Running Bear’s August 2019 Coffee Shop


Status
Not open for further replies.
Today in Hokkaido, on the way to get the Shinkansen down to Sendai, I took these photos out of the window of our limited express diesel "Super Hokuto".

This is for the freight junkies

These shows the standard container flat car (called a KoKi). The standard container flat car is a 10x series (100 series) (with 104, 106, 107 in use and others found rarely). Most freight is carried in domestic 12' containers. You can put 5 of the 12' containers (series 19 or 20) on a KoKi 10x. They also have domestic 20' and 30' containers, and the 106/107 can also carry the international 40' container IIRC but the 40' international container cannot go on all lines due to loading gauge issues. (older domestic containers are similar in size to the 12' -- really early ones are 10' I believe and later 11' or 12' -- I forget).

IMG_2032.jpgIMG_2040.jpgIMG_2033.jpgIMG_2039.jpg

One of the vices in the modeling world for N-scale is to collect containers. I have a whole plastic bin full of them (in their original boxes) at home and I picked up a few more while here -- ones I couldn't remember if I had or not. I may have posted one of these before (the one that also has two packs of playing cards I bought at the same time)

IMG_1339 (1).jpgIMG_1923.jpg
 
Morning all,

Chad: Thanks for sharing all the picts from Japan. It is interesting how trains differ by country. Sounds like you're having a great trip. I've only been to one other country, but they aren't that different than the U.S.

Stormy morning in Doo-Dah, but nothing severe yet. We can use the rain again. It would figure that my yard was burning up once the sprinkler system started to act up, but once fixed, I haven't needed it, although it did run this morning before the rain hit. If I hadn't it wouldn't have rained.
 
Morning fellers. Or early afternoon? Which ever it is I hope everyone is doing well. My battle of the exhaust system on my truck is continuing. Newer trucks have very expensive parts! Not a single fix I have tried has worked out. Doesn't help our roads here in West Virginia are so rough I may as well be offroading everywhere I go. I suppose there's only one way to fix it and that's spend the money on parts needed to fix it stock. Guess the old school way of fixing exhaust no longer applies. Makes me miss my old bronco already..... Anyways moving on. I'll keep the B&O flavor going with some pics from around the Parkersburg, WV area. All the trackage there has been long since abandoned. There are some B&O style signals still standing there. One of which is right next to the road on the way in to Parkersburg. Hope y'all enjoy and I'll stop by again soon.
89579539_5243e36923_z.jpg

24956182464_0b2021ff78_b.jpg

8598324564_0fd2a78eea_b.jpg

Baltimore_and_Ohio_7401_freight_near_Keyser_West_Virginia_(Gafton_Line)_on_March_2,_1969_(2246...jpg
 
Good morning. 56 degrees with clear skies to start off the day with a high expected in the mid 80's.

I have been absent for a while as we had out of state visitors stay with us for a few days. We bounced around the state showing them many of the attractions in the area including a visit to Yellowstone Park.

Yesterday was a sad day for us as we had to put our loyal friend Hank to sleep. He was more than just a pet, but a family member. He loved kids and was so happy when the grand kids come over to visit.

View attachment 38471View attachment 38472View attachment 38473

He was 15, almost 16 and could hardly hear and his eyesight was very poor. In recent months he had lost almost half his body weight as you can see from the first to the second photo as he had stopped eating. He wasn'tfat. All muscle. He was skin and bones and his rear legs were getting very weak. In the last few weeks his quality of life was not good at all. He was terrified going to the vet so we had a mobile vet stop by so he wasn't in a strange place with strange people. We put his be up on a table for him and he was giving out kisses. Enough to tear your heart out. He went peacefully with his family with him. He is gone, but we have so many great memories of his tie with us.

I have a lot to catch up with on the forum. I have seen many posts on the phone but did not respond.

IB Ken - Glad to hear that you you are feeling better. Hope you have a full recovery soon.

Chad - Thanks for posting your photos. Looks like you are really enjoying yourself.

Justin - Really nice photos of the B&O sharks. View attachment 38474

Johnny - Another fine photo of your layout. Keep them coming.

Ray - Interesting trail on the MRL 382.

Dave - Nice photo. The module is coming along nicely.

Beady - Hope that your Big Boy shows up some time this century. I sent my F-7 B unit to Walthers for repair and when I changed my address I called to notify them and found out that they are backed up. Probably won't have it back in time to run it at the club as Thursday op sessions will end after Labor Day. I do not attend the Saturday night op sessions.

