BR60103

I'll dig out my slides but I don't remember any gold plating on it on that tour.

Dayle is trying to figure out if we took the motorhome over the Key bridge once. We drove from New York to Florida. We probably tried to avoid long bridges, but she thinks we had a view of Baltimore. The routes are either through the city or a 24 km diameter ring road. (avoiding the bridge takes you more than 3/4 the way around.) This would shortly have been followed by trying to avoid the Washington ring road.

My brother-in-law considers himself a connoisseur of Looney Toons cartoons. He says he can tell which compilation program he's watching by what is left out. In one, Bugs and his enemy are chasing in a movie theatre. One of them keeps pulling the "Intermission" switch, at which point the whole audience moves to the lobby and smokes. One show deletes all the scenes of smoking, which ruins the joke.

I remember seeing ads for a dual gauge coupling casting for North American locos. It was probably in the 1960s. The device had one coupler centred and two offset below it. I think link and pin couplings. It could be inverted for use on a narrow gauge loco. I spent some time trying to puzzle out how it worked. I don't know how it sorted out when the narrow gauge 3rd rail swished from one side to the other. No buffers were involved.

Our satnav has a habit of giving directions only to the next junction with a motorway. Instead of saying "Stay on Hwy 401 for 325 miles" it tells us to "Keep left on 401 in 20 miles". After the junction it repeats with a similar instruction. There was a story in our paper about the local traffic radar cameras. They have 4 of them and they are set up in the reduced speed zones in front of schools. They are moved around every few months. One person reported having been suddenly sent $4000 (IIRC) in speeding fines at the end of the month. They were not aware of anything until then, and oblivious to the reduced speed limit.

I was pried out of bed early this morning to be at the car shop by 9:30. The snow was not piled deep enough across the driveway to be a problem; by the time I came home it was almost all gone from the roads. SWMBO used to refuse to use self checkouts until Covid came. Then she wanted to avoid human contact. We now occasionally use the staffed lines if there is no major line. We use credit now for most purchases (contactless if possible). If I like a retailer, I may try to pay by cash.

A quick look at my world map shows that Glasgow is level with Belcher Island in Hudson Bay. It is farther north than Flin Flon but level with Dawson Creek. It is north of all of Ontario except a small tip. The Scottish islands are about on a line with the southern border of Yukon territory. (anyone not Canadian will have no idea where these places are. Most Canadians have never been there either.)

I booked our car servicing for tomorrow -- 6 months plus take off snow tires. Today it snowed. Dayle was a little upset at me as she was planning on layout tours for tomorrow. We'll have to squeeze it in after the service. Guelph has unusual pedestrian crossing lights. They look like regular traffic lights, but some are in the middle of the block while others are at one side of a street. These are request lights. Problem is that since they look like traffic lights, drivers think the ordinary rules apply -- that someone from the side street can go through them which is not the case.

We had our internet stop suddenly about 9:00 this morning. The internet also carries our cable TV signals and supplies our better radios. Local paper: https://www.guelphtoday.com/police/wires-crossed-waste-truck-yanks-down-traffic-signals-8488171 Toronto has been suffering major road & utility works the last year plus. Most of last summer none of the E-W street car routes were operating on their customary routes. The longest one (Queen St) was cut into many segments involving changes of vehicle (street car to bus and back). Guelph has 4 1/2 bridges going north across the river. (one is one-way) A few years ago they managed to have construction on two of them at the same time, and so close to the river that alternate routes weren't practical.

A member of the B. Horticultural Society write a column in the local paper. He frequently sounded off about not knowing the difference, but never did explain what it was.

Today's project was changing the batteries in the smoke detectors. The fire dept. suggests doing it twice a year. They originally said at clock change time but since this has gone off the rails I now use the equinox. Time to change the batteries comes out under 5 minutes if you don't count getting out the steps and buying new batteries. I also run a vacuum over the openings and over the CO detector. Then I did some extra bits along floor-wall. I now have a problem. Since the detectors are powered from the mains with the battery only as a backup (I think) the batteries have a charge of slightly over 9 volts. I have a small collection of used 9V batteries that are not depleted. I need some devices that take 9V. I do have a garage on the l****t that has lighting including a welding torch that takes them, but doesn't get that much use. Our walk today was in the mall as the inside weather was better. The bookstore magazine rack has 3 copies of the latest Hornby catalogue at almost $30 a shot. I know 2 other guys in town who might know what they're looking at in it, but one does P4.

