Wupped ...

Well, for those of you that are actually following this ... not really much has happened in the last week except work. I have done a little ... very little, since I hve worked the last eight days straight. On Sunday, I took a train here:

 That's Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. A place where I live 10 minutes away from and have only ever been to one event here ever, and not when it was the new stadium. I avoid it like the plague during game day, unless I am being paid to come here, that is ...

I found this interesting artifact adjacent to the Whitman commuter rail station ... the old turntable pit with several tracks still there, apparently restored and maintained, very cool!

Now here is another example of why the camera on an iPhone is so cool ... try THIS with an SLR. This photo was taken handheld, no tripod ... It never ceases to amaze me ... Actually, the photo I took resting the phone on the back of my car to steady it, came out worse! Oh, this is the Rhode Island state capitol building in Providence, RI.

That same day, Saturday, instead of going home on my release, I went over and toured the USS Constitution, which is across Boston Harbor from South Station. A 10 minute ride by water shuttle, which was free, being a MBTA employee (sort of), although it is normally only $1.70 for the same ride ... which amazed the two tourists from Toronto, Canada that I met in line waiting to go through security at Charlestown Navy yard ...

Here is a look at the gun deck of the Constitution, one of the crew members (yes this ship is still commissioned in the U.S. Navy and naval officers serve 2 year tours of duty aboard her) stated that while Constitution was listed as a 44 gun ship, she never went out with fewer than 50.

A very interesting day, we had beautiful weather, for October (actually for anytime), just about 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

Dealing with another dip ...

And it isn't me, thank you very much, Clark. I had another dip in the roadbed that I got about to repairing today. The first two photos show how much of a dip there was. What I did was to take a piece of rail, one of the good thing about using code 138 steel rail (yes, steel, not nickel silver) is that it has a tendency to want to stay pretty straight/flat. I used the rail as a gauge to know which ties to raise and by how much. You can see that the dip is pretty sizeable ...

In the next photo, I have started to shim the lower ties up to the level of the rail "gauge." The clamp is holding the rail in place so this actually works ...

The ties on the other side were also dipped down, but not as badly, so I repeated the process for the other side as well and added in the missing ties to complete the section ...

Now I just have to wait for the carpenters glue to dry ...