Saturday in the park

On the road

I was sitting in Narita Airport (Tokyo) earlier waiting for my flight home and I decided it was finally time to recap where I had been on this trip. Even these past two weeks it has been quite difficult to get away from the factory for any non-work related activities, so I really don’t have anything new to report since leaving Africa. I suppose that’s just as well though. I’ll need to spend plenty of time in Singapore and Thailand in the near future.

It’s been quite an eventful trip, but mostly because of work related matters. I only had a few chances to go out and sightsee, and that was all in South Africa. Still, it was quite nice and I did enjoy it quite a bit.

In South Africa, the crew was working a cycle of 4, 12 hour days then 3, 8 hour days. I had a couple days off during the month and did use that opportunity to go see the Suikerbosrand nature reserve, which was very close to where I was working.

The Suikerbosrand is a nice quiet place, often favored by hikers both for day or week long trips. If you don’t have the time or the gear for a proper hike, you can always take the tourist loop driving trail around the reserve. The reserve contains most of the mountain range of the same name (which in turn is named for a type of shrub found in the area.) The mountain range doesn’t exactly measure up to the Rockies, or even the Appalachians, but if you consider that most of the region is a mile high to begin with then the peaks are pretty high up. And the views are certainly impressive.

The whole region is highveld grassland, meaning that it’s a very arid, somewhat prairie like environment with few trees and plenty of grass fires (which are often allowed to run unchecked if they do not threaten an inhabited area. Combine that with the red soil, and it looks like Arizona with tall grass.

This particular region has basalt (igneous) inclusions into a sandstone (sedimentary) layer. Consequently, over the years, the softer sedimentary rock has eroded away, leaving rather prominent peaks and ridges made of basalt and a thin layer of soil.

The higher regions of the reserve have relatively limited wildlife activity, because they are so dry and sparsely vegetated that there is little cover and less food for herds. Of course if you get close to a watering hole, then you usually see quite a bit of wildlife.

In this reserve is mostly populated with eland, wildebeest, and zebras. Occasionally you will see some Hyenas, but you don’t encounter large animals like elephants and rhinos or predators like lions. Of course this lack of the most dangerous African animals probably explains why there are so many hiking trails in the area.

I did get to see one predator while I was in Africa though. One of the local wildlife officers stopped by the factory to show some friends a ‘little’ tiger cub.

It played just like an ordinary house cat, but I would really hate to get it mad even at a fairly small size like this.

I did get one extra treat on this trip, thanks to a colleague at work. South Africa was using steam locomotives in regular operation as recently as the early 1990s. Occasionally you might find one in use, but the only time they are really seen now is when they are being run for railfan excursions. Luckily for me the railyard for Rovos Rail, a company that specializes in running regularly scheduled steam excursion trains, is just North of Johannesburg.

This coworker and I took a few hours on an afternoon when work ended early to go see the railyard and the Pretoria railway station. The station was quite an incredible piece of work. It was registered as a historical landmark for many years, but was recently burned down (arson, I’m sure) and had to be completely rebuilt. The rebuilt version is quite beautiful, and since it had an old steam locomotive on the platform we stopped in to look at it and take a couple of pictures

We talked our way onto the platform and I was about to snap a photo, when a Metrorail official on a power trip stopped us and said that we were not allowed to take pictures of the locomotive without first getting permission from the marketing department. His line of ‘reasoning’ was based on the idea that images of the engine could be used in a negative manner and hurt the tourist trade as well as their standing with local customers. Never mind the fact that the marketing department was closed that day and that the locomotive had been built decades before any current railroad employees were even born. So rather than having a cheerfull comment and a photo of a steam engine, I now have a story about how an official of Metrorail was simultaneously uncooperative, illogical, and rather rude.

Thankfully, the day did not end there. The people at Rovos rail know how to promote tourism so when I stopped by the yard I got to take pictures of their locomotives from the inside and out. After a nice chat with Mr. Rohan Vos (the head of the company) we were free to roam around the yards so long as we didn’t go into the engine shed and distract the men working there. So I managed to snap a few nice shots before being chased inside by a thunderstorm.

A fun as it might be playing with tiger cubs and running around nature reserves with a camera, I have finished (for the time being) my work overseas, and now I am back in Chicago. The weather is much nicer than it was when I left. (It’s not sunny, but it’s not bad.) Of course it has been a while since I was here. The last time I saw the Chicago skyline, there was still quite a bit of ice and snow on the ground.

It should be nice to be back in town for a while. Of course, it is a bit of a switch considering some of the places I have been lately.

