Along the Right of Way ...

RETIREMENT! (sort of...)

Milepost 543

Today marks my final day with The Findlay Publishing Company!  After nine years here and nearly forty years in the workforce, it is time for me to step aside and let someone else take my place.  I'll be joining Janet in retirement and we will no doubt be busier than ever. :)

A special thanks to the fine folks I've worked with here at THE COURIER.  There isn't a nicer group of people to work with anywhere.  The way I was treated during my surgery several years ago and their response to the passings of my father, brother & mother set a standard that others would do well to copy.  It has been a good ride but the train has reached the station where I need to get off.

The good news is that I'll continue to see you here every few days or so with a new post.  Blogs that appear on thecourier.com are written both by employees and the general public so I'll simply transition from one to the other and there shouldn't be a "break in the action." 

Everyone always asks, "What are you going to do now that you are retired?"  Well, we have no immediate plans but we do want to take that Alaskan cruise that we had to put off last year.  That was supposed to celebrate Janet's retiring from teaching so it may now have to be a "two-fer."  I'm sure that I'll also spend a lot more time somewhere staked out along the railroad tracks enjoying both the trains and my photography interests.  There is also a layout to complete... and somewhere near 350 cars and locomotives to assemble and bring into service.  So I'm sure that I'll be busy.  I may even find a small part-time position that takes advantage of what I've learned over the past 35+ years, who knows?  But I'm sure that for the most part, I'll be able to stay pretty much out of trouble.  :)     Remember, retirement doesn't mean that you quit working; it just means that you change jobs and have a different pay grade!

dlm

Something Special for Christmas!

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Santa Claus left something special for me under the tree this year... well, it didn't quite fit under the tree but you know what I mean.  It is a Paasche HSSB 2216 spray paint booth and something that I should have had for quite some time.  The idea is simple... there is a hood as seen with a large exhaust fan in back.  There is a series of filters that the exhausted air passes through to remove most of the paint particulate; the remainder is vented to the outside of the house through a normal clothes dryer-type vent.  I should have had one of these a long time ago; they effectively remove most of the paint and harmful vapors associated with the air brush OR the rattle cans.

The unit is big... much bigger than you think because of the fan & exhaust vent on back.  It comes partially assembled and only took about 15 minutes to finish assembling.  Venting to the outside of the house will be another issue though.  There is an old window in the basement that opens out under the porch that I'll remove and replace with a more solid, air-tight piece of plywood.  I'll be able to put the outside vent in that then simply connect the two with flexible dryer vent hose.

If I remember correctly, the unit is rated at moving something like 110 cubic of air per minute.  That should be enough to clear the air in and around the work bench about every 6-7 minutes.  Since you actually spray into the booth, I'd guess that it will remove the air in the immediate vicinity much quicker than that.

Spraying with a spray booth like this will be much safer than in the past and should eliminate most stray paint particles that may be floating around in the area.  It should also remove a lot of the smells associated with spray painting that somehow make their way all over the house during the winter months.  It never hurts to be a little more safe than sorry.  Thanks Santa!

dlm

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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Well, it's Christmas Eve and you are probably in the home stretch of the Christmas celebration... the gifts have probably all been bought and wrapped, the house is decorated and the tree is trimmed.  Your house may even be filled with the smells of Christmas cookies baking in the oven.  Yes, the Christmas season is upon us once again.

But in the midst of the rushing here and there, I hope you can take time to stop a minute, sit down and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas... I'll let my good friend Linus tell you all about it... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn10FF-FQfs

Merry Christmas everyone!

dlm

PS -- The picture below shows where toy trains REALLY come from!  I hope there are some under your tree this year.

Tunnel Work "Back Home"

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A recent newsletter about the railroads in and around Ohio had this little tidbit of information.  One of the projects that stimulus money was spent on was the reconditioning of the Gould Tunnel near Steubenville, Ohio.  For those of you who are regulars here, you know that is near where I grew up.  In fact, somewhere in my totally unorganized collection of photos, I have some pictures of the entrance of this particular tunnel.

