Ian Abel

This is what it looked like Monday morning at -26C after the blizzard - lovely bright morning, and doesn't even "look" cold!

GROAN!! Well, the intense cold weather final got me/us Didn't post yesterday as we were on the road getting home - temp was about -25 - -20 the entire drive through Minnesota. Next door neighbor tends our cat (Bob, yep, that's his name ) while we're gone, and had been in around 9AM to feed and change his water yesterday, all OK at that time... We got in at about 3PM to not running water in the house and found the main water pipe had "finally had enough of the awful cold weather and had frozen", had a 1 inch split in it - THANKFULLY, still frozen so no water in the house. Spent the next couple of hours cutting out about 2ft. of pipe plus secondary shutoff valve (right where the water froze in the pipe), and additional valve to outside faucets, and effecting replacement/repair, including a TON more insulation where the pipe enters the house - BAH HUMBUG! !@#!@$#^! !&@$%!&@%$ etc., etc. On the bright side we did enjoy our few days away - but by time for bed I felt like I needed another vacation, my back ached and I had the obligatory skinned knuckles from all that sort of work...

Mike, Indeed it is - well done that man! My daughters' apartment is the very top corner of that building I took the shot from the window on the left face of the building. It's a corner apartment and hers are the three window facing the view and the two on the left side... Looks like that spring, summer and early fall

Factually "BLOODY COLD" here in Grand Forks this morning...when we got up at 8AM it was -29C actual and -36C wind chill, with bright sun and clear skies!! Interesting trivia, at the temperature the wind chill was at, celcius and farenheit are the same value! Going to head out soon and drive the first 90 miles back home and stay overnight with friends in Fargo... Moving the car in this cold is a real thrill! Has to be moved since there is a 2-hour parking limit on the street during the day <sigh> Have a great day everyone

Here's a shot out of the sixth floor apartment window downtown - two blocks away the main line crosses from Minnesota, just to the left of the picture out of shot, into North Dakota here, and to the right about 1/2 mile away is the main freight yard, barely see the loco crossing and it's not even "bad" in town here!!

Afternoon from Grand Forks, North Dakota! -18C now with blowing snow 40-50 mph winds, blizzard warning in effect, visibility approx 1/8 mile no travel advised, both main interstates are CLOSED - they actually have barriers on the entrance ramps and they're down... Interesting driving around town for a few "store" items, blowing snow at this speed is rather bizarre up and down city streets that act like corridors and funnel the wind and blowing snow. Other than "that", enjoying the visit with our daughter. Did get to the local model railroad club yesterday, was nice to see a large working layout, albeit not BR style - they even volunteered to have me run some of my trains if I want to bring them next time I come, so may well just do that.

Well, as can be seen from my actually posting, we made it to Grand Forks yesterday. I confess it was somewhat harrowing, the last 80 miles in blowing snow/near blizzard conditions and in the dark! Fortunately there were a few other "idiots" out there so we all followed along chasing each others tail-lights - god bless them all. Good thing the road is almost straight as a die, although on the way up we saw several folks in the ditches, some folks don't take into account the conditions when driving, and easy enough to slide off the road if you're not paying attention 110% of the time. North Dakota is flat as a pancake so any serious high winds, once there is snow on the ground, makes it ripe for blizzard conditions. Right now it's -19 (expected to be the high for the day!!) and goingt to head for a low of -31 Sunday and Monday night! Wind is slight right now, wind chill around -25, so my daughter is off working - not sure I mentioned, but she's a flight Instructor at the University of North Dakota Aerospace college - they only stop operations when the wind chill exceeds -45!! Arrghh!! There's a model railroad club up here apparently, didn't know that before, so we're off to take a look for an hour or so, will report back with pictures if it's worth it. Tomorrow there is a blizzard warning effective all day with winds expected to be 40-50 mph, and white-out/zero visibility likley most of the day - definately won't be going anywhere then...

