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Topic: Your today in pictures..
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted August 30, 2019 10:21 AM
The Rangeley
We just did a short vacation up on the Maine Coast. While we were there, we went to one of my favorite places: the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway Museum in Alna, Maine. This is a neat place, because 30 years ago right now there was nothing there but a weedy abandoned grade, and today there is a functioning, recreated, narrow gauge, turn of the (twentieth) century, steam powered railroad there, all due to dedicated volunteers.
These are serious historians: they have a company truck there: 1930s Ford model AA! They own two 100+ year old steam locomotives and are building a brand new one from scratch!
They were having their annual picnic and that day had all of their best, most interesting exhibits out.
This is two-foot gauge, something native to Maine, and Wales before it. What this means is: let’s assume you are a fairly decent-sized man. If you stand on their track with your right heel against one railhead and stick your left heel in front of your right toe, the toe of that left foot will be touching the opposite railhead.
Now what kind of train could possibly run on such tiny track? Up in Maine it was pretty decent sized trains that could move along at a pretty decent speed too. A good example always has been the parlor car Rangeley. She was built in 1901 for use on an express passenger train going almost 50 miles north to grand hotels on Rangeley Lake. She was strictly first class: swivel velvet upholstered seats, smoking room for the gentlemen, powder room for the ladies.
She has always been considered special, even before she became historic. When the Rangeley Express ended she was semi-retired rather than becoming just another coach in day to day service. When her line was scrapped, she wasn’t de-wheeled and turned into a hunting lodge, a tool shed or chicken coop like so many of these cars. A local doctor bought her and when they tore up the tracks across his land, she stayed on a section they left in their wake and he and his family took care of her until a museum bought her and then stored her indoors for about 50 years.
This is not mint condition, restored like brand new two weeks ago. It is lovingly protected, 118 years old, built by hands a long time stilled! The staterooms on the Titanic are a decade newer, yet in nowhere near the same condition! (... ![[Wink]](wink.gif) ) This is one of the most original condition railroad passenger cars of its era of any gauge.
I have been looking through the windows at it in several different museums for about 40 years now!
-but this time they…let us walk through it!
“No…Really?!”
(I rode one of the steam engines once, but that’s a story for some other time!)
Have you ever been in some place that’s so special you felt out of place inhaling the air? My son and I were invited to walk through…didn’t sit down,…spoke in kind of hushed tones,…touched absolutely NOTHING, and resisted the urge to bow a little when we left!
It WAS cool!
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted September 30, 2019 12:13 PM
Last weekend we went on our final camping trip of 2019. The days were great, but the nights were more than a little chilly! -a reminder that the seasons are moving on and it’s time to start getting ready for winter.
Did we go everywhere or do everything I was talking about last Spring? -of course we didn’t, but I knew that even when I was talking about it. What we did was great and memorable, besides: a year from now our son will be in college and these times are ones we will need to hold on to.
Just the fact that we didn’t do it all means there is still something to look forward to!
I brought my canoe along with me and spent an hour out on a tidal pond. It was almost like sledding! I fought my way across the pond, uphill against that cool breeze. Turned around and rode the wind back across!
Who knows, maybe this will be one of those unusual winters we take the boats out after it snows. It takes a lot of fortitude (and insulation) to leave a perfectly good, warm house and ride the ice water, but the times I’ve tried have been well worth the effort.
-Let's see next Spring if we actually do it!
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted October 14, 2019 01:03 PM
Amphibious Update
Before CineSea 20, I used the possibility of access to a swimming pool as an incentive to do some actual (you know...) "work" on my never-ending Amphibious Jeep Project.
-while I was there I took advantage of the Shalimar's large pool to see how it would do. (seriously: I've canoed in smaller pools!)
I liked the plastic Palm Trees: it gave a certain "South Pacific, 1943" feel to my amphibious WWII mission!
The good news as is always was: "it didn't sink". It was a little cool for a swim that day!
I learned a lesson this time: My son was home to attend his Senior Year High School homecoming. -I was on my own. I found tending both shores of this big pool it order to keep the thing from clunking into the concrete pool wall was a little more athletic than I wanted it to be. I'd earlier considered adding another switch to choose either both batteries connected in series (fast) or both in parrallel (slow), but I started to wonder why I need such a complication: just leave it hard-wired "full speed ahead"! Now I know exactly why and I'll make it happen!
Progress since last time?
-Build the basic superstructure of the top deck
-Design the mounting of the top and mid-deck
-Add the hardware to mount both (The hub of the spare tire and the fake capstan up front both conceal screws.)
Next: Trim the deck, build up the windshield, who knows? Maybe some Olive Drab paint! I'll certainly add that switch: a 57 year old man shouldn't be leaping over any diving boards! (I should just get radio controlled models and sit in a chair with a cold beer!)
It's an act of faith to sail this thing with a deck on it: for all I knew, any minute it would keel over and go full Andrea Doria on me! (It did do some quality time in the kitchen sink a couple of days earlier,...just for confidence!)
I've gained a new perspective on building this model: 75% of the joy of it is the building, not so much the having (-like a jigsaw puzzle...). I'm in no hurry to finish it, I'm enjoying the challenges of making it too much.
Amphibious II, High and Dry at the Ocean Holiday
Amphibious I, the Maiden Voyage
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted November 13, 2019 03:42 PM
So Long to Summer!
My Friends, we are gathered here today to to bid fond farewell to an old friend: Summer 2019. We anticipated it arriving fondly 6 months ago and we made great plans. Like all our seasons, the plans are never quite matched by the results, but it was still well worth the trip!
In my family, the ceremony is mostly putting away our camper so it can survive winter and begin its 25th season in good shape.
My son and I put it up on the back patio in the shelter of the house. We'd already gone through it and double-checked there was no food left inside (it's spectacular what a winter housing mice can do to one of these!). We left it tipped down so it wouldn't pool rainwater, I bagged the lighting connector to avoid it being immersed in snow for a couple of weeks, we slid the picnic table over the hitch and next weekend we'll put a cover over it all to cut down on the grime we'll need to remove next spring.
We had a great summer. We camped three times including a journey to coastal Maine: loads of campfires with our friends, many pancake breakfasts and more great memories to throw on the pile.
Something you learn as you get up into several dozen repetitions of all this: you never let the coming of Winter get you down...
-there's another Summer right around the bend!
Next: -clean out the fireplace!
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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