The Gould Tunnel has a rather interesting history.  It is part of a section of railroad known as the million dollar mile.  As the story goes, when it was built, Jay Gould took a map, a pencil and a ruler then drew a straight line connecting two points.  He then told his engineers to "build it."  He didn't care what the cost was.  I don't remember the exact numbers but that particular stretch of track was straight and had several bridges, tunnels and fills on it to connect the two points on Gould's map.  It crossed the Ohio River near Mingo Junction.  This was done as the Pennsy had staked out and built their rail line in such a way as to block him from some of the lucrative traffic in and out of Pittsburgh.

You can read the article by clicking here... Download RTS_Tunnel_Atlas_Final

dlm

 

Two Carloads of Bluffton Slaw Cutters!

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When I attended college at Bluffton College (now Bluffton University) in Bluffton, Ohio, it was a rite of passage for Business Administration majors to spend time in Business Management Lab or BML.  While sometime this meant working at a local bank or at the Triplett Meter Company, for most students, it was a semester or two at the Bluffton Slaw Cutter Company.

The Bluffton Slaw Cutter Company more affectionately known simply as "the plant" was owned by several local businessmen and one of our college professors, Dr. Howard Raid.  "Doc" had convinced the local businessmen to buy into the idea of owning the company to serve as the first real business experience that many of the Business students ever had.  It was quite a successful program and many students went to "the plant" during Dr. Raid's tenure at Bluffton.

The largest order of slaw cutters ever shipped was to the Jewel Tea Company and consisted of two carloads of slaw cutters!  This was a huge order as the company typically had sales in the $12,000 - $15,000 range each year.  But this was well before my time there so things might have been different.  Anyway, the order was so big that it drew local attention and when the shipment was ready to go, the local newspaper (The Bluffton News) stopped to take a picture of the loaded boxcars before the shipment left town.  That photo ended up on the wall of the office at the Slaw Cutter Company.

The picture is quite interesting for a variety of reasons... first, note the vertical brake stem on the car to the left.  Note also that car is much older than the one on the right.  The double doors are different and if I'm not mistaken, it would appear that car is a wood sheathed one.  It also has my favorite small "ROAD' lettering scheme on it. 

The car on the right has pressed steel doors and the more modern "Swinging R" lettering scheme.  But it also appears to be not as tall as the one on the left so there is a real variety represented here.  Note also that both cars are wooden.

The Slaw Cutter Company has since been sold to private owners who continue to run it yet today.  The picture still hangs on the wall in the office.  A special thanks to the current owners for providing me a scan of this very special (for a lot of reasons) photo.

dlm

 

Thank you Findlay Fire Department

Milepost 538

This one is way off-topic but special thanks need to go out to the Findlay Fire Department for their fast & professional response to a house fire at our next door neighbors recently.

We were awakened at about 5:45 in the morning about a week ago with the doorbell ringing and someone pounding loudly on our front door.  Once I sat up in bed and got my wits about me, I saw that the window blind had a flickering light coming through it.  One look and I was on the phone to 9-1-1 as my wife answered the door.

I quickly dressed and went out to see that the roof of the house next door was about 1/4 on fire.  I ran over and started pounding on the windows as the fire was over the front porch.  I went all the way around the house pounding on each window.  I could hear a smoke detector going off so was reasonably assured that if someone was at home, they were awake and probably out.  The neighbor's car was gone as well.

The fire department soon arrived and I got out of their way.  I picked up my camera and took the pictures posted here.  It didn't take long for the fire department to knock down the flames outside but inside the fire still burned for another few minutes before it was brought under control with no injuries or loss of life.  The good news is that our neighbor was not at home; the bad news is that the house appears to be totaled.  As of this writing, there hasn't been a cause for the fire established by the fire department.

My musings here are usually about trains, both model ones and the prototype.  But every once in a while, something else happens that overshadows our hobbies and other day-to-day events.  This was certainly one of them.  So keep things in perspective; check those smoke alarm batteries on a regular basis and please be careful. 

dlm

Christmas at NWORRP

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From time to time, I like to keep you up to date on the goings on out at the Northwest Ohio Railroad Preservation society's site.  This year, as in the past, they will once again be hosting their version of "The Polar Express."  Their quarter scale steam train will take riders through a nicely decorated Christmas/winter scene to share the joy of the Holiday Season.

