Can we take a minute to acknowledge who was desperately trying to help? Mushers. August. ✊

Guarantee that won’t be included in the inevitable propaganda that P**a will put out. 🤬

USB-C mandate and now a right-to-repair law? What even is it like having governance that makes life better for people? (Also anyone else notice that better for people pretty much always equates to regulating large corporations? Can’t be just me)

You know how to make sure you get a broken plane? Have a kickass overnight at the other end of it. It’s like clockwork.

Woot!

Miss the plane, don’t miss ALT SEL.

Yeah man! Gotta find our joy somewhere, amirite?

Man I love seeing the work they do in Victoria! Those coaches are gorgeous, and having a steam locomotive on each end is really cool!

A smiling middle aged guy with a sweet Mohawk and safety glasses inside a steam locomotive boiler. Behind him is the rear tube sheet, with the crown sheet, stat bolts and water space around the firebox clearly visible.

Who else still plays with trains? Just me? Can’t be just me.

I thought I was about done inside the boiler. Turns out I was wrong.

Shoot!

*steam shops

Who gives a rip about fancy meat when there’s trains and potentially janky tools to talk about?

I think all the steak shops should show off their shop made tools.

Ours also almost always involve taps and reamers too. 🤣

Lucky! I worked on a lot of 1900s. Then my first non CFI job was flying CASA 212 (awesome) and a Metro 3/23 (awful). I looked longingly at the 1900Cs that we would run into around AK. 🤣

It was pretty amazing. Another volunteer who was in his camper van told me he heard a lot of coyotes out across park gulch, but I slept so soundly through them.

Somehow it was also a calm wind night. Just magical!

The Como roundhouse at night, with bright stars and a clear sky. Taken from inside a sleeping bag with the feet of the sleeping bag visible.

Machined steam locomotive header and dry pipe adapter. Ready to be installed later, but the spherical surface of the adapter will make a steam tight seal with the header when installed.

T-brackets installed on the back side of the front tube sheet. The hole at the top center is for the dry pipe.

More from last week. I even slept out under the stars outside the roundhouse (in march. In the South Park.) which was pretty cool.

Pictures of the header and dry pipe adapter, and the T-brackets that the boiler braces will be attached to.

A smiling DSilbizzy inside the cab of a 20 ton Plymouth diesel locomotive, stopped while Sam flips a switch and closes a gate.

A cleaned up/trimmed bracket for the oil quadrant, clearanced to provide clearance for the water glass valve.

An X-ray of a welded seam held up to a light. On the right of the X-ray film is a rivet and a second sheet of metal. The weld is uniform and passed inspection.

That said: All last week I was playing with trains!

Drove the Plymouth diesel a bit, modified the oil quadrant bracket (chamfers are what separate us from the animals!), and we had NDT out to X-ray the welds in the boiler (it passed).

A smiling DSilbizzy with safety glasses and a Mohawk points at the bed clamp and bar he just made for the lathe’s taper attachment.

Was I playing with trains today? Not directly.

But I DID make some missing taper attachment parts for the Regal lathe…. Which will enable further playing with trains!

A smiling DSilbizzy stands in front of the South Park Plymouth on the turntable in Como. Blue skies, a few snow capped peaks, and another volunteer walking in the background.

A day late. But played with trains yesterday. And will all week next week!

I’m incredibly lucky to get to do stuff that I find interesting and lets my mind have to work a bit (I’ll be making a taper attachment bed clamp from scratch, for instance).

Damned straight. If “we” are so hung hi about defunding/privatising the USPS, then do it with the requirement that the private services provide delivery to every residence in the country and territories. No exceptions.

….something tells me the billionaires will get a lot less interested then.

Kwethluk! You’re fully funded! This isn’t a great year for our bank account, but we really wanted to fully fund a classroom just before the red lantern. Because all the funnest stuff happens around the red lantern, in my book.

Actually I’m pretty sure we will replace a few of the deck boards on the turntable with some of these. I milled the turntable deck boards you see there about 7 or 8 years ago. True dimensions 2x8s and they are still in pretty good shape.

LeBlond Regal 19” lathe in the roundhouse in Como. Behind it is a Bridgeport knee mill.

Also good guess.

But this is a metal lathe. And mostly unrelated to the use of the logs.

Hah!

Definitely not lake related. I’m not sure how far away the nearest pond is even! It does have a gulch that runs through the campus though….

Oooh good guesses.

These are all Doug Fir, if that helps narrow it down…

Smiling DSilbizzy standing in front of a log truck loading medium sized (for Colorado) Doug fir logs to take to Como.

Smiling DSilbizzy next to a mostly disassembled steam locomotive.

The Como roundhouse and turntable. Blue skies above, and a little bit of snow in the turntable pit.

Couple days of hectic train playing. Well, gathering supplies for future train playing. You win a railroad preservation prize if you can guess what the logs might be about, and otherwise I worked on a lathe. Getting ready for lots of screwing around with trains next week.

I’m not gonna lie. Being red lantern sounds like the most fun of all to me.

The four hills have crazy stuff in there. The smiths was just channeling some of that four hills weirdness. (That smiths has always creeped me out)

Wait what??!?? Quannah Chasinghorse’s mom is an Iditarod musher??!? How did I not know this. And also, how insanely cool is that family?

I loved Jody’s description of the Bison encounter. Insane.

Absolutely this. When I was a union executive, we used to request the company release someone from duty to attend negotiations, just so we could gauge how serious they were about getting an agreement.

Same goes for the boss’ schedule. They’ve got private jets and stuff, they can make time.

I spy a Lensic! Such a gorgeous old theatre.

Right??!?

A political ad with a dogsled race? Say less. More of that. #uglydogs this is like meatorade for our votes. 🤣🤣

Right? Everyone who complains about it makes me just think “what on earth would I want internet service in an airplane I’m flying for? If I’m not riding in back, I just don’t need or want it. I don’t get what the big deal is. Musk is raising prices on a discretionary luxury? Meh.