Running Bear's Coffee Shop LII


BigE - I am a big fan of MB Klein. I have no hobby shops at all in my area. I was pretty well at a standstill for years because of this until on lone retailers came on the scene. MB Klein is probably my number one place to look, although I have used others. I'm sure that Louis will vouch for them, as well as many others on the forum. The do sell at below retail. I usually get a few promotion emails a week from them also.

Kadee couplers have pretty well been the standard in model railroading for quite some time. I started working on my layout almost 30 years ago. Many, if not most of my freight equipment was build during the beginning of the layout construction, and Kadee couplers were installed on all of my locomotives and rolling stock before they ever hit the rails. In recent years other manufacturers have introduced knuckle type couplers, such as McHenry, Bachmann and so forth, but I still stick with my Kadees because they are metal, and the others are plastic. In fact I have been replacing older Kadee couplers with the smaller, closer to scale 148's and 158's. One thing I would recommend is that you pick up a Kadee coupler height gauge which sits on the rails and lets you adjust the coupler heights to the correct height. Havig a train come apart can be a pain in the butt. Kadee also has washers that can be placed between the frame and truck to raise the height of a car to the correct height.

Metal wheels have been posted on the forum also. When I started building my freight car fleet, the majority of them being old Athearn blue box kits, Kadee wheels, or even sprung Kadee trucks were installed. In recent years, companies such as Intermountain have also come out with some excellent metal wheel sets. I have been using them also. I would suggest looking into replacing plastic wheels. I have some freight cars that are near 30 years old and are still in use and I have had little or no problems with then at all because I took the time to "do it right" from the start. It can be really frustrating having derailments and one of the causes besides bad track work, can be problems with couplers or wheels.

I don't want to sound like a know it all, but I am talking from many years in the hobby and the school of hard knocks.
 
BigE - I am a big fan of MB Klein. I have no hobby shops at all in my area. I was pretty well at a standstill for years because of this until on lone retailers came on the scene. MB Klein is probably my number one place to look, although I have used others. I'm sure that Louis will vouch for them, as well as many others on the forum. The do sell at below retail. I usually get a few promotion emails a week from them also.

Kadee couplers have pretty well been the standard in model railroading for quite some time. I started working on my layout almost 30 years ago. Many, if not most of my freight equipment was build during the beginning of the layout construction, and Kadee couplers were installed on all of my locomotives and rolling stock before they ever hit the rails. In recent years other manufacturers have introduced knuckle type couplers, such as McHenry, Bachmann and so forth, but I still stick with my Kadees because they are metal, and the others are plastic. In fact I have been replacing older Kadee couplers with the smaller, closer to scale 148's and 158's. One thing I would recommend is that you pick up a Kadee coupler height gauge which sits on the rails and lets you adjust the coupler heights to the correct height. Havig a train come apart can be a pain in the butt. Kadee also has washers that can be placed between the frame and truck to raise the height of a car to the correct height.

Metal wheels have been posted on the forum also. When I started building my freight car fleet, the majority of them being old Athearn blue box kits, Kadee wheels, or even sprung Kadee trucks were installed. In recent years, companies such as Intermountain have also come out with some excellent metal wheel sets. I have been using them also. I would suggest looking into replacing plastic wheels. I have some freight cars that are near 30 years old and are still in use and I have had little or no problems with then at all because I took the time to "do it right" from the start. It can be really frustrating having derailments and one of the causes besides bad track work, can be problems with couplers or wheels.

I don't want to sound like a know it all, but I am talking from many years in the hobby and the school of hard knocks.


LOL This 'babe in the woods' sure does love soakin up this kinda wisdom, you guys are 'da Man', 'E' 'Whiskey Merchant', LOL, everybody with an actual layout, I'm sure you've forgotten most of what I'm about to learn! If I don't get snagged somewhere it won't feel like I've 'paid my dues', but I probably don't have to worry about that! LOL
 
Wish you didn't bring up forgetting things. This is a fact. Over the years I have learned a lot and now when I look at some of the projects, I often wonder how I did that.
 
