Holy Cow guys, this group has gone far afield from discussing model
railroading. Not that I would be one to lay blame, I have been know to sling a
little bull cow paddies from time to time.
However, to the point, the GN guide to freight cars suggests that the big Rocky
showed up in 67, if you subject yourself to Pig Sty blue, that color would be
69. The green NP car Bob referred to was a 69 product, when the Brainerd car
shops were directed to start paining everything BN green even though the merger
would be held up 18 more months.
Most interesting news from the Pines and Prairies is that last Thursday we
visited Jim Malone. After a couple minutes reviewing his layout, we boarded
Jim's pontoon for a cruise on beautiful Rice Lake. Yes, it was one of the few
weeks we are without ice on Minnesota lakes. We got to the middle of the lake
and Jim stopped the pontoon and said, I have to show you guys something. Under
the circumstances, this became an awkward moment, watching Jim reach under a
tarp for something that looked lethal. We breathed easier when Jim announced
he was going to fire his potato cannon. First he rammed a nice big potato down
the 4 foot barrel then he opened the breach and shot in about 3 seconds of hair
spray. The breach was sealed and the igniter fired. The potato shot high into
the air and landed about 300 feet in front of the boat. While this was fun,
lacking any live targets we asked Jim how high it would shoot. Well what
better way to do test this than shoot it straight up. My years of field
artillery experience suggested to me this idea was not without risk but what
the heck, no use letting good sense get in the way of a little fun. The weapon
was loaded, fully charged and the projectile sent rocketing skyward.... and out
of sight. It was at this point that the inherent danger of this experiment
became clear to most of the guys and the sky was searched for traces of the
flying spud. Soon young Ben picked up the plunging projectile and noted it was
coming down pretty close to the pontoon, raising Jim Malone's pucker factor and
raising the octave of everyone else's laughter. Good fortune was with us, we
had been drifting slowly to starboard and the spud splashed 3 feet to port but
directly midship. Had we remained stationary, the nice awning of the pontoon
would have taken the impact. Dave Jasper was seen at this point calculating
the physics of that circumstance, I being pretty much directly under the spot
where that impact would have taken place thanked Saint Barbara, Patron Saint of
the Field Artillery for watching out for me.
The Pines and Prairies will be visiting here in two weeks, I have no similar
activities planned.
Well, heck, back to all the fun guys
Ken Zieska
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