Willie - Great photos as usual. Can't believe all of the work you're getting done on your layout. Like the diner. I have the samer one and also put figures inside and lit the interior. Great kit.

View attachment 38475

Got a bit behind with the yard work playing tour guide with our visitors so I should get to work outside.

RIP HANK

View attachment 38476

Later.
Chet, I'm so sorry about Hank. We've served a total of seven cats; three are with us, one died peacefully in his sleep, two we had to put to sleep, but the one that still hurts was Misha, the one we didn't put to sleep. You did the right thing.

In happier news, I received an email invoice from Athearn this morning. They replaced my Big Boy's motor and drivers for free, even though it was out of warranty and I had never sent in the registration. So, good customer service or something wrong with the production run? Frankly, I don't give a damn.

Let's see; I haven't stirred the pot in a while. Let's see if I can rile our drive-by complainer.

FB_IMG_1564179437663.jpg
 
This is the Super Hokuto DMU we are riding on this very moment back to Hakodate, where we will catch the Shinkansen to Sendai. The Shinkansen goes through the Seikan Tunnel, which connects the island of Hokkaido to the island of Honshu, the main Island of Japan.

I believe it is a diesel hydraulic and as it accelerates and you hear the whine of the turbo, it sounds a lot like my former Dodge RAM 2500 with Cummins when you gunned that.

Hokkaido is not as electrified as the rest of Japan and so you get a lot more diesel run trains than elsewhere. And the Sapporo and Hakodate stations smell a lot more like diesel fumes.

View attachment 38490
Do these trains have wifi or are you paying a fortune in data charges?
 
Chet, I'm so sorry about Hank. We've served a total of seven cats; three are with us, one died peacefully in his sleep, two we had to put to sleep, but the one that still hurts was Misha, the one we didn't put to sleep. You did the right thing.

Hey Beady, we had 8 cats, one is still with us at age 18. The longest lived went 20 years, at the end we had to put her to sleep also she quit eating and after 4 days realized it was time. We really cried. She was born at our house.

We also had a cat named Misha. There was Blackie, Midge, Misha, Penny, Midnight, Timmy, Barny, and Woody is still with us. They were all females except Woody. He is very talkative, sometimes drives us crazy (as if we weren't already that way).
 
Still in the 90's with high humidity. Step into the sun and you'll broil.
Was supposed to meet CURT at JONs home but my get up and go had already left me. Stayed home and tried to catch up on older posts I had missed. Thanks for all the pictures in your posts. [makes for easy reading.]
Prayers for all of us.
Phil
 
Hey Beady, we had 8 cats, one is still with us at age 18. The longest lived went 20 years, at the end we had to put her to sleep also she quit eating and after 4 days realized it was time. We really cried. She was born at our house.

We also had a cat named Misha. There was Blackie, Midge, Misha, Penny, Midnight, Timmy, Barny, and Woody is still with us. They were all females except Woody. He is very talkative, sometimes drives us crazy (as if we weren't already that way).
Oh yeah, Kringle won't shut up, and is completely food driven. All of ours have been rescues: We found Ollie on our front porch when he was a month old, Kringle was from the shelter, and we just acquired Kiki from my mother, now that Mom is going into assisted living. We're still introducing Kiki to the boys; we've fenced off the spare room with baby gates and they look at each other through the door.
 

Attachments

  • 20190801_124121.jpg
    20190801_124121.jpg
    143.6 KB · Views: 94
  • 69_1521992122072.jpeg
    69_1521992122072.jpeg
    112.1 KB · Views: 133
  • 66_1521992138937.jpeg
    66_1521992138937.jpeg
    187.7 KB · Views: 121
I believe the reason they run the mini Shinkansen coupled with a regular Shinkansen on the normal Shinkansen track is because they only have to schedule one train instead of two. The Shinkansen run regularly and they have to keep a tight schedule to get all the runs in. I am pretty sure JR East (which these are) does not run as often as JR Central on the Tokaido Shinkansen (which is Tokyo and South) which can run every 6 minutes I believe during the busy times.