LOL This 'babe in the woods' sure does love soakin up this kinda wisdom, you guys are 'da Man', 'E' 'Whiskey Merchant', LOL, everybody with an actual layout, I'm sure you've forgotten most of what I'm about to learn! If I don't get snagged somewhere it won't feel like I've 'paid my dues', but I probably don't have to worry about that! LOL

It's not so much about forgetting stuff learned. It's really more of a matter you take it for granted after you've done it so many times. Like with me swapping out couplers on those inter-modals yesterday. I had those nearly 15 cars done in about 30 minutes including a beer and smoke break and never gave it a thought.
But I was about like you are now. I couldn't even figure out which ones to get or even did I want to take a fleet-wide swap-out. Of course all my new DCC engines came with Kaydees so unless I was going to run them solo, NOT, I pretty much had to do it. I certainly wasn't going to downgrade them to a lessor coupler.
I figured it would take me a couple days of off-and-on to get it all done since I had no idea what I was doing.
Fortunately after just a few cars, I had a trick or two figured out for I was getting pretty quick about it. Couplers that needed height adjustment took longer of course. And, some cars I had to take the trucks off.
I had almost all of them done by that same evening.

Over time you'll find and figure out your own tricks just like we all have. Wish these fellers would have told me about those coupler springs months ago however!!!
In my particular case I hadn't really messed with any trains in over 30 years so I had forget a lot of "my ways". DCC is a fine example. Except for that, the electronics has changed much but there are tons more new and cool stuff one can do.

One of the "guys" offered to come over from Birmingham to show me some of his tricks. I was having track and derailment issues at the time. He took care of that in short order but better yet is he taught what to look for in the future and how to fix it. I had one such issue yesterday in fact. I also had a few "slow" spots and he asked me about my feeders. I had only 3 then. One for each outer loops and one for the yard. He suggested to add more. At least have 2 for each outer loop. I was short a terminal bus to do what I thought would be "right" electrically so I ordered a different. I now have 11 or 12 feeders (11 I think) and no "slow" spots. That took a complete re-wiring of all the track but I had that done in an afternoon.

You'll be fine. Just think of how much of a variety of skills you'll have!
E
 
I wonder if any of you "more experienced" model railroaders (a nice way of way saying "you older guys" [I do mean that in fun]) ever know John Allen? I remember him being famous for scenery.
I ran across an article a few days ago and his name came up. I remember an issue of MR Mag. had a picture and this ENORMOUS trestle called the "John Allen Memorial Bridge". Had to have been some time in the early or mid 70s. I remember the cover of that issue with a picture of him super-imposed to side of the trestle. (yes, I have an eidetic memory on some things) I think it was somewhere out in California.
I just remember being in awe looking at pics they published.

I'm just curious. Every time I see one of my MR Mags I think about that issue.
E.
 
When I was in the Navy stationed at Mare Island on temporary instructor duty in the late 60's I had the opportunity to attend a number of operating sessions on the Gorre & Daphetid. I was in awe of the layout and enjoyed the little tricks John would pull on the operators. Little did I imagine how famous this railroad would become. He lived in Monterey, California.
 
When I was in the Navy stationed at Mare Island on temporary instructor duty in the late 60's I had the opportunity to attend a number of operating sessions on the Gorre & Daphetid. I was in awe of the layout and enjoyed the little tricks John would pull on the operators. Little did I imagine how famous this railroad would become. He lived in Monterey, California.

Yeah, I bet that would make for a jaw-dropping coffee-table picture-book. I'd like one.
E.
 
FNG: I hope you are not only hanging out here. There are many, many other posters in other sections of this forum who don't visit the coffee shop.
I usually, like now, have to 2 tabs opened (among others) where 1 is here at the coffee shop and the other the top-level forum so I can go peruse what else is going on outside our little diner.

You realize you'll soon have to change your sobriquet/moniker/handle don't you? You won't be the cherry-FNG for much longer and be neck-deep before you know.
I say that because I clearly need a new avatar and signature especially since I'm fixin to have a b-day next month.