Colin - Seriously, YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVED A "WEATHERMAN"??? Tsk, Tsk... Sorry you had the problem though

Morning Already -4 here and headed for 2 in a couple of hours! So it'll be a 26 degree change since last night at 10PM when it was -24. Talk about a rollercoaster. Latest news from daughter is that there's a blizzard watch (one level below warning!!) for Grand Forks from 3PM, so we may be driving the last hour or so in very dodgy weather. The last real place to "stop" before Grand Forks is Fargo (yep, of the movie fame, if it made it over there...), so we may find a watering hole there if the weather turns for the worse and see if it improves in an hour or two, which it's supposed to do. Just expected to be a brief 3 hour window of poor weather/visibility, we'll see! Wish we could leave now and beat it but I need to work until at least noon... Hope everyone has some time to get some modelling in this weekend - cheers.

Are they trying to emulate Hornby?? <ducking>

Crickey! Can't remember that far back to my school reports <sigh> Alright then... -24 with bright sun. Most of the local schools were cancelled again today (third day this month!!) due to severe wind chills of -35 to -38 at school bus pickup time. Silly thing is, tomorrow it's expected to reach 0C with some some snow, then back down to a high of -13 Saturday. Seems I've got a cold (damn and blast!!) dunno where from, but watering eyes, running nose (eeewwww), and sore throat. Slept well overnight once I was havily medicated Think I'll give choir practise a miss today with this sore throat and all, unless I want to give the gift of my cold to everyone I'll try and post some over the weekend, but we're (CFO and self) are off to visit our daughter in the balmy, sunny climes of Grand Forks, North Dakota. For a geography lesson - my BEST subject in school, always an "A" - Grand Forks is about 350 miles almost DUE NORTH of my present position, about the last habitable spot in the US before you hit Canada, which due north of here shouldn't even be populated AT ALL, but indeed there's Winnipeg, right there, in the cold... So, quick "calculations" should reveal that it's going to be actually a bloody sight COLDER up there than it is here even - I know, I know, impossible to believe and you all probably have decided by now we're totally crackers. Not to worry, a 4+ hour drive in a warm car on sparsely populated interstate highways where it's WHITE in every direction, is always and interesting diversion! Of course this means no work on the layout this weekend <sigh>, but it's always nice to see our daughter as she's that far away

THAT is one of my favourite scenes of all time in any movies (sad really isn't it!!)

Bu!@#$er - being a tail-end-charlie due to the time differences means I have a TON of ER messages to wade through before I can post something (I was going to say "imformative" but that's pure lunacy in here of course!! ) Got a mere inch or so of snow overnight, but with the extreme cold, the result is "black ice" forming from the temp., resultant slush and chemicals used to try and help the roads, so took a while to make it in - passing several fender-benders (what a great US term!!) on the way - you'd be amazed at how pitifully so many folks drive in this weather considering it's almost the NORM 5 months of the year! You'd think they were in Barbados and had never seen snow before <sigh>. So - currently -14C with light blowing snow, but the wind is due to pick up during the day with potential for somewhere around -30 to -37 wind-chill by mid-afternoon! Hence a wind-chill advisory for all day through tomorrow AM. Biggesst weather news is that as the temperature drops today, "IF" we go below 0F (-18C) before midnight we'll break the 35 year old record for the most days below 0F for the winter currently at 25 - SO FAR... going to be a welcomed spring, sometime in MAY "Downton Abbey dinner class" was relatively uneventful with the exception of the instructor asking me all kinds of odd/amusing questions about how "we" make tea, cucumber sandwiches, and Birds custard powder amongst other things I engaged my absolute BEST British accent and pontificated I swear if you speak "Brit" and try and sound anywhere near believable you could convince some of the colonials you were next in line to the throne they're a good sort really, but fun to play with

Maybe - with LUCK - the bidders are all folks who want to obtain it and then dutifully put it out of its misery!!!! Listing it in HORNBYOO is rather a stretch isn't it!

