Author Archives: dr.hypercube

More Schnabel

Posted on by

Took a trip up to the Mt. Washington Valley today to see the Schnabel car before it leaves. I’d been told that they were probably going to unload it last – Murphy loves me. It was unloaded and reconfigured for running empty (cradle on it’s attendant flatcar, A and B ends joined) and the riggers were getting ready to ‘jack and slide’ the second, smaller transformer component off the heavy duty depressed center flatcar. Normally the flatcar would have been a ‘lookit that!’ item – with the Schnabel two cars away, it lacked punch.

Apparently ferroequinophiliacs are a problem:

*

And the slideshow (complete set here):


Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

BBCX 1000

Posted on by

Last Saturday the Conway Scenic Railroad brought a BIG load down through Crawford Notch (part of the old Maine Central Mountain Division – one of the biggest grades east of the Mississippi). The load consisted of  a two-piece transformer – one component on a heavy duty depressed center flatcar, the other on a cradle carried by a Schnabel car. The load came in from China (sigh) to Searsport, ME and made it’s way to Hazens, arriving there on Friday. Friday night CSRR hooked up 2 FP9s and a GP7 as motive power and attached a couple passenger cars to the tail end for potentates, panjandrums and poobahs.

I wasn’t able to get up to watch – I am going to try to get up for at least some of the transfer to a truck for the last leg – but the internet comes to the rescue. Some footage of the train going through the Gateway and at Bartlett.

*

*

*

Transporter n

Posted on by

I just caught the male pepperi (they’ve been renamed) dropping the kids off at the pool.

*

In other critter news, hydrophyte inspired me to re-do the 29 gallon aquarium in the Design Student’s room. After losing all the inhabitants during the ice storm, I repopulated it with an African butterflyfish (Pantodon buchholzi) and a pair of upside-down cats (Synodontis nigriventis).  I’d seen a beautiful West African setup in Yoshino and Kobayashi’s The Natural Aquarium – combine that with a chapter on ‘The Aerial Advantage’ in Walstad’s Ecology of the Planted Aquarium and all I needed was a glimpse of hydrophyte’s ripariums to precipitate a new approach to the tank. I covered the back wall with plastic needlepoint grid and tied Java moss, Anubias and Bolbitis to it; I’m hoping the moss will expand to cover everything. I took the water level down to 10 inches – approx. the golden ratio point –  and I planted most everything so that it has the opportunity to grow emersed. We’ll see what happens.

*

I changed the filter set-up – without the filter change, the lower water level would have been a problem. I had been using an external hang-on-back style filter – I switched to a piece of foam the same size as the side of the aquarium with a small powerhead behind it. You can see the foam on the right side of the picture above.

I also snuck in a juvenile pair of Pelvicachromis sacrimontis – love those dwarf cichlids.

Yesterday was the three year birthday of the blog – I was too busy being a crazy natural historian to post, but thanks to all who have stopped by over the past 3 – it’s been fun (for me, at least).