And for some fun for yourself and historical purposes, document everything you are doing - like a diary.
Since I didn't have camera back in Dec. I wrote down what I got done that day. I also documented all the electrical work should I have to re-visit it. Thank goodness I did! I've had to rely on those note already.

Just some words of advice.
E.
PS: I forget about you lowered tolerance for adult drink. My apologies.
 
It's not so much about forgetting stuff learned. It's really more of a matter you take it for granted after you've done it so many times. Like with me swapping out couplers on those inter-modals yesterday. I had those nearly 15 cars done in about 30 minutes including a beer and smoke break and never gave it a thought.
But I was about like you are now. I couldn't even figure out which ones to get or even did I want to take a fleet-wide swap-out. Of course all my new DCC engines came with Kaydees so unless I was going to run them solo, NOT, I pretty much had to do it. I certainly wasn't going to downgrade them to a lessor coupler.
I figured it would take me a couple days of off-and-on to get it all done since I had no idea what I was doing.
Fortunately after just a few cars, I had a trick or two figured out for I was getting pretty quick about it. Couplers that needed height adjustment took longer of course. And, some cars I had to take the trucks off.
I had almost all of them done by that same evening.

Over time you'll find and figure out your own tricks just like we all have. Wish these fellers would have told me about those coupler springs months ago however!!!
In my particular case I hadn't really messed with any trains in over 30 years so I had forget a lot of "my ways". DCC is a fine example. Except for that, the electronics has changed much but there are tons more new and cool stuff one can do.

One of the "guys" offered to come over from Birmingham to show me some of his tricks. I was having track and derailment issues at the time. He took care of that in short order but better yet is he taught what to look for in the future and how to fix it. I had one such issue yesterday in fact. I also had a few "slow" spots and he asked me about my feeders. I had only 3 then. One for each outer loops and one for the yard. He suggested to add more. At least have 2 for each outer loop. I was short a terminal bus to do what I thought would be "right" electrically so I ordered a different. I now have 11 or 12 feeders (11 I think) and no "slow" spots. That took a complete re-wiring of all the track but I had that done in an afternoon.

You'll be fine. Just think of how much of a variety of skills you'll have!
E


WOW! What is this? Some kind of Psychic Hotline? The guy I'm ordering from just called to ask if the 120 wired connectors on the order was for real! LOL Shoot, that's ONLY 60 pairs! I'm gonna be droppin down for power at switches and every 3-6 feet in general. That is the 'plan' anyways, that a good standard? Solder most, not every one, (expansion) down the way and I 'ought' to be good?
 
Gary, I'm sorry to have to tell you that Jeffrey passed away last year from a stroke, while he was in rehab after getting his 2nd foot amputated.:(

Mr. Ken, Gosh I sure hate to read that. I knew that he was having a real go with it, there for a bit. Glad to see that you guys have kept this going for him.
 
WOW! What is this? Some kind of Psychic Hotline? The guy I'm ordering from just called to ask if the 120 wired connectors on the order was for real! LOL Shoot, that's ONLY 60 pairs! I'm gonna be droppin down for power at switches and every 3-6 feet in general. That is the 'plan' anyways, that a good standard? Solder most, not every one, (expansion) down the way and I 'ought' to be good?

Really? You're asking my opinion? I am humbled Sir!

Personally I don't think it's necessary to solder every joint. I just solder the "problem spots" other wise a new joiner worked fine. Remember, all was my stuff was all basement musty fodder from over 30 years ago. I just made do with what I had at the time. I don't use wired joiners anymore, but I did in the past. Now I solder direction to the rails at a joint.
As any plumber will tell you "the more joints you have, the more opportunities for failures you have". It's true.
The down side for you being in the North is expansion and contraction unless you have a climate controlled basement. With the amount of track you are talking about putting down, that might be worthy of consideration.
Others can chime in on this. My stuff is in my spare bedroom so it suffers the same as I do. (I don't run my heat in the winter, just some electric heaters is enough for me).
You said you already have the boosters so don't worry about power. Sounds like you have that covered.