Download 2011_NPE_Flyer contains the days, hours and costs for the Christmas train rides and museum visit.  The engine house is also decorated for the Christmas season as are other parts of their railroad related collection.

The museum is located on County Road 99, just east of the I-75 interchange right next to Reineke Ford.  Visitors are reminded to dress for the weather as the coaches of the train are "open air" and can get cold.

Until next time...

dlm

Athearn Announces Older NKP Caboose Models

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Well, well, well... Christmas has come a little early for those of us who are HO scale NKP modelers.  Athearn recently announced this 3-window wooden caboose in Nickel Plate colors.  It will be available in three different road numbers for those of us who need multiple "cabins."  Orders are due on December 16 with delivery expected sometime in July of next year.  The only problem I see is that the price of these RTR models just keeps going up & up.

 This particular model has been around for quite some time.  Athearn has done a good job with adding new paint schemes to their older popular models.  From the artwork above, I'm guessing that the caboose will be nicely detailed with separately attached grab irons & ladders, the correct grayish stripe and correct road numbers for NKP cabooses.  All of their RTR models come with metal wheels and McHenry knuckle couplers.

To the best of my knowledge, the Nickel Plate never had a caboose that looked like this one yet it is fairly representative of cabooses that could be found on the system through most of its life.  During the later years, steel cabooses were generally favored over the wooden ones yet many wooden cabooses remained in service until the caboose began disappearing from railroad trains all together in the 1970s.

dlm

 

Santa Visits the LE&W Depot in Fostoria

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(Photo, Ed Durnwald)

 

I received this from the Fostoria Rail Preservation group and thought I'd share it with you, especially those of you who have younger children...

 

Santa at the Depot will begin on Tuesday, November 29.  We have been decorating the LE&W Depot, 128 W. North St. for the 5th season (I think).  Over 30 decorated Christmas trees with many themes and of course traditional ones too.  We try to have the depot decorated different every year and try to outdo the previous year.  Of course there are model train displays, including the Polar Express and one display for the children to play with.  The childrens' train is setup beside the benches so parents can sit and relax while their children play with the wooden trains. 

 

Santa is the main reason for our efforts but some children don’t even care about him.  They rush in and run to the trains!!!  Carol Creeger Photography will be there every session to take your photo if you wish.  If you prefer, you can take your own photo too. The outside of the building has LED lights, and additional Christmas items.  If you come after dark you will see our depot lit up...  

 

Times are Tuesdays and Thursdays 5-7p and Saturdays noon-2p.    Last day is Thursday,  December 22.   Stop in and see our decorating.  We are also available for groups to come at their leisure.  Please call or email.  We have local nursing homes bring their residents to see the trees and trains.   Santa is not there but they really don’t care.  We can set up a time for your group too.

 

Until next time...

 

dlm

I Lost a Friend...

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An early morning email to all employees of the Findlay Publishing Company announced the passing of Edwin L. "Ed" Heminger.  He passed away at home at the age of 85.  It was quite the shock to all of us as he had just been in a day or so earlier and all seemed well.

If you worked at Findlay Publishing, Ed knew you.  He made it a point to make himself known and befriend all of the people who worked there.  His association with FPC was long running; he started as a paperboy then eventually worked his way up to become both editor and publisher.  In addition to his many responsibilities at the paper, Ed was also very community minded and involved with professional organizations as well.

But to me, he was always a gentleman with a smile & a kind word.  Because of his community involvement, he was always up-to-date on what was going on business-wise in and around the area.  He was one of the first to see the great economic value of the new CSX rail yard that was being built in North Baltimore and he often drove there for lunch to check progress on the developments at the site.  More than once, we got together and compared notes about what we last saw during our most recent visits.  When his busy schedule kept him from attending the media day held there about a year ago, I was sure to fill him in on the tour and commentary that we were treated to.

This past spring when CSX held their open house, we attended together and had a great time. 

But Ed was also interested in the past as well.  He was quite the local historian and involved in the formation of the Hancock County Museum.  If I had an old railroad picture to share with him, he either knew about the area in the photo or was anxious to hear about it.

In reflection, I'm reminded of the simple words spoken at my grandfather's funeral so many years ago.  Those words seem appropriate today as well, "...his shoes are empty now."  Rest in peace, my friend.

dlm