blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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 | | 07/20/2008 12:51 PM |
| Incidentally, as you see, I love to take shots of the model. This practice turns out to be quite helpful in spotting problems that need to be corrected, including unevenness of the track bed and places where the track needs to be straightened. I have also noted problems with some of the structures that I might not otherwise have picked up, at least not so quickly.
In one of the photos you might have noticed boxes of old liquor bottles. Those have been stashed for a project in connection with this railroad. Haven't decided quite how I will approach it yet, but those bottles at some point will likely be glued together to form a surreal landscape in some area not yet constructed--maybe.
I have also noted a problem with shadowing on my lens. The camera will soon be replaced. | |
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blackburn49
1st Class Member
Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/20/2008 1:38 PM |
| We have had an unusually cold and somewhat wetter-than-normal summer so far. This has adversely affected development and operations of my model railroads. In fact, for the first time in my memory, we have forecasts of possible snowfall in July coming to parts of northwest Alaska.
I have also seen an unusual number of days of windy conditions that have made it hazardous to operate the trains on many days this summer. Often it has come down to a choice of either running trains or work on the layout. Usually it is the work on the layout that wins the time slot, but it still has been slower going than I had anticipated. And no work has been done on model structures in months. However, all-in-all it is still progressing. | |
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kormsen
in the middle of the westparaguayan semi desert
Conductor
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| | 07/20/2008 5:42 PM |
| for the first time in my memory, we have forecasts of possible snowfall in July coming to parts of northwest Alaska.
you really mean business up there, fighting global warming. aren't you? | |
 construction site - keep off! | |
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/20/2008 5:58 PM |
| Posted By kormsen on 07/20/2008 5:42 PM for the first time in my memory, we have forecasts of possible snowfall in July coming to parts of northwest Alaska. you really mean business up there, fighting global warming. aren't you?
I wish it were so. Anthropomorphic global warming is a hoax perpetrated on the western world, but mostly aimed at the American public. It is a wholly political creation of the Left. There is no such animal--not in the way that THEY intend it to be understood. In any case, were I to have a say in it, I would DEFINITELY opt for a little global warming up here. Believe me, there are a lot of us here in AK and probably Canada and Siberia as well who would most decidedly welcome a true warming trend--even if it were caused by humans. Sadly, it is all an illusion, albeit a vicious and underhanded one. Oh well, back to my trains. . . | |
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/20/2008 6:11 PM |
| Somehow some good weather snuck in on us Sunday afternoon. I took the opportunity to pull out my longest passenger consist--the Great Northern headed by the AKRR Mac70s--for a run through the east loop and back to the bar. The Macs were in need of recharging so I needed to get them back to base.
Here the consist pulls onto the GN Mainline from the east end of Cicely.
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/20/2008 6:40 PM |
| The passenger consist heads east . . .
Here it crosses the final switch . . .
The consist has reached the far-eastern end of the line and will now begin the turn on the loop . . .
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/20/2008 6:47 PM |
| The twin AKRR locomotives pull through the top of the eastern loop:
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/20/2008 6:55 PM |
| The train is now approaching the switch at the head of the loop as it begins its return west:
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/20/2008 7:05 PM |
| The train now doubles back on itself as it approaches Cicely:
The consist has seemlessly gone through the eastern end of the GN Phase II line as it now approaches the switches that lead back to Cicely:
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/20/2008 7:10 PM |
| AKRR 4001 passes a long siding along the south side of Cicely as it proceeds toward the bar:
Just a reminder: All of these pictures are clickable to a larger size. You are looking at a 600 pixel-wide image. The ones to which these are linked are 1600 pixels wide. These are low-resolution images, so they will load quickly.
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/20/2008 7:20 PM |
| AKRR 4001 has run out of sufficient power to continue pulling the heavy coaches. It will leave the GN passenger consist safely and securely parked under the Kennecott overhang while it proceeds to its charging station.
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/20/2008 7:26 PM |
| End of the line: the AKRR consist has arrived under its own power to begin the battery recharge process:
The lead locomotive is now being charged . . .
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flatracker
1st Class Member
Dunlap, TN
Foreman
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| | 07/21/2008 5:23 AM |
| Neat shots of the consist! It seems like your switches are working good, so kudos on that. Do the diesels not have enough battery power to complete your run, or were they just low when you started out, which would be my guess?
When you get some extra rain, you could send it down our way. It seems like we are in a drought condition again, or at least on the way to one. I guess it's like the old saying, feast or famine. I am surprsed to hear you might get snow! That's rather unusual isn't it?
I dont know where the 51% or so positive on drilling came from, but the last time I saw it, it was higher than that. EVERYONE I have talked to or overheard is for it, and mad as H that congress isn't doing anything about our energy problems. The liberals and environmentalists will bring this country to it's knees, so I sure hope they loose their jobs and have to put up with brownouts, etc., etc. like the rest of the people. Really, I just wish it would happen only to those who are causing the problem. What has happened to common sense?
Oh well, I guess an old so-and-so like me doesn't know anything anyway.
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Bob Martin | |
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/21/2008 9:42 AM |
| Posted By flatracker on 07/21/2008 5:23 AM
Neat shots of the consist! It seems like your switches are working good, so kudos on that. Do the diesels not have enough battery power to complete your run, or were they just low when you started out, which would be my guess?
The batteries on that consist were already run down when I pulled it out for that last trip. Those switches all are working exactly as intended, much to my relief.
When you get some extra rain, you could send it down our way. It seems like we are in a drought condition again, or at least on the way to one. I guess it's like the old saying, feast or famine. I am surprised to hear you might get snow! That's rather unusual isn't it?