One month later

No, I have not been eaten by lions, trampled by elephants, or swallowed by a crocodile. (I was however, laughed at by hyenas.)

I've just spent a month in a place where checking my email usually involved checking for a dial tone. I have now left South Africa for Singapore where I will be spending a few days before continuing on my way.

The trip so far has actually been rather nice, though far from relaxing. South Africa was rather enjoyable, though I won't go into the details just yet.

I have some photos to share and will post them in a couple of days when I get a little time away from the factory. I the meantime, I will leave you with this.

Quote of the Unspecified Temporal Interval

Most travel is best of all in the anticipation or the remembering; the reality has more to do with losing your luggage.
~Regina Nadelson

As you might have guessed, I am travelling again, and this time I'm out of the country. I landed in Johannesburg yesterday and expect to be spending a few weeks in the area (on business of course.)

I'll put up a few posts whenever I get the chance, and hopefully I'll get to do just a little sightseeing before I leave.

Winter's last hurrah

It looks like we're getting the first of the spring storms in Chicago. I'm not sorry to see winter go, but I am sorry to be leaving right as the weather gets nice. Next week I'm starting off on a trip to the southern hemesphere and equator. It should be fun. Too bad I won't get back until mid to late April.

The easy way or the hard way?

I've been neglecting the blog a bit lately for various reasons, and I thought it was about time to put up a post or two before I forget how.

Just the other day I glanced at the cover of the Model Railroader magazine and was delighted to see a cover story touting a tour of a largely scratch-built layout. In years past this might not have made headlines as virtually every layout they featured was full of scratch-built structures. More and more though it's possible to recognize the models in the MR articles.

This layout featured a number of pieces that were hand built out of highly detailed craftsman kits or constructed completely from scratch. This gave everything a very fresh, unique look and made it possible to experience the sort of suspense of disbelief that allows you to look at the railroad as though it is real. Sadly, it seems as though thisapproach to the hobby is largely disappearing

Recently I visited the "Great Midwest Train Show" in DuPage County. After searching the show and finding only a couple of antique kits that interested me, I struck up a conversation with one of the dealers about how hard it was to find craftsman kits andscratch-building materials. It was his opinion that quality kits were only going to get harder to find while more and more ready to run and quick assembly kits were going to take over the market.

After thinking it over for a bit I had to agree with him

Several years back, I purchased what was, at the time, the only commercially available kit for a CB&Q waycar. It was a LASERkit model which means that it was mostly wooden pieces cut on a computerized laser cutter. It was quite complex and took several hours on several evenings to complete. It was quite satisfying to see it finished. A year or so later, Walthers came out with the same waycar in a nearly ready to run version. The price wasn't too out of line with what was already on the market, but the new kit could be put together in about a half an hour with a bottle of superglue. Now the model is down to about half of the original cost.

The one without weathering is the simple model.
The wooden model is the one with the handrails removed.

They're both good models, and look quite similar (though I will admit a certain fondness to wooden models) but the more complicated kit gives you a feeling of accomplishment, while the simple one just sits there and looks nice. It would be a shame for model railroading to become something as simple as buying models and setting them on the rails.

Here's an example of what most people would consider a craftsman kit.



In the 1930s and 1940s when this kit was originally sold, it was considered a pretty standard kit. I picked this up at a model show in Green Bay a few years ago in roughly this condition. Apparently theprevious owner had done some work then abandoned it when it didn't run smoothly. It turned out that the mechanism that held the brushes against the armature of the motor was damaged (and poorly suited to the task.) So I simply replaced it with a spring system of my own (loosely based on other designs) and now it runs great.



I plan to build up this kit to a finished model as soon as I get a chance to sit down and really work on it. I could drop about $160 on a modern, ready-to-run model that would probably have a quieter motor and marginally smoother operation, but that defeats the purpose of having a hobby. If all I did was buy the models I wanted, it would just be collecting, and not model railroading.

So if I may offer a bit of advice, if you have a hobby (and almost everyone does) make it worthwhile, and put some actual effort into what you do. If it's collecting, learn some history about what you have, not just the values. If it's a craft, make something the hard way and see how you like it. I bet you'll have more fun that way

I wouldn't be surprised

Brand image is everything

Wake up campers,

It's GROUNDHOG DAY!


Yep, that's my father, me and a groundhog having a bad day. I'm afraid I can't take credit for the shot though. If the glasses and eyepatch are any indication, I couldn't have hit the broadside of a barn at the time...even with that lovely Ruger .223!

Breakfast

Good morning everyone!

Time for a balanced breakfast!