Man I wish I was nearby to help. I just love seeing people building something and "gettin 'er done" - whatever it is. If I can be part of that effort, cool. I wouldn't bat an eye to take a 2-day bus ride to spend a week in your fun times.
I only got 75-80' of track on what I have now. In hindsight, I'm still wishing I would have built the layout here in the living room and moved the stuff up to the spare room. Someone mentioned recently when I lamented about that: "I wondered how long it take before you thought of expanding."

Do you know what code track you got? Make sure it's all the same and the joiners will work for it. My stuff is all a mix of nickel-silver and sectional and some flex. I know the "analists" (not analyst) probably abhore the thought but that's all I had to work with - and made it work! So "nanny nanny boo boo" to the nay sayers and rivet counters.
E.
 
FNG: I hope you are not only hanging out here. There are many, many other posters in other sections of this forum who don't visit the coffee shop.
I usually, like now, have to 2 tabs opened (among others) where 1 is here at the coffee shop and the other the top-level forum so I can go peruse what else is going on outside our little diner.

You realize you'll soon have to change your sobriquet/moniker/handle don't you? You won't be the cherry-FNG for much longer and be neck-deep before you know.
I say that because I clearly need a new avatar and signature especially since I'm fixin to have a b-day next month.

And for some fun for yourself and historical purposes, document everything you are doing - like a diary.
Since I didn't have camera back in Dec. I wrote down what I got done that day. I also documented all the electrical work should I have to re-visit it. Thank goodness I did! I've had to rely on those note already.

Just some words of advice.
E.
PS: I forget about you lowered tolerance for adult drink. My apologies.

In motion most of the day, pop in here to keep up the fires. Been giving a new handle some thought, it will be coming soon, with a pic for the profile.

S'okay bout the drinkin, the spirit is willing but, you know the drill.
 
NG: this will blow your mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7I_z6k-MOY

By the way, the artistic cuties is the future Mrs. White (my last name is White). She doesn't know it yet.
Then again I'm likely old enough to be her dad.
That'd be my luck.
I'd still to have her for an artistic director - not I could afford it..
....... alas.......
Eric
 
Really? You're asking my opinion? I am humbled Sir!

Personally I don't think it's necessary to solder every joint. I just solder the "problem spots" other wise a new joiner worked fine. Remember, all was my stuff was all basement musty fodder from over 30 years ago. I just made do with what I had at the time. I don't use wired joiners anymore, but I did in the past. Now I solder direction to the rails at a joint.
As any plumber will tell you "the more joints you have, the more opportunities for failures you have". It's true.
The down side for you being in the North is expansion and contraction unless you have a climate controlled basement. With the amount of track you are talking about putting down, that might be worthy of consideration.
Others can chime in on this. My stuff is in my spare bedroom so it suffers the same as I do. (I don't run my heat in the winter, just some electric heaters is enough for me).
You said you already have the boosters so don't worry about power. Sounds like you have that covered.

Man I wish I was nearby to help. I just love seeing people building something and "gettin 'er done" - whatever it is. If I can be part of that effort, cool. I wouldn't bat an eye to take a 2-day bus ride to spend a week in your fun times.
I only got 75-80' of track on what I have now. In hindsight, I'm still wishing I would have built the layout here in the living room and moved the stuff up to the spare room. Someone mentioned recently when I lamented about that: "I wondered how long it take before you thought of expanding."

Do you know what code track you got? Make sure it's all the same and the joiners will work for it. My stuff is all a mix of nickel-silver and sectional and some flex. I know the "analists" (not analyst) probably abhore the thought but that's all I had to work with - and made it work! So "nanny nanny boo boo" to the nay sayers and rivet counters.
E.

All code 100 track, temp only varies a little seasonally, downright cool in the summer, not freezing in the winter, it's a deep basement. One half anyways, the other parts degenerate as you get under older sections of the house, down to good ole "Michigan" type basement made for the people of the Land of OZ!

