Working rail roads and their tracks.

[5030]

I did my 30 & out at Buick's home facility in Flint, '76 to '06.

(Facts 11, 10, 36, 04, 40, 86, 29, & 09 in that order, no time in 03, 31, 05, 12, 70, 78, 81, or 25. btw )

Anyway, the mile-long site is now a brownfield from end to end.

A while back Mahindra was shopping the site for a plant to produce a proposed new line of mail delivery vehicles.

If that happens someday I suspect it will be a long tome coming.

Didn't they locate in Bloomfield Hills somewhere and build their Roxor UTE from parts shipped in, in containers from India? Another 'not for me' vehicle. I'd buy the genuine article 'Jeep' first.

 

[ultrarunner]

Most likely. You have any pictures of the old South Bend Lathe Company on Sample Street by chance? Another American Icon down the crapper.

Most likely. You have any pictures of the old South Bend Lathe Company on Sample Street by chance? Another American Icon down the crapper.

Singer-Friden, SouthBend, Bridgeport, etc... all good today as when made...

My SouthBend came from the toolroom at Singer when it was all auctioned off and the Bridgeport similar

 

[5030]

Please tell her I enjoy my 1905 Curved Dash Old immensely... as a kid I saw a calendar picture of one and set my sights on one...

I married into money and I'm proud of it....lol She never acts uppity at all. In fact if you don't know her ancestry, you'd never guess. She's a great wife and partner, been together 37 years now. The family, not so much., they all oooze money and I'm not from money so they tend to look down on me so I rarely attend any family stuff and now with the Wuflu nothing at all.

We live a private life in the country at the end of the power line on a farm that she bought years ago. I'm the 'hired hand' sort of. Most of the remaining family lives outside Lansing even today.

Sometimes I ask her why she picked me over anyone else and she always says 'because you treat me, like me'. We have had a wonderful life so far, hopefully we have many more years together.

Back to regular programming....

 

[5030]

Singer-Friden, SouthBend, Bridgeport, etc... all good today as when made...

My SouthBend came from the toolroom at Singer when it was all auctioned off and the Bridgeport similar

I have a full restored (took 4 years) South Bend 3 foot toolroom lathe complete with the collet closer and a complete set of 3C collets. Has the quick Change gearbox too. I rarely use it, have 2 other larger lathes, a LeBlond Servo shift and a one owner Atlas floor lathe completely tooled (Atlas was in Kalamazoo).... and 2 Bridgeports, one manual one Versa-Trak. Always making stuff in the shop or doing fab work. Have a couple projects going on right now for customers.

 

[5030]

I agree. Great video. Very well flown. Smooth as butter. Excellent Pilot.

I wonder what the aircraft was. Probably a DJI and it is very smooth, a very accomplished pilot. Wish I could do that good.... I can't.

 

[ultrarunner]

I married into money and I'm proud of it....lol She never acts uppity at all. In fact if you don't know her ancestry, you'd never guess. She's a great wife and partner, been together 37 years now. The family, not so much., they all oooze money and I'm not from money so they tend to look down on me so I rarely attend any family stuff and now with the Wuflu nothing at all.

We live a private life in the country at the end of the power line on a farm that she bought years ago. I'm the 'hired hand' sort of. Most of the remaining family lives outside Lansing even today.

Sometimes I ask her why she picked me over anyone else and she always says 'because you treat me, like me'. We have had a wonderful life so far, hopefully we have many more years together.



Back to regular programming....

Working at the hospital I see many everyday and recently had a delightful couple married 73 years... they walked in hand in hand and she said we did the same before we got old...

Years ago I had a free airline ticket and decided on Detroit... made a pilgimige to as many automotive history sites as possible... really enjoyed my time there...

As a side note I was the only person visiting the Detroit auto museum...

Lots of visitors at other sites... Greenfield is amazing, Ford Home, etc...

PS... any of the in-laws collectors of the rich history and/or cars?

 

[the old grind]

re 5030's visits to our Buick site: Local 599 was quite progressive, now remains only a retiree chapter. We were the first to abandon time cards & clocks.

There was plenty of hiding 'way back', but mostly a culture of being out of sight and not found busy-work for. Assembly workers couldn't walk away from their jobs when the line was running. (AKA whistle to whistle) I did my short stint in mgt in factory 40 when we built Cutlass and Regal models, had great teams in two departments.

My superiors were dinosaurs who hated that I didn't flog my workers as if they needed to be kept in line. NOT! I went back to a grunt production job on the chassis line before we went down to build Buick City. For years afterward I'd run into one of several here or there who'd worked under me. They bought me drinks, and dances if they picked the bar.

Anyway, with the loss of so many GM Plants most tracks have been taken up too. When the wind is right I can hear a 'horn' in the distance. Two long, one short, one long means approaching an intersection. (q in Morse code) I bought plans to build a five chime air-horn & completed three just in time for new years but couldn't supply enough air to get full volume from the set. That and not having tuned them they'd have sounded awful if I could. I gave a good blast with one and gave up on the whole shebang. (All I want for Christmas is a Nathan P3 )

Meanwhile during lock-down I have my own trains to get back to.

Two separate & isolated lines. Most of my engines & rolling stock.

Yeah, I know, the SD-40 should have been in UP livery and the FM in Pennsy's tuscan red like Little Joe, but each was a good $ hun less to have the colors backwards. The GG-1 IS 'tuscan red with 5-stripe' and doesn't come out of the box often.

 

[ArlyA]

I did some modest work on swtich engines.

 

[ultrarunner]

Oakland, Detroit of the West, was home to Durant, Chevrolet and Peterbilt plant's with tracks long gone... Still remember stopping as the trains went by.

Trains and auto/truck plants go hand in hand...

Auto/Truck plants here tend to windup as shopping centers... to valuable to sit idle.

My Model A is local built at the SF Ford plant in 1930 which was actually in Richmond CA.

Still have some salvage ties from the big water front papermill which is no more... had its own yard engine, port, powerplant.

Engine sold for $1,000 when the plant was decommissioned.

 

[FTG-05]

I can't find any recent statistics, however, I keep finding references that suggest the U.S. automobile per capita rate is actually lower than most Western European countries, and most mega cities, meaning they own more personal vehicles per person than we do. [snip]

The link in post #530 says otherwise. The US is #4 in the world; most European countries are almost half that.