Some progress yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqIY...ature=youtu.be

 

nice to see UP844 back out on the rails again!

 

 

Thanks for this update, Justin!

Pop

 

honestly i don't seek the updates, i run across it on youtube.


in other locomotive news, a few weeks ago i was in Santa Clarita behind the saugus cafe at the weekly R/C races and about 10pm ish on September 27th got a quick glance of live steam.

took a few minutes for me to come to sense what was happening at the grade crossing across the street, but after that i could hear them really laying into the whistle going around the bend towards the saugus speedway. all i knew was it was big! it was steam! and showing those 2 modern BNSF loco's who is boss.

3 weeks later (tonight) i find out what i saw and why it was passing through.

SBRHS 3751 TRAVELING TO ACTON FOR METROLINK PLATFORM DEDICATION - SBRHS

i found this to be a cool fact, "Noted earlier, this outing will be the first time in 24 years that a steam locomotive will operate north of Los Angeles. The last recorded time any steam locomotive traveled north of Los Angeles was in September of 1992 when Southern Pacific, 4-6-2 No. 2472 pulled the “Earth Train” from San Jose to Los Angeles and return. Breaking away at Burbank for the trip up the now Metrolink Antelope Valley Line (ex-Southern Pacific), a steam locomotive has not traveled this segment of the San Fernando Valley and through Soledad Canyon since 1984 – some 32 years ago. The last recorded time a steam engine traveled here was when Southern Pacific 4-8-4, No. 4449 traveled south with a train bound for the World’s Fair in New Orleans, Louisiana."

 

this is very recent

 

that's the engine i saw pass my location a few weeks ago....

 

Awesome looking locomotive.

Jim

 

 

Wow! That is a lot of combines!!

Jim

 

83 if I counted right. " Commbiiiinnnne Traaaaaain!"

Deere sold 7462 combines in '15, down from 13166 in 2011. See all the numbers in the many PDFs posted here:

https://investor.deere.com/our-compa...s/default.aspx

So what, combines are like you gotta have a new one every year or so, like the guys who swapped cars out like changing socks years ago? Nobody slugs their way through 10 seasons on combine? Hell, that's why you own a pickup ain't it, to make parts runs and then drive the parts out into the middle of the field, then drive back for a tool you forgot, etc.... Huh? OK.

 

My dad would buy a new car every four years. As soon as he paid off one, he would trade it in for new car. He always had car payments.

Jim

 

I think many big farmers lease them- write off for taxes and little downtime for repairs. Who has the time / patience to fix em?

 

Do many farmers own their own combines these days? Seems to me like most of the larger farms hire crews to come in and do the harvesting and hauling for them. No sense letting a combine sit around for 51 weeks per year.



Not a bad way to go IMO. Then your budget remains flat, and very little spent on maintenance. I've tried to do that myself, but with two vehicles traded every 8 years and alternating each financed for 4 years. But I always failed at it. Something unexpected always happens. And when the 8 year mark comes, I decide we don't really need to trade. Wait too long and then have to buy two.

 

My BIL has one, but he still hires the crews to help finish quick