Text 991, 153 rader
Skriven 2012-07-20 08:47:05 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
    Kommentar till text 836 av Richard Webb (1:116/901.0)
Ärende: Darwion award candidate
===============================
18 Jul 12 20:06, Richard Webb wrote to Roy Witt:

 Roy>> What were we to know about vibrations and a penny stock squashed
 Roy>> into pieces at the ripe old age of 8 or 9 years? We were told that
 Roy>> they'd be squashed, but no one ever said that they'd disappear.

 RW> <rotfl>  YEah we all had to test the urban legends at that
 RW> age <grin>.

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

 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.

 RW> <snip>

 RW>> Oh I'm sure.  YOu can find with those long coal trains going through
 RW>> the mountains where the front engine is braking while the back
 RW>> engine is still pushing.  Anybody who doesn't understand the
 RW>> principle of inertia should watch a train start rolling or come to a
 RW>> stop.

 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.

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

 RW> <snip>

[bulls]

 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.

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

 RW> <snip again>

 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 (Pecatonica was native American that meant -
 Roy>>> muddy water). Sometimes it resembled a flow of mud too.

 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.

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

 RW> <snip>

 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.

Not templates, but precision building blocks...

 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.

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

 RW> <snip>

 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!

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


                R\%/itt

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