If you want a Santa Fe "big dome", there is a 3rd alternative to expensive brass, and to the old Bachmann plastic full-dome car. M&R Sides makes an etched stainless steel kit for a Santa Fe 1954 Budd "big dome" (#60-129). The kit appears to include all parts except of course the glass. It is designed to be used with the American Limited core kits. The main challenge would appear to be simulating the curved pieces of glass on the dome. Perhaps the Bachmann glass could be modified? MH
Great to hear you're okay man. As was said before, it was pretty nasty when it first fired off in North Texas, and it just got worse as it moved into all that moisture in the Southeast. As a guy who's interested in weather like that, here's a link to some video Reed Timmer and his crew (from Discovery's Storm Chasers) took of the system - Discovery Channel: Storm Chasers I have a lot of respect the SkyWarn volunteers and storm chasers (not the idiotic "tourists" who cause a lot of the problems that people have with "storm chasers", but the guys who do it professionally or as volunteers for scientific groups) who risk their lives in that part of the country trying to track these things for the NWS and local Emergency Services without getting themselves killed in the process. At least here in Texas and most of the Midwest, you've got a lot of open land to see these things from, but as you go east, you get into the Pine Forests of East Texas and the forests of the Southeast that make it very dangerous to chase. Hope to see more progess on the layout soon.
Yes, well over 100 miles! Several guys at work today brought in letters, papers, etc from their yards from Tuscaloosa. Amazing to think how far they traveled in this storm cell.
The ATN is completely shut down with major damage. I am with a clean-up crew cutting trees off the line. Today we did over 50 in the Guntersville area in about 1 mile. A crew working south of Gadsden did over 75 in about 2 miles and the worst is yet to come. Poles down, land slides, and buildings on the tracks. Will be back out there tomorrow cutting. The damage is hard to imagine.
OUCH...about this time I imagine you'd love to have a rotary with carbide knives on the rotating head and 8000 HP turning at 2000 RPM. That would do short work of trees, buildings, even small land slides. :tb-cool: Just don't get within 1/2 mile of the chute....:tb-ooh:
Glad to hear you are O.K. Sorry to hear that you have all that work to do. Here I am complaining to my wife that I have a few dings in my hood from golf ball sized hail and then I hear of all the deaths and devastation in your neck of the woods. Boy I am lucky. Craig
Craig, I see your in NY. Was the hail in NY? Northern NJ just got hard rain as far as I know. Jerry, glad to hear you and your family are okay, keep safe on the line. I don't miss the tornado activity from my years of living in Illinois.
Yes, I work in Liverpool ( a suburb of Syracuse) and it started to hail. Some pieces were quarter to golf ball sized.
Thats some big damaging hail! Update on yard clean-up.....Kimberly found more paperwork from Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, photos, and a casino credit ticket from a place in Mississippi. Other things like shingles and pieces of siding and wood could be from anywhere. Also found a card....the King of Clubs. I guess the rest of the deck could be from Mississippi to GA. Its just really unbelievible. Would be something to look-up the people whos names are on some of this paperwork and see how they are doing and let them know some of their lives ended up over 100 miles away.
Folks are posting scans of photos and documents the fell in their yards on Facebook. There have already been items claimed by those who lost them.
After the 1994 tornadoes in Lancaster, TX (where I grew up), we did the same thing, but being prior to this day and age, all stuff we found from other people went to the First Baptist Church. Volunteers then sorted all the stuff by name (or by what it was if no name was found) so that people could come in and claim their stuff. Those tornadoes stayed on the ground for only about 10 miles, but there were people 30 and 40 miles away that had stuff fall in their yards. It was amazing some of the things that survived being sucked up, spun around, and thrown miles and miles.
ATSF wood caboose at spur track in Glen Frazer. The real 1321 lasted into the 70's around Richmond CA.
Beautiful caboose, cabin, buggy, whatever. Contrary to all rumors, apparently the ATN was unable to kill off or paralyze all its engineers with manual labor while clearing the ROW...Welcome Back, Jerry!
Not all of them! LOL I hope I never have to see what I saw again in my lifetime. TV and pictures do not come close to being in it and seeing the hurt and saddness in peoples faces as they go through what used to be a home. I still cannot believe some of the things I saw.