I had a problem about an hour ago when I tried to open ER. Page or something could not be reached. Tried refresh. Went off and played solitaire. Came back, then did back arrow. Arrived at listing page successfully and then ER opened. We have had snow again. I booked to have the snow tires removed on Saturday.

Went to a rly show in the next city this morning. Not my wife's favourite -- mostly guys selling their old stuff and very few displays. One layout that she liked. I didn't spend anything but she spent $1.00 on a souvenir "license plate" for Horseshoe Curve. Started snowing as we left -- small hard particles -- but was gone by the time we reached home. 3 hours later we went for a walk and the snow started. The show was held at Bingemann's which is an arena plus. When I was in 1st year university a group from the residence went roller skating there. One of the girls came back highly indignant. They'd asked her age at the ticket booth. The price level changed at age 12.

News: When Dayle went out to hang up the bird feeder this morning, her favourite red squirrel was waiting for her. I don't know who I buried yesterday.

My wife was somewhat upset this afternoon. We came home and there was a dead squirrel in the road. She was sure that it was her favourite little red that patronises the bird feeder and it was. I finally took it off to a wild area nearby. Little else of consequence. ***see correction below***

I did this in OO. My approach was to isolate the slip fully on all 8 rails. I cheated a little by putting the insulators a little way down one of the tracks so that I wasn't soldering feeders to an expensive piece of kit. Then wire the slip through contacts on the point motor at one end to connect to the appropriate track at the other end. Which one will depend on how you want to run the rest of the layout. The slip will now be connected to the appropriate block coming in to it. You may also want to do something about the normal point on the other track. I first read about this back in the 50s. It was called "X section -- simplifier of route cab control". You could get away with putting a cab selector switch on all the little blocks involved. When I do wiring like this, I like to use test leads with alligator clips on the ends to link wires together until I'm sure that all the rails are connected to the right poles on the point motors.

Since it's already Thursday, somewhere, Happy Pi day.

When I had my retina re-attached, it produced a cataract. I also had a little bit from a laser in the other eye. The one eye had cataract surgery and the colours are bright, but there is a fold (or something) in the retina and everything is wavy. I now look at the carpet and the one eye thinks it's beige while the other calls it ecru. (signed) He who stares down lasers with both eyes. And happy pi day for Thursday.

I had a note today that one of my cousins has died. He was approaching 90. I didn't see him very much as he lived in the Boston area, but we got along well when we did. Donald Foster Mallinson R.I.P.

Lionel used to measure the gauge to the middle of the rail -- the top of the circular railhead. This was shown in their manuals. My piece of O27 track measures 1 3/16" gauge, but called 1 1/4" 1 3/16" is scale for 4'9" gauge -- only 1/2" too wide. (using 1/4" scale)

Andy: The ~ symbol means AC; the straight lines are DC. General principal is that Amps (current) is measured with the meter in circuit. Volts are measured between two points. You can get the Voltage of the battery by using the two posts. Resistance is also between two points,but try not to do it on a live circuit. I'm not sure have absolutely no idea what difference is if you measure using the AC settings.

Tomorrow starteth Daylight Saving Time. Although it is now 4 hours to go before the 0200 starter's whistle, I have adjusted all the clocks I can find on the main floor. (Except the telephone. I can't find a setting! and I've done it before.) There remain a collection downstairs in the railway and storage rooms. I have just managed to do the phone.

Andy: I recommend a pair of Cataract sunglasses. These go over regular glasses but come around the side and over and under. They keep out most of the light that other glasses let in. We use ours regularly as they fit well over our normal glasses. You might come home with an eyepatch.

A couple of friends are currently on a 5-month round the world cruise. They are supposed to end it going up the Red Sea and Suez canal. They haven't posted anything yet about changes.

On codes using book pages. In Leo Marks's Between Silk and Cyanide he talks about being in one office where the code was based on an edition of Readers's Digest. He mentions that there were several different national editions of each month, and that the local copy was being read in the bathroom. (above from memory; I'll have to look out my copy.)