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Sunday October 22, 2006 8:40 am Lethbridge Sunrise 8:03 Sunset 18:28 Hours of daylight: 10:25
A. Morning Musings
8:40 am It is -5 C at the moment. The forecast is for a high of + 11 C.
My weight remains steady at 182.
Model Trains: I now have two distinct threads of activity - complete assembly of some rolling stock and begin the permanent mounting of roadbed and track in Black Diamond. This latter activity involves doing some reading on suggestions for doing this well. I think that I will need to mark the ground cover with an outline of where the roadbed should be, then carefully reinstall the foam making sure that it is straight and smooth with no rough edges. I want this to look professional when it is done. At the moment I have a lot of makeshift pieces of foam which do the job functionally but it looks terrible. When gluing the track to the foam I will also need to be very careful to ensure that each piece is lined up properly and that each joint is both smooth and tight. I will have to make sure that each connector at the end of the track tightly grips the track, otherwise there could be a weakening of the signal and current along the line.
Mathematics: I want to make notes for chapter 5 Complex Numbers from "Fearless Symmetry" today.
Literature: This is beginning to slip as my focus has been on the trains.
B. Plan
Immediate Health Walk & exercise 1 hr Model Trains Complete assembly of CN 5930, an SD40-2 with a NAFTA logo 3 hr Mathematics Make notes for "Fearless Symmetry" chap 5 1 hr Literature Continue reading "Standing Stones" by John Metcalf 2 hr Later Chores Investigate water softeners for home Technology Read manual for cell phone Make notes for chap. 4 of "Switching to the Mac" Begin reading "iPhoto" digital photography - learn about using the various manual settings
Literature Read "The Art of Living" by Epictetus Read "The Song of Roland" Mathematics Larson "Calculus" Read "The Computational Beauty of Nature" Chap 3 Gardner "The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles" History Continue reading "Citizens" Watson "Ideas" Model Trains Build oil refinery diorama: add ground cover Assemble second oil platform kit Puzzles The Orange Puzzle Cube: puzzle #9
C. Actual/Notes
8:40 PM I worked on three different projects today. There are many of these "little" projects that need attention in order for the overall layout to be functional.
The first was to add a small corner piece of wood to the tabletop at a place where the track "cut the corner" and was no longer supported. This was straight forward and took about half an hour. The track from Black Diamond to Distillery Row is now fully supported and ready for train traffic.
The second was to begin attaching some of the accessories to diesel locomotive CN 5930, the SD40-2 locomotive with the NAFTA label. I originally bought this kit in 1994, but have never taken it out of the box. Although there are only a few accessories, this does include a number of metal guard rails. This turned out to be much more difficult than I originally thought as the pieces did not fit into the holes on the side of the frame. I finally tried redrilling the hole with a small pin vise that I remembered using many years ago. Success. I have the long guard rail along the left side of the unit installed at the moment. One of the nice features of this hobby is that there is no time pressure to complete this. I will continue working on this when I have some spare time.
The third project was to dust off another locomotive (CN 1706, a GP7 unit) and 4 additional cars: CN 79793 (a Pte St Charles caboose), CN 74009 (an "Old Timer" wooden caboose), CN 123411 (a 41' gondola car) and CN 461010 (wooden box car). That brings the number of operational locomotives on my layout to 2, and the number of rolling stock cars to 17. The Coaldale yard is beginning to look realistic as the cars start to fill up the classification tracks.
I am looking forward to getting the SD40-2 unit operational so I can see what a modern train looks like. I have a number of cylindrical hopper cars that need dusting off and then I should be able to form a unit train consisting of only grain cars. And when I assemble the 6 100 ton quad cars I will have a modern unit coal train.
My data base indicates that these cars were last used in 1995. The gondola car was originally purchased in 1988. It was the third car that I had purchased! The diesel locomotive was bought in 1991. I am having some difficulty realizing that it has been that long since I have been involved in this hobby. It is a great hobby for a retired person, who has time on his hands, and who has an interest in the history of railways.
D. Reflection
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