The Rail Philatelist October 1998 Newsletter

The Rail Philatelist

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AL'S NEWS & NOTES

ON RAILWAY PHILATELY

Volume 3 …………………………………………………………………. Number 5 October 1, 1998

Dear Fellow Rail Philatelist:

STAMP OF THE MONTH: I think that Iran #793 is an exquisite train stamp - both the design and the coloration are almost perfect. About the only improvement I could suggest would be to move the train another quarter inch or so left on the bridge so we could see more of it. Others must like it also since it is one of the pricier train stamps and difficult to find. (Also hard to keep in stock!)

TYPOS: I hate typos so if you find any in my pricelists PLEASE point them out to me so I can fix them before the next printing. As a reward, I will send you a FREE cover with train pictorial cancel for each legitimate typo you help me eliminate - just include a list with your next order or send a separate letter or e-mail. SPELLCHECK works okay for straight text like the newsletter but it really gets bogged down in all the numbers and abbreviations in the pricelists so visual proof-reading is the only way to eradicate them. There may be several of them in the "G" & "H" lists sent last month since I was in a rush to get them printed during my one day home between the Santa Clara show and my youngest son's wedding in Plymouth, MA. Sorry for any problems they may cause you. Thanks for your help in clearing them up! NEW STAMP ROOM: When we remodeled our kitchen a few years ago, I kept the old cabinets and counter tops to use in my stamp room. In mid-August I finally gained trackage rights to the sewing room (it is now upstairs in a spare bedroom) so I installed the base cabinets and 10 feet of counter top along one wall of my new work space. I still need to hang a couple wall cabinets but I'll need my oldest son's help with that task. The objective is to get myself better organized but in the transition I am more disorganized as I now have stamps, covers and files in both my old basement work area and the new first floor room. It will take me some time to get it all arranged to my satisfaction - in the interim, bear with me if I seem even more frazzled than normal. Thanks for your patience. SEPTEMBER TRAVEL: Sometimes I schedule myself too tightly - this month is a good (or bad) example. The Santa Clara APS show was great, but I had to rush home (over 400 miles to Winnemuca,NV after the show Sunday night and another 1000 miles on Monday, arriving after midnight). On Tuesday, I got up early to prepare the bank and credit card deposits, pay the first of the month bills, check correspondence, finish the newsletter and "G" list that didn't get completed in Santa Clara, print out the lists and address labels, cut and paste a couple photos, rush to the printer, post office, bank and Pat Dowling's where I unloaded the stamps and covers I transported for him, got my haircut and put air in my hand truck wheel, picked up the printing, unloaded a couple boxes that I bought in Santa Clara and loaded up the 33 magazine boxes I take to train shows, mowed the lawn, had dinner (I had skipped lunch), took a 2 mile walk with my wife Sue and Sadie, our Sheltie, then stuffed, licked, stamped and labeled newsletters & pricelists until 11PM. Got up early and packed bags for two trips, finished the newsletter mailing, rushed them to the post office and then headed east on a 1200 mile trip to my Mother-in-Law's in Centerville,OH, arriving Thursday afternoon. Friday, we drove to Cincinnati to meet my wife's plane and catch a flight to Boston where we met my son flying in from Oak Harbor, WA and all drove to Plymouth, MA for his wedding on Sunday - my other two sons and their wives drove in along with several other relatives so we had a big family reunion in addition to the wedding. Everything went well, but I really wanted to stow away for the honeymoon since they were going to Banff, a great old Canadian Pacific Railroad hotel and then taking a train back thru the Canadian Rockies to Vancouver(good thing I didn't since the airline lost his bag for two weeks!) As a consolation prize, I did get a good look at the MTA and AMTRAK yards on our drive back to Logan Airport Monday morning. Also saw a CSX steel coil train on the Ohio River bridge in Cincinnati but it is much harder to see trains from the road in the East with all the trees, hills and buildings than it is in the wide open spaces out West even when the scanner tells me one is around. Tuesday I drove to State College, PA via Altoona. After picking up 15,000 custom printed 102 cards at Subway Stamp Shop, I had planned to spend a couple hours at the newly re-done Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum but a sign indicated that the outside exhibits were closed for construction and I decided $8.50 was too high a price to pay for only part of the tour, most of which I had seen a few years ago anyway. So I spent 3 hours reading and watching the Conrail mainline - 6 thru trains, one local with a bay window caboose and 4 pairs of SD-40-2 helper movements. Interestingly, all 33 locomotives were Conrail blue - no leased or pooled power units as I am used to seeing on UP and BNSF! I spent the next two days going thru a few hundred sales books at APS headquarters to find a few train items to add to my lists, then drove to Rochester, NY for a train show that wasn't worth the effort - in fact Sunday was so slow I spent most of the time finishing reading Tom Clancy's 740 page "Rainbow Six" which I started on the airplane ride to Boston. The visit to Rochester wasn't a total loss however since I had a great evening with Norm and Florence Wright - dinner at a Chinese restaurant, a tour of Norm's Lionel layout (see the attached article from "O SCALE Railroading" ) and a couple hours of train stamp and computer discussions. Sunday morning I also managed to squeeze in a quick visit to a local stamp show where I spent more in an hour than I sold all weekend at the train show and also walked thru a card show but didn't find anything. The trip home was uneventful except for all the Union Pacific trains standing still in Nebraska where they are doing a lot of construction for a third track between Gibbon and North Platte - I even saw the E-9 ABBA loco set on the point of a trailer train! Trains seemed to be moving much better on my trip to Lincoln, NE two weeks later. There was still a lot of construction and maintenance activity including a Pandron(?) & Jackson rail grinding train but only the westbound coal empties were standing still - that may have been due to a wreck on one of the Wyoming mine lines. Unfortunately, the show wasn't much to talk about because it was a home football weekend - at least I had a motel room (some dealers stayed in Omaha!) but I couldn't even get into PERKINS for breakfast Saturday morning! I got there early Sunday morning and then watched trains leaving the BNSF yard for a couple hours before the show. I found some useful train stamps in Jerry Koepp's STAMPS N STUFF shop in Des Moines, IA on Monday (I also bought over 3000 steam loco real photo postcards so contact me if you want any - name your RR!). TRAVEL MEALS PART II: No Nebraska transit is complete without a stop at a VALENTINOS - they have a great soup, salad, pasta, pizza and dessert buffet both lunch and dinner with excellent specialty pizzas - my favorite is the Bacon Cheeseburger but I'll have to admit that pickles on your pizza is probably an acquired taste (or a sign of things to come). When I'm in a hurry to make time on a trip the new trend of having a fast food outlet co-located with a gas station saves a lot of time. I usually stop at a PILOT truck stop because their gas prices are always the lowest around and they usually have a WENDYS (love their Chili) or SUBWAY (try the seafood & crab on wheat). RAIL THOUGHT OF THE MONTH: The recent death of Roy Rogers reminded me of the theme song he and Dale Evans sang so well together "Happy _rails to you until we meet again"

Sincerely,

AL PETERSON

THE RAIL PHILATELIST

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The Rail Philatelist October 1998 Newsletter

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