Addition to that; If the mastic/caulk (US name for it) is latex based, then water works fine as a tooling agent, if it truly is silicon based then isopropyl alcohol is what's needed. In both cases I simply determine which "finger" has the best radius for the particular job, dip it in the liquid, and gently smooth to the required finish - plenty of paper towels for hand cleanup helps too

Tony, Most of the cars here now have a heated front screen/lower portion and side mirrors as standard, activated with the defrost setting. Far as washers go, at these temps you additionally need to add washer fluid made specifically for these extremes, works really well and then pretty much never a freeze up of the washer system, UNLESS you chose to be cheap and use the regular stuff - of course the extreme version comes with a slightly higher price, but well worth it! We've also got a block heater - plug in to the mains overnight - in one of the cars. Now THAT is a real benefit, and whilst it is an option that's not too costly, I'm amazed more people here don't opt for it up in the coldest areas. Using it means the car is operating temperature by about the time we get to the end of our short road - the CFO loves it as she is the principal one of us that HAS to leave the house for work every day...

In a similar vein to Debs post - I received a GREAT bit of kit for Christmas, a new GARMIN GPS (managed to LOSE the last one), and even though everyone insists your smartphone will do just as well, they omit to recall that over here at least, unless you want to pay a TON of money for an unlimited data plan, using your smartphone as a GPS turns out to be the opposite of "smart. Anyway I digress... said GPS came with a nearly 50-page reael PAPER manual, BUT WAIT, it's not a MANUAL per se, it's.. a "Safety Guide", of which 4 pages were in English and said nothing of any real value, and the remainder were in every language known to man, including I think/expect KLINGON!!! I had to go to the web and download a real PDF manual to find out anything about said product <sigh>

Ahhh, all I see is "cold", "COLD", "COLD" hope everyone stays warm today - coming up for 9AM and it's -27!!! Charging up for a high of -17 today and ONLY -19 overnight. One thing about it being this cold (yep, this IS actually "COLD" ), there's never any frost on the car windows, the moisture, what precious little there is at these temps, is sucked straight back into the ether soon as it appears. Then again, we DO have to run the car a few minutes before venturing anywhere otherwise your breath freezes on the inside of the windows and you can't see a bloody thing unless the heater has SOME heat coming from it. Nice and sunny though, and no more snow expected until tonight - yay... Working today with the promise of a pleasant evening with some close friends as we attend a local cookware company event, a "Downton Abbey dinner". It (Downton Abbey) is all the rage here, of course, since anything "...Brit-speak, historical (whether correct or not) and very different than found here..." is invariably a big hit. Puts me in good stead as I then exagerate my "accent" (that's no bloody accent, I speak ENGLISH!!!"), and pontificate on all things Brit. to the awe of those poor fools daft enough to believe the drivel I spout forth - silly "colonials" I usually am even asked if I've had tea with the queen <sigh>, at which point I usually TRY to explain that out of nearly 60-odd million locals she has only ever had tea with about 10 really

Ahh yes...morning arrives again!! Funny how that happens. Yesterday barely had time to breath with all the choir activities, left home about 7:20AM, had BRIEF time-to-myself between about 1PM-4:30PM, finally got home around 10PM - my aching back! Weather yesterday hit the high for this week and more according to the weather magicians - topping out at a balmy +2C - fell overnight to a current -3, slowly dropping all day and headed for -27 this evening ... arrrghhhhhhhhhhh RIght now heavily overcast and snowing "lightly" in upper-midwest terms - meaning we're looking for about 2-4 inches probably by mid-afternoon. Managed to get a "crossing" at the wye to the terminus station soldered with droppers, and installed together with the appropriate lead track connections to the terminal, in the time I had over the weekend - didn't seem like much really <sigh> Off to the car folks today again (Friday was an aborted effort as they said they couldn't get it done until "Monday"), otherwise working from home to avoid the unnecessary exposure to cold/snow Happy Monday - even though it's late afternoon for most of you...

