuff

I walked up to the train store this afternoon to get some nuts and bolts, scale-sized, for the trestle.



You see the six bolts there? The three on the right are the old ones I used, the three to the right are the ones (Grandt Line #5066) I purchased today. There is not a WHOLE lot of difference to MY eyes, but they ARE a little larger, and easier to insert.

Those rails certainly need something holding them in. I guess I WILL have to spike them, but it will be tedious! Yikes, is that Goo oozing out out from under the rail? How sloppy!

I also impulsed-purchase a front end loader. It was only three bucks, a savings of nearly twenty-five bucks off a good one. I think it looks pretty good, though. I will have to weather it a bit, some pastel and some Dullcote to kill the shine.



Why does blogger keep sticking the photos at the beginning of the post, eh? Zooomr seems to be down today, so I letting Blogger host the pics.

Here's that garage again. The fellow unpacking one of those legendary WWII surplus Harleys that he bought in its orginal crate is gazing at the new tractor next door.


Every time I go to the train store I feel the need to share with the train store guy some self-deprecating thought regarding my modeling talents. He doesn't buy into that game, ignores it, and so I feel foolish. I need to stop that!