Friday, July 1, 2011 Lethbridge

7:00 am Canada Day

The temperature is +9 C, with a high predicted of +22 C.

From the Environment Canada website:

Today A mix of sun and cloud. Clearing this morning. Wind southwest 20 km/h. High 22. UV index 7 or high. Tonight Clear. Wind west 20 km/h becoming light overnight. Low 9. Normals Max: 25°C Min: 10°C.

10:00 am Model Trains

This morning I continued with a Session 1 operational run of Train #401, the Distillery Row Through train.

The first step was for the diesel switcher, CN 7895, an SW-4, to form the consist. I was definitely having some problems with the power when this unit was near switch 8 in the Coaldale Yard. I will need to have a close look at this. But the overall forming of the consist was relatively easy as it only involved placing a caboose (CN 78430) and one car, an empty tank car, on Track 5 in the Yard.

Locomotive 7847, a diesel RS-3, left its turntable stall and quickly coupled to the tank car and left Coaldale heading west toward Distillery Row. The train made 4 loops on the outer mainline before turning in to Distillery Row where it setout the empty tank car at the loading platform of the Husky Refinery.

I have sent an email to Trains and Such in Calgary enquiring whether they have an MRC wireless computer interface. Everything is closed today for Canada Day, but hopefully I will hear back tomorrow. If they answer is yes, I may try to combine it with a trip later next week to a GPS store to have a closer look at a Garmin Montana 650 unit.

[Addendum] 2:00 PM

I began running Train #600, a Local, from Jasper to Coaldale. This train has a lot of switching moves as it stops at most towns along the route. I am almost finished the run. The train has finished the switching for Prairie Dog and only has the mainline route to Coaldale left. Plus the switching in the Coaldale Yard. This run is a delight as it consists of a nice mix of switching and mainline speed. I spent almost 3 hours on this run and a very enjoyable 3 hours it was - total immersion in another world. Great sport!

Here is a photo of the train sitting in front of Prairie Dog after all of the switching.

I am still struggling with a proper way to describe my model train activities. The above paragraph fails to capture the intricacies of the activity.

6:00 PM Cooking

I have tried another recipe from the magazine Skillet Suppers. This one is called Chicken Vesuvio. I am getting a little better with trying various modifications but this was the first time I had tried something like this so I stayed close to the recipe. I used a German reisling for the sauce - fortunately it only used 1/4 of a cup so there was lots left over for sipping. The chicken was pretty good, but next time I will try using La Provence herbs to give it a bit more flavor.