This and That This Week

Just having a look at  https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-82.8/centery:43.4/zoom:8 website this past Wednesday. The link is live, so any time you click on it, it should show the real-time view of boat/ship activity in my area. Anyway, I saw that there was a freighter that I didn't recognize coming up the river (northbound) that looked to be a bit unusual. And another boat that was coming in off the lake looked like maybe it would be here at about the same time.  It appeared that there'd be enough time to get up to the riverfront to have a look, so off we went...

My SO took this photo of the SAL Calypso as it emerged from under the Bluewater Bridges on it's way to Bay City, Michigan.

SAL Calypso with a load of wind turbine blades.  Linda Stamos photo.

Maybe half a mile or so out into Lake Huron, there's the Calypso on the right passing by the barge Ashtabula, coming in from the lake, downbound on the left.

A closer look at 610 foot long Ashtabula, which is being pushed by the tug Defiance

And now back to the regular model train-type stuff, with just a few random shots from around the layout...

GT 6210 & 6212 bringing a gondola into the Iron & Metal recycler yard.

I kind of like this view of GP38 #815 idling in the JSSX yard

DTI boxcar 26035 is one of my favourites

Slightly faded and lightly weathered, this WC covered hopper done for Jamie Barron looks pretty good on the street trackage

This waffle sided boxcar, which also belongs to Jamie. features light rusting along the roof.

And I got a bit of a start on modifications to this 86 foot auto parts boxcar this week.  However, progress might slow for a while though, as I realized that I don't have enough styrene "Angle" for use as the upper door tracks.