Text 1007, 161 rader
Skriven 2012-07-21 01:49:02 av Richard Webb (1:116/901.0)
    Kommentar till text 991 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
Ärende: Darwion award candidate
===============================
HI ROy,

On Fri 2012-Jul-20 08:47, Roy Witt (1:387/22) wrote to Richard Webb:

Roy> Heh...well there was 'Six-Pack' whom I successfully avoided getting
Roy> involved with. I wasn't turned off by the fact that she was black as
Roy> much as the idea of her body odor passing through my delicate
Roy> nostrils.

<hmmm>  I've had experiences like that.

 Roy>>> Dunno...I wasn't there. I have noticed that the freight cars
 Roy>>> headed south are 'hoppers' full of concrete materials and those
 Roy>>> hoppers going north are full of sand and gravel.

 Roy>> Especially attempting to stop. That's what I think when I see a
 Roy>> load of gravel in the hopper of an 18 wheeler coming off the
 Roy>> freeway at freeway speeds of 65/70mph, even though the ramp
 Roy>> speedlimit is 45 mph. And then they think they have the right of
 Roy>> way over traffic that is already on that ramp.

 RW> OH yeah I'm awlays amazed at those guys.  I know our remote
 RW> truck is heavy even for a 19" bed box truck, because of the
 RW> lead and other insulating materials under the skin of the
 RW> box and all the electronics inside.  Bringing that bad boy
 RW> to a stop from highway speeds can even be fun.  Iirc it tips the
 RW> scales when the duals in back are on the platform at 18k or
 RW> thereabouts.

Roy> One nice thing about air and hydraulic assisted braking is that the
Roy> power assist does all the work with just a light touch by the
Roy> driver. The first time I towed the race car and trailer, I had no
Roy> electronic hook-up for the trailer brakes and it was all the 4 wheel
Roy> discs on the pickup could do to bring that baby down. It was at that
Roy> time that I gave more thought to installing the trailer brake
Roy> controller in the pickup.

YEah I know, and this one just has the hydraulics.  Has the
air horn though, but the tank for the air horn seems to
slowly leak air.  I think it was aftermarketed to just use
hydraulics for the brakes, adn I'm not sure that was such a
great idea.


 Roy>> I've heard stories about those bulls, but havn't seen any of it up
 Roy>> close. It seemed like every RR employee was on the lookout for
 Roy>> youngsters crossing the tracks at the yard. A chase would always
 Roy>> ensue and when we made it to the 'other side' the chase ended.
 Roy>> Don't know what would have happened had we been caught, since we
 Roy>> were always faster than those fat bellied RR workers. 8^)

 RW> YEah I noted that with the bulls even in the railroad shops, we used
 RW> to cut through there to go sledding, our favorite sledding spot was a
 RW> hill which was now just pastureland, but had been used for some of
 RW> the first air brake tests way back when.  I think the bulls were
 RW> told, whether it be kids or hoboes that once you got past rr property
 RW> they were to give up the chase anyway.  IT's when they caught you on
 RW> rr property you might be in some trouble.

Roy> Charges of trespassing comes to mind. That's about all they could
Roy> do.

YEah that's about all they could do.  THe boes used to say
though that the bulls sort of enjoyed whipping up on 'em a
bit if they could catch 'em.  We may have been able to
outrun those guys, but part of being small twon kids was
that everybody knew everybody, and no doubt one of those
guys would know at least one kid in the group, and parents
would be notified, and the usual lectures ensue.  IT was
just so much quicker to cut through the yard at the railroad shops than to walk
around via the roads.

 Roy>>> Illinois Central ran through Freeport, where my grandfather
 Roy>>> (clark) would get on board as the conductor of the Land-O-Corn,
 Roy>>> ride it into Iowa and back to Chicago and then back to Freeport
 Roy>>> where he got off...all of that track is gone now and so are the
 Roy>>> yards and the depot. Used to be 3 or 4 sets of tracks ran along
 Roy>>> the Pecatonica River (
<snip>
 RW>> YEp, my mom's dad was an engineer for C B & Q, and then for
 RW>> SAnta Fe.  One of her uncles who lived in MEdia, Il. not too far
 RW>> from where you grew up iirc was a fireman in the steam days.

 Roy>> Hmmm. Media is in Chicago. Freeport is about 120 miles to the west
 Roy>> of Chi-town, on Illinois/Interstate 20...

 RW> YEp, that sounds about right.  Back in the days when mom
 RW> remembers visiting the old guy with the family (they rode
 RW> the train of course) it wasn't part of Chicago exurbs she
 RW> says, just another little town.  THis was before ww2 though.

Roy> I was too young to know about such things, but my grandma Witt would
Roy> take me to Chicago to see the live western shows with Roy Rogers,
Roy> Dale Evans, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, etc.. I was known to 'open
Roy> carry' in those days with my two six guns and cowboy chaps on the
Roy> ride, ca1946-47...

That was quite a tiem to live around there.  MOm's aunt
lived in Villla Park when I was growing up, when we'd go
over there to visit I'd hear lots of stories.  IN fact,
mom's aunt on her mom's side, the uncle I referenced was on
her dad's, who lived in the Chicago area all the time I was
growing up married a farmer from outside there where
Standard Oil wanted to build a facility, I think
distribution and possibly refining.  Part of the deal for
his farmland was S.O. stock, and she still had quite a bit
of it when she died.

 RW>> THis one was same vintage, Murray Iron works iirc.
 RW>> DIfferent name now, but it's still in business, friend of
 RW>> mine's a machinist for 'em.  My xyl sold him some "joe
 RW>> blocks" is waht he called them that were her ex husbands.

 Roy>> Stover went belly up during the depression or after WW2 ... Jo
 Roy>> Blocks were called that because the inventor's name was Joe
 Roy>> something. He was a Swede, I think. They're precision metal blocks
 Roy>> that are lapped to size and they're supposed to have a tolerance of
 Roy>> plus or minus .0001"... If you gave them some finger-oil and rub a
 Roy>> few together, they'd stick together if you needed a stack to make
 Roy>> up a set thickness of blocks. Too expensive for a machinist to buy,
 Roy>> but they were easily lost for whatever reason. I have a few odds
 Roy>> and ends in my tool box that I used to check the accuracy of my
 Roy>> 'mics'

 RW> That sounds about right.  These had a nice carrying case.  I thought
 RW> they were probably templates for something like that.

RW> Not templates, but precision building blocks...

Okay, wrong choice of words there <grin>.

 RW> Iirc he gave the xyl a couple hundred bucks for 'em. WAs a nice set,
 RW> you coudl tell that just by looking, and my buddy the machinist was
 RW> quite happy to get them at that price.

Roy> I'll bet. I'd give a couple of hundred for a set.

I'd bet so.  sHe felt she got a good deal though, we needed
the $$$ and didn't need them.  HE was crowing about the good deal he got, he
was the only machinist around the plant had
some.

 Roy>> LOL! Been there and done that. Dropped on my knees to a block of
 Roy>> concrete just under the water's surface. I didn't have much fun
 Roy>> that day.

 RW> <ouch.  Can picture it.  The cedar river there was sort of a gravel
 RW> bed, and though it ran fairly fast through there it wasn't that deep,
 RW> and i knew letting go of my handhold was not a good idea!

Roy> Definately not a good idea. Water tends to pack gravel down so it
Roy> can be as hard as concrete to land on.

That's kinda what I figured even then, didn't look like any
fun.


Regards,
           Richard
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 * Origin:  (1:116/901)