That would be along the NW coast. It did hit freezing up there last night, but I have not heard if it snowed. It IS unusual for this time of year. Usually we don't start tracking snow up that way until late September or even later. Today it is starting out as a sunny day as I head off to Anchorage for a long-delayed purchasing trip (you know: cost of gas ).
I dont know where the 51% or so positive on drilling came from, but the last time I saw it, it was higher than that. EVERYONE I have talked to or overheard is for it, and mad as H that congress isn't doing anything about our energy problems. The liberals and environmentalists will bring this country to it's knees, so I sure hope they loose their jobs and have to put up with brownouts, etc., etc. like the rest of the people. Really, I just wish it would happen only to those who are causing the problem. What has happened to common sense? Oh well, I guess an old so-and-so like me doesn't know anything anyway.
I have to agree that those numbers don't look right--not even close. However, we also have a media that is heavily weighted in favor of AGW. They routinely treat anthropomorphic global warming as if it was a reality, blaming all kinds of extreme weather phenomena on it (as if these things have no other explanations). It's not so much common sense as ideology that is getting in the way when it comes to drilling. We have the technologies and the commitment to do it right, do it cleanly, and do it much faster than seven to ten years. Try THREE years ! I heard a talk by one of our local oil execs (president of BP in Alaska) who stated that up to 200 billion barrels of domestic crude is unavailable due to politics alone. I would think that a whole lot of people would be hopping mad by now at the obvious disconnect from reality when it comes to their congressmen. But we will see when the November elections come along how the American public really feels about all this. | |
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Torby
1st Class Member
North Chicago 'burbs.
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| | 07/21/2008 11:00 AM |
| | Railfanning in the beer garden! | |
 "If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about."-- C. S. Lewis | |
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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flatracker
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Dunlap, TN
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| | 07/21/2008 12:26 PM |
| HEY, that's a neat shot! When was that? It looked wet.
Voting won't do the job if you don't have anyone who is running that thinks along the lines of what we consider common sense. I wonder when or if the silent majority will ever scream loud enough to encourage anyone like that to run for office. There would have to be a lot of them to overthrow the "loud squeeking wheels" that seem to be in charge now.
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Bob Martin | |
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/21/2008 9:02 PM |
| Posted By flatracker on 07/21/2008 12:26 PM
HEY, that's a neat shot! When was that? It looked wet.
That shot was taken last year when a certain tourist bus line was still running through here. The deck is not wet. That's the surface characteristic. It has largely worn off and is due for resurfacing this season.
Voting won't do the job if you don't have anyone who is running that thinks along the lines of what we consider common sense. I wonder when or if the silent majority will ever scream loud enough to encourage anyone like that to run for office. There would have to be a lot of them to overthrow the "loud squeaking wheels" that seem to be in charge now.
That's a real weakness in the system as we have seen vividly demonstrated in the most recent elections. I see that the general public Congressional approval rating is lower than 20 percent, which says a lot. | |
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blackburn49
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Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/21/2008 10:03 PM |
| I noted in a previous post that this is only a moderately-sized (and modestly-built) layout that, I believe succeeds in giving the illusion of size. The better word is "expansiveness." Every time I fool myself into thinking I have a "large" layout all I have to do is try to park several of my consists out there and then run another train through the line without having to move a bunch of cars elsewhere on the track.
Can't be easily done. Perhaps that's not such a bad thing. I am sure that with only a very few exceptions, you all run into that same problem of where to park all that rolling stock you have accumulated while still leaving room to run a respectable operation. Tough isn't it? Probably a lot of rolling stock will remain parked out of sight in boxes or on shelves indefinitely. There is only so much space and so much track. It's a little discouraging to realize just how much track is required to indulge our ongoing craving for more and better rolling stock. Maybe it's a large collection of beer reefers, of which I have a few of those. Or possibly it's several dozen identical gondolas requiring individual numbers, special steel wheels and custom couplers. This large string of cars needs lots of locomotive power--probably several large ones in tandem. And finally we come to the carefully laid-out characteristics of the track and track beds that will enable five or six dozen of these cars to operate as one long consist. In the end it all comes down to this: do we have enough space for enough track on sufficiently level ground to run all this great stuff without undo mechanical headaches? No. not really. Not ever. The railroad empire is never finished or complete, is it?
I have had to reflect long and hard on this. Being something of an obsessive person, I have managed to spend well beyond anything reasonable. I strongly suspect I am not the only one in this predicament. In my case, the layout will expand one more time--eventually. After all, I seem to need something like this to keep my creative self occupied--and I am fortunate enough to actually have the space for it--I think. It won't be the biggest or the best, but it will be my creation. Like every other layout out there, it will be unique in its own way. It will definitely have my creative stamp firmly imprinted upon it. It is that pride of accomplishment and ownership that really seems to matter. I hope it is the same for all of you. This truly is a great hobby--whether we can really afford it or not.
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blackburn49
1st Class Member
Copper Center, Alaska
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| | 07/22/2008 8:28 AM |
| On the other hand, I am doing my best to establish the Copper Rail Depot as a known historic model railroad theme bar. It does take some impressive-appearing equipment to pull this off. Most everyone who comes here has never seen this scale before. The general reaction has been very positive. This year in particular I have heard an unusual number of positive comments. This could not be pulled off using a "miniature train" as some people have called the model without actually seeing it. The term "miniature" does not cut it. The equipment has to look impressive. So does the entire layout on which this equipment must operate.
Once again, it is the illusion of size that matters here, not just a few (hopefully) impressive model structures of a large locomotive or two pulling a long string of cars. But it is not just the appearance of a large set-up. The details have to be there and they have to be seen. I have heard at least as many comments about the large number of details in these models as I have heard remarks about the scope of the project.
Details, details, details. It's in the details.
Or maybe it's just the setting . . .
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