I dunno bout thumbing at the 'Detail Dudes'! They keep the manufacturers 'on the bounce'! Many times I wish I had that level of knowledge to KNOW what I'm looking at on the rails. I can tell ya the name of almost every vehicle of almost any Nations Armed forces of WW2 to the present from an outline hand drawing, LOL, but I could barely recognize the big steamer I was checking out at the park yesterday was maybe an oil burner instead of coal! I don't know JACK! Kinda the reason I'm getting a little extra on some things, I know I'm gonna screw up some materials learning! LOL
 
Good afternoon, everybody .

I just returned from Alabama where we celebrated my mother's 96th birthday. It was good to have a family get together. My mother still plays the piano very well. In addition to AL family members, others were there from NC and MI. ... While there, we went to the Cvil Rights Museum in Birmingham. Interesting. I recall some of the events in the news in the 1960's pertaining to civil rights. It is across the street from the well known 16th Avenue Baptist Church. ... I think we can be thankful for progress since the 1960's... Then I'll say no more to refrain from politics.

Looks each of you has been very busy, and I hope to catch up on your posts.

I am anxious to get back to my model railroad too.
 
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Evening All,

The exchange trip went fine on Sunday other than spending a lot of money. I reworked the offending curve. It took around 2.5 hours to finally get it right and my 4 problem child's go through it at 50 smph in both directions without issue. The radius is a little more than 20" but les than 21" which is the biggest I can do. The 4 problem child's are:

1. My Dad's WM 2-6-6-2. Had to adjust the fascia a little outwards to account for loco swing.

2. K4s- No issue before or after.

3. FP7 ABA- Now no issues

4. BF-16 AA hard wired together- Now no issues.

20150804_113947_zpslgrhvfuz.jpg


I hope everyone has a good night.
 
NFG, probably a better and cheaper alternative to ordering all those wired joiners is to get two rolls of wire, one red, and one black. Get an inexpensive soldering iron, some fine rosin-core solder, and a small tin of flux. Get a couple packages of rail joiners, and strip the wires, and solder them to the bottom of the joiners. Cost will probably be a tenth of the pre-made ones, leaving more money for trains, and you will be gaining experience and soldering skills on something not absolutely critical, if you screw one up. Just make half black wire, and half red wire, and put all the red wires on the outer rail, and all the black ones on the inner rail. It makes it a lot easier to wire if everything is color-coded.
 
Good evening!

I got my track cleaned, a few locomotives running, even a small complete train running. I'll add more to the tracks tomorrow, hopefully.

Garry I am glad to hear you had a safe trip, tell your Mom We said happy birthday. As for the progress of our great nation, I am amazed and very happy, but we still have a way to go. I am confident we will get there because Americans can do anything! We are the best because we are made up of all the rest.

Curt they are great looking locomotives, thank you for posting the picture and congratulations on a job well done.

Now it's time for my grandson and I to get our showers and get ready for bed.

Here is a picture of one of the locomotives on my rails P3311578.jpg

Have a great night everybody!
 
Good late afternoon/evening fellow engineers and track foreman,

What started out as an attempt to offer a few, MTH 80-3247-1* Union Pacific Challenger 4-6-6-4 Oil fired Loco's #3975 very reasonable price was short lived when I found out that what was left went! Oh well.


Wish you didn't bring up forgetting things. This is a fact. Over the years I have learned a lot and now when I look at some of the projects, I often wonder how I did that.


Yeah Chey, Things take a back seat after awhile with the railroads, that's for sure.


When I was in the Navy stationed at Mare Island on temporary instructor duty in the late 60's I had the opportunity to attend a number of operating sessions on the Gorre & Daphetid. I was in awe of the layout and enjoyed the little tricks John would pull on the operators. Little did I imagine how famous this railroad would become. He lived in Monterey, California.

Say Chet, Now that must have been quite a highlight alright to have actually operated a train on and have been able to see the Gorre & Daphetid Railroad! I have a small folder type book about John Allen and his railroad and he used a play on words at times such as Daphetid as he said he wasn't sure if it should be read as Deafeated or Daph-tid for starting such a vast project!