The mini Shinkansen run full speed coupled together wit the regular (using a type of Shibata coupler [Scharfenburg variant]) and then are uncoupled and run separately when they split off to cover territory that is not covered by normal Shinkansen tracks (the dual narrow and standard gauge tracks I mentioned). Normal Shinkansen tracks are standard gauge and dedicated to only Shinkansen. Once they split and run on the shared dual gauge track they run at the slower max speed of the normal track (which is like 130 kmh or so -- normal Shinkansen r8n 275-320 kmh)





Glad to share. I find the Japan rail system very interesting and much different than the US (or the European, where I have also spent a lot of time riding in the late 80s and again in the early 90s in Germany and a little in France and Switzerland and Scandinavia in the early 90s and again in Sweden / Denmark in 2016). Japan is really a rail oriented society and much of life revolves around the system and stations. And they are also a rail modeling society -- you find model trains all over the place in large electronic oriented department stores, large toy stores, and specialty hobby train shops.

To the Fuji question -- I've not been to Fuji on tis trip or on any of the previous 8 trips to Japan in the last 19 years. One of these days we will get there. We are usually based out of Amagasaki (near Osaka) and this time out of Kobe (also near Osaka but a bit farther away) so Fuji is not that close and we have just never put that on the agenda.

ETA: we leave Sendai in the morning heading to Tokyo and Yokohama, where we will visit a ramen museum, and then to Kobe on the Shinkansen. Sunday we'll take some local trains again to visit services, and Monday back to Tokyo for a few days of Disneyland and then in a week we fly home.
The wife spent a month in Japan for work, maybe 30 years ago. One place I would love to go is, um, Kanazawa, an original village and castle where they film all the Samurai movies (Seven Samurai is one of my favorite movies). Two hours from Tokyo via Shinkansen.
 
Do these trains have wifi or are you paying a fortune in data charges?

Some of them have Free WiFi -- typically the Shinkansen, and sometimes the higher class of limited express, though the WiFi is not that fast. I use T-Mobile which has free international data, but at 2G speeds. I paid an extra $15 before we left to double that (still 2G speeds but ever so slightly faster). So I am not paying data on cell service with money, just patience as things are terribly slow at 256kbps when uploading photos. Text based things like email is not bad.

Of course the hotels have WiFi (or my sister in laws place when we aren't galavanting around) though some of the hotels WiFi is also pretty slow (still faster than my slow 2G data).
 
Oh yeah, Kringle won't shut up, and is completely food driven. All of ours have been rescues: We found Ollie on our front porch when he was a month old, Kringle was from the shelter, and we just acquired Kiki from my mother, now that Mom is going into assisted living. We're still introducing Kiki to the boys; we've fenced off the spare room with baby gates and they look at each other through the door.
Kringle? Man, you’re making me crave a Kenosha Kringle!
 
We just left Sendai on "Hayabusa 108", an E5 Shinkansen run by JR East. Headed to Tokyo, the ride is about 1 h 34 m. From there well pick up a shinkansen to Yokohama, about 18 min ride. There is a ramen museum we want to visit. This next pic is the train as it stopped at the platform in Sendai.

IMG_2067.jpg

While we were waiting for our train, I noticed the train on the next platform over was a combined E5 and E6 trainset. The E6 is one of the mini Shinkansen I was talking about earlier (in red -- the blue -green is the full size E5). The mini Shinkansen are made to run at full speed on Shinkansen tracks and when coupled the pair goes at full speed (and takes only one scheduling slot for the track usage schedule). When the mini de-couples and goes on the shared dual gauge track it goes slower. As it is a narrower train, when stopping at full standard shinkansen stations it has little side panels that pop out to extend the entry way to the platform. Anyway, I took some pics of the coupled set at rest for those interested.

Modern Shinkansen are EMUs and I think about every other wagon is powered. Or thereabouts. The standard Hayabusa service E5 is 10 cars long (including end cars which include the driving cabs and seating usually). The E6 mini services are about 5 or 6 long I think. Not sure. (JR Central runs their N700A Shinkansens from Tokyo south in a 16 car configuration)

IMG_2060.jpgIMG_2061.jpg

Lastly, the breakfast of a weary traveler (bought at the station).

IMG_2069.jpg
 
Last edited:
Louis: You didn't mention the dissension in the dugout on Wednesday night, between Brandan Hyde and Chris Davis...very not good! Trumbo is back? that is certainly desperation or a desire between Trumbo and Davis to permantly own the most strike outs by hitter record, eh? My mercy, hon, things ain't good.

Boris
 
Status
Not open for further replies.



Back
Top