Act Like you Know

[tracker7]

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles got better tonight, and that was already a moderately-high bar.  This show is setting up a lot of questions.

Saw an interesting series of photos on railpictures.net this morning - on Sunday, a Chinese-built steam locomotive was delivered to the RJ Corman yard here in town.  It's going to be used for excursions and special trains between here and Louisville, with the Ryder Cup being targeted as the inaugural run dates.  Holy cow.  Live steam operations based out of my hometown.  This is awesome.

More good news - Green Ronin is eliminating the license fees for True20 in May.

Comments

[tracker7.livejournal.com]

Second episode - centered on the Connors and Cameron acquiring new identities.

The new steamer can be seen in the following photos:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=218913&nseq=5

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=218912&nseq=6 (the building in the background is a former tobacco warehouse converted to loft condos; a gaming buddy lives there)

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=218910&nseq=7

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=218907&nseq=8

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=218906&nseq=9

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=218904&nseq=10

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=218902&nseq=11

[cybogoblin.livejournal.com]

Damn! That is one nice looking engine. A little on the non-classic side, too, but in a good way.

I'm not so keen on the idea of loft condos right next to train tracks, though :p

[tracker7.livejournal.com]

The wheel arrangement's a little bit odd, but I guess it works well enough.

The condos are really nice, and the building is so solid that you can't hear anything unless you're in the garage.

[spoe.livejournal.com]

Here's a shot of QJ 7040 in service in China:
http://www.sommtrainfun.com/steampages/China/N336-33.html

Also, my office-mate went to university in China as a railroad engineer (designing overhead electric trains) and is "quite familiar" with the QJs.

[tracker7.livejournal.com]

The Iowa Interstate Railroad has been running three of them for a couple of years now, in both excursion and revenue freight service. Pretty successful, from what I understand.

[cybogoblin.livejournal.com]

From what I could find 2-10-0 trains were designed to work in hilly terrain, which makes sense for parts of mainland China. Don't know how many hills you have where you are, but it'll still be a thrill for the kids (of all ages).

[tracker7.livejournal.com]

The terrain this thing will be running through is rolling hill country, plenty of gentle, if lengthy grades.

When this thing fires, it'll make only the second steam locomotive I've ever seen operating. The other one was Norfolk & Western's J-class 4-8-4, #611, one of the most beautiful machines I've ever seen.

[cybogoblin.livejournal.com]

I can only recall seeing one steam loco - The Kingston Flyer when it went on a tour of the country. I was standing on a footbridge over the tracks as it steamed by directly underneath me, an amazing experience.

[tracker7.livejournal.com]

I saw the J alongside the highway while on a trip during my last year of high school. It was doing about 70 mph, and looked just wonderful.

There's a state park near my aunt's house that has a Chesapeake and Ohio Kanawha-class 2-8-4 on static display. It's one of the last steam locomotives the C&O built, and it's a brute. I saw one of it's big brothers at the Henry Ford Museum a few years ago: an Allegheny-class 2-6-6-6. With the tender, just over 100' long, and fully fueled and watered, they weigh 1.2 million pounds. Huge.

[spoe.livejournal.com]

I'd be the on that lives there. The building is solid 1940s construction. The exterior walls are three bricks thick and (I'm on the second floor) the floors are thick enough to support forklifts and other industrial equipment. You might, occasionally, hear some glasses rattle against each other, but not much more than that.

Of course, it also help this is in town and the trains a pretty heavily speed-regulated.

[cybogoblin.livejournal.com]

Ahh, that's not so bad then. It's good that they're renovating those older buildings instead of just tearing them down and building new ones that aren't as good.