You need to keep several things in mind dealing with his building the G&D layout. I was 15 by the end of the year in 1960 and working on my second layout with my Dad. At that time Atlas Flex track was made with half height fiber ties with fairly heavy metal staples that came up from under every other tie and crimped onto the bottom web of the rail. This made attempting to flex the track a real job and the fiber board ties were rather sharp and would dig into your hands in the process. The only good thing about it was once you got the curvature you wanted it didn't move or change, nothing like it is today. Many of the modelers did the same thing I'm doing by hand laying their rail on wood ties like I started doing years back or using True-Scale pre milled wood road bead that had the slot for the bottom web of the rail to slide through very similar to the current flex track except all made from milled Pine I believe. So it was a slow go back then. DC was the only power source an transformers were in their infancy compared to what even more recent prior years transformers were.

Chet can probably verify much of this as well as others on the forum here such as Garry, both Ken's and probably other Old Timers on here.

Chet it would be very interesting to here some of the tricks that John would pull on the operators?

I do remember that he had one area of the layout that vistores used to have a tendency to want to lean on knock stuff down or break it, so he made a fence using nails he cut the heads off of and drilled holes in the table top and pressed them in place and when people would holler ouch cause they got stuck, by the disguised fence posts he'd say, 'Do you know those posts are sharp'?

John was a Pro & Commercial Photogrpher and did photography for Varney and other RR manufacturers. When I was around 12 or 13 yrs old, I remember an young fellow but older than I was by probably 10 years who also lived on Topanga Canyon Blvd., the next block North from where I lived and across the Blvd on the East side of Topanga. His name was John Allen too and his father was a commercial photogrqpher and they had quite a layout they were working on in one half of his garage as I recall. There were rail spikes all over the floor as I remember. Of course at that time they were much larger than what I now use so a lot more visable. Anyway they moved away the next year and I often wonder if it may have been the same guy? I assume he followed in the footsteps of his Dad as I said before John did Commercial Photography too? I may never know?



Mr. Ken, Gosh I sure hate to read that. I knew that he was having a real go with it, there for a bit. Glad to see that you guys have kept this going for him.

Say Garry, I'm sorry, I thought you knew Jeffrey passed away, he died around 4:30 Am the morning of Dec 15th. my birthday. I was born at about 1:15 Am. It was a sad day for me as Jeffrey was only 52 as I recall, way too young to pass on. I talked with his sister Lael a number of times after that and why I made up the, 'Little Dinner Sign', I put on my Horseshoe Meadow Depot in memory of Jeffrey and others have done the same such as Curt who named a, Pass area on is layout after Jeffrey'!


Good afternoon, everybody .

I just returned from Alabama where we celebrated my mother's 96th birthday. It was good to have a family get together. My mother still plays the piano very well. In addition to AL family members, others were there from NC and MI. ... While there, we went to the Cvil Rights Museum in Birmingham. Interesting. I recall some of the events in the news in the 1960's pertaining to civil rights. It is across the street from the well known 16th Avenue Baptist Church. ... I think we can be thankful for progress since the 1960's... Then I'll say no more to refrain from politics.

Looks each of you has been very busy, and I hope to catch up on your posts.

I am anxious to get back to my model railroad too.

Garry, Glad you could once again go down to bee with your Mother, God Bless her at age 96!


Evening All,

The exchange trip went fine on Sunday other than spending a lot of money. I reworked the offending curve. It took around 2.5 hours to finally get it right and my 4 problem child's go through it at 50 smph in both directions without issue. The radius is a little more than 20" but les than 21" which is the biggest I can do. The 4 problem child's are:

1. My Dad's WM 2-6-6-2. Had to adjust the fascia a little outwards to account for loco swing.

2. K4s- No issue before or after.

3. FP7 ABA- Now no issues

4. BF-16 AA hard wired together- Now no issues.

20150804_113947_zpslgrhvfuz.jpg


I hope everyone has a good night.


Say Curt, Glad you got the problem area of your curved corrected, all to often it's just a minor tight spot at a certain location that causes problems. I have several on my new track work too. I think the little folk or about ready to give me the boot! ??


I hope all have a very good evening!
 



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