Finally made some model trees.

After years of putting it off, I got the bits together and built a couple trees for the model railway last night.

For the Ffestiniog model I need quite a bit if forest, and at 10 bucks for a pack of 4 ready made trees, it just was not going to happen.

Big tip of the hat to Tom Fassett, and his site www.trainweb.org/tomfassett/models/trees101/.
Finally got me going, and it’s easy. My first two are a bit on the large size for a 009 layout, but I want to create the feel of the trains running through rather than past a forest, so these slightly overscale trees will be just fine.

As you can see their on the large size, got to remember to have one of the locomotives on hand whenever I build bits for the railroad.

These took about 10 minutes each to make, and look more real than the offerings at the hobby shop. I really didn’t need a forest of clones.

Air Force Museum B-58 photo

Just wanted to share this photo I took at the USAF museum.  Thought it came out pretty good.

Enjoy, and if you should want a giant file to print let me know.  It’s free of course.

Let us buy these cars.

Was looking for some information for the Intrepid web site, and stumbled across a UK car finder site. They list technical data for the cars for sale in the U.K.

I was looking for information the the Dodge Magnum Wagon, and Chrysler 300 sedan. Turns out they are built here, shipped to the U.K. with a 3.0 liter diesel engine. The big Dodge Magnum, called a Chrysler 300 Touring in England gets almost 43 mpg hi-way. I was making the point that this car should be available here. BUT.

While looking at the Magnum, I saw that they listed the Sebring Convertible as well. Clicked into the listing and found a built in the U.S.A. turbo diesel, six speed convertible that gets over 50 mpg hi-way.

This is a nice car with A/C , AM/FM CD player and all the bells and whistles.

Oh, and as if that’s not enough, they get an SUV, the Dodge Nitro that gets 38 mpg on the open road.

We really need these cars here.

Finally a quick thanks to Chrysler for getting one thing right, the 3.5 V-6 Challengers are at some dealers now, and it looks like once the first rush of sales dies down, it will be possible to buy a $22,000 Challenger.

Welsh Highland Railway update.

Latest news from Wales is hat that last sections of the Welsh Highland may be set in place sometime late this month. This makes the Easter 2009 open for passenger traffic, look like a go.

A Garrett at Caernarfon, on the Welsh Highland.

Next year it will be possible to take a train from Caernarfon, south through the Snowdona National Park to Porthmadog on the west coast, then east on the Ffestiniog Railway to Blaenau Ffestiniog. That’s about a 40 mile trip, plan for the whole day for this trip.

Not sure at this point what locomotives will run the through trips, the big South African Garratts are too large to run past the yard at Boston Lodge, so I assume the the Double Fairlies from the Ffestiniog will handle any “express” trains.

Double Fairlie on the Ffestiniog.

For any train buff, this is worth the trip. Several airlines serve Manchester, England. For those that dont want to deal with London it’s a great way to get into the U.K.

Take the time to check out the other little railways in the area.

Recaps on a bus?

Something that might get past some of you. The bus that crashed this week in Texas had recapped tires in the steer position. Now I run recapped tires on my trailer, I used to on my tractor, but, never on the steer axle.  Recapped tires are know for tread separation, and sometimes the body of the tire is so old that the tire just explodes. I’ve had this happen.

First of all it’s not legal, second it’s just stupid. The front tires are more heavily loaded than the other tires on most trucks, or buses.  On my Freightliner the steers hold 5,500 pounds each, and I’ve owned trucks where this ran as high as 6,200 pounds.  In the drive and trailer position you have a maximum of 34,000 pounds but the is split between 8 tires, 4,250 per tire. And while the drive and trailer tires are paired with another tire, the steer tires are on their own, and are subject to the force of turning, a hard turn trying to rip the bonded cap off the body of the tire.

Any vehicle in interstate operation mush use new tires in the steer positions. Even in local operations where these rules don’t apply, such as local container haulers, I’ve never seen anyone use recapped tires on the steer axle. And some of these are guys moving containers around town, with a beat up old Cabover that they picked up for less than ten grand.

This bus company is probably out of business, and should be. Top of the line Michelins are $550 each, the caps they bought where probably $300. OK so you saved $500 on a pair of tires, nice job guys.