Being a model railroader, friends send me humorous stuff all the time...

Unfortunately, their humor isn't quite fit for these pages... so, I'll share a couple of Far Side comic I ran across (and nearly forgot about) while looking for something completely unrelated!

Now that the Elsmere Bridge is pretty well done, time to move north to the cut between Elsmere and Montchanin.

So...

I work for a local big box store that shall remain nameless...

Today, one of my regular customers came in and handed me a box. He is moving, and is trying to find homes for some things. He knows me as a fellow model railroader, but I have a bit of an issue. The box contained 6 O scale standard gauge freight cars. 2 40' boxcars, 2 40' Reefers, a tank car, and a wood-sided caboose.

On the road for a couple of days and had a few miscellaneous thoughts I'd like to put out.

First is a log load on a flat car that I've had on the railroad for a while.

While I was at the National Train Show, someone mentioned to me (possibly here on the MRH forums) that I needed to get one of TCS's KAM4 decoders that included a built in capacitor for my Roundhouse EMD Model 40. The Model 40 had less than acceptable performance due to it's short wheelbase and (likely) my semi-conductive trackwork in the industry it will be working. 

This is an EMD Model 40 (Athearn illustration):

Craftsman quality structure kits have been on my mind a lot lately, both because I have just completed my first build of one and because I am helping a friend dispose of a lifelong collection. This has led to a lot of research as I track down original product numbers and prices, and try to get an idea when various items were produced. That in turn has given me an overview of a part of the hobby I had never paid much attention to.

One of my favorite things is building structures and painting them. I use acrylic paint and have been washing everything in the sink. Sometimes there is a small amount of paint left over in the jars so I run a lot of water and clean them using paper towels. Is this bad for the plumbing? What does everyone else do? I don't paint that often but I just want to make sure I'm not hurting anything.

Joe

CSX, FCEN

Moderator note: Added more to the title to make it clear what this thread is about.

Those of you interested in computer-assisted car forwarding systems may have read some of the posts that I've submitted during the summer about the Shipper-driven Traffic Simulator, a free, web-based, multi-user system that generates freight traffic and can also track cars, print waybills, switchlists, etc...