Neil, I imagine it WAS a shock! We're even shocked if we get too much snow too early (say mid-October), so getting some when you NEVER expect it must be "exciting" at best! Pete, Yeah ! Sandy beaches look really nice, but here in a "couple of months" i.e. mid-March, it'll look about the same as it does now - one famous part of "up here" is the fact that summer is "a couple of days in July/August" if we're lucky Not EXACTLY true, but generally we have snow cover until late April and it doesn't get what most folks would consider reasonably warm until late May or early June... Spring-summer-Autumn are about from late-May until late-September on a good year

Afternoon So thought I'd show you what -8 but really SUNNY after 6 inches of snow overnight looks like here... First up - view of the garage and driveway, note the 6 inch tracks in the snow, the "CFO" already headed out for some fun outing with great-niece, streets have been plowed and you'd hardly skip a beat getting somewhere/anywhere (except our driveway!!) Next up - view from the corner, to "try" and show the present snow accumulation, note bottom-left corner of picture, that's the street after it's been plowed, and the front yard (garden) under who know how much snow cover... Me - Hell, I'm going nowhere in this - I'm soldering droppers in the peace and quite of the basement (train room)

Those two tools are IMHO some of the best available, and fix 99.5% of the problems I've ever run across on many, many systems... Malwarebytes, especially, is a must use on a regular basis for anyone running Windoze (Winblows..) etc.,

Ahhh, the figures for Minnesota are 67.1 and for Minneapolis metro area (where I live), around 7000. Of course that sounds like a lot, until you actually traverse the area, and discover that whilst the Twin Cities area is quite bustling, it only takes aout 30 minutes to cross from one side to the other and 20 miles from the heart of downtown until you are in very sparse population areas, so even at 7000/mile it doesn't seem very crowded. We have a "rush hour" that can get quite congested, but in fairness it's very tame compared to living in a REAL metro area. I like it though, which is a good thing, I'm sure So, -18 on the dot as predicted, bright and sunny with a clear sky and the wind has dropped to near zero!Nice day for a stroll . Have to take the car in this morning to have the folks look at a valve-cover leak, result of a timing-chain replacement a few months back, and looks like they either installed the valve-cover gasket incorrectly/poorly, or it's faulty. Hate when that happens... Good job it's POETS day, I'm looking forward to some layout work this weekend - if I can manage it, I'm going to also try and start my layout thread today (in my spare time!!). I don't want to bore folks (well, I DO really, since the only person truly invested in the layout is ME!!) but any suggestions as to what/how much to post of the situation to-date? On going is a snap, to just post activities/advances/catastrophies, but to get caught up, what??? Anyone daft enough to be involved in singing in a choir? Just curious. It's another hobby of mine, not that I've got a good voice or anything, but a local church has a great audition policy "show up and you're in", and is a very active place for promoting ecology, civil rights/freedom, compassion etc., so I'm part of it, also we have great pre-rehersal get togethers over beer and pizza . Reason for mentioning it is that over here this weekend is Martin Luther King celebrations (public holiday Monday for schools and government - not us real workers ) and we always sing at two church services Sunday, and do a huge concert Sunday evening with several local artists, so Sunday I'm spoken for most of the day... layout work will be a frenzy Saturday, provided no dreaded LIST rears it's ugly head!

Apparently - I now know I'm out-of-touch for sure But even as/when I'm looking for locos in my era (BR/SR Steam) and folks are asking much more than I'm prepared to pay, I have to say I've seldom seen an RTR at that high a price auctioned, most of the lunatic prices I see tend to be of the "Buy It Now" variety from a couple of prominent and perpetual "vintage/antique" dealers... If it's not to rude a question can I ask what a Hornby Colelctors Club member might have paid originally for that item? Maybe I should become a member and buy/flog everything the provide for members!

OK - help me out here, I'm not a modern image fan, and additionally have no clue what the real value of Hornby Collectors Club items are, but isn't this a LITTLE off target??? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hornby-OO-Gauge-Hornby-R3216-Diamond-Jubilee-Class-67-Diesel-Loco-BRAND-NEW-/390743659267#ht_573wt_1278 I was on eBay looking at "Ending soonest" and this item was 1 minute from closing so I thought I'd see what it went for, simply idle curiosity (too much time on my hands ). The current bid was about 168 quid, then it SHOT to 285 quid in the last 15 seconds or less...SURELY this can't be worth that much.. can it? Or am I sorely out-of-touch!