Running Bear's April 2020 Coffee Shop


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Espeefan said:
Thanks Louis. A couple things you should know: Though currently a white collar professional, I spent many years as a mechanic, starting as a shade tree, and moving on to paid work on everything from cars to jet aircraft. I ain't no spring chicken!

The Crossfire is basically a Mercedes 320 SLK platform, with a different body. It's a 2006. I bought it in 2009 with 14,000 miles on it. It was actually still under warranty. August will be our 11th anniversary. It's a 6 speed, powerful enough, and fun to drive. It'll cruise at 80 mph all day and not break a sweat, and the walk to 100 mph is a short one, though I've only done that once or twice. I kind of had to you understand. :) It tops out at 155 mph. I've never done that, I just happen to know that's where Mercedes set the computer and governor. With just a couple of exceptions I've always taken care of the car myself. Crossfires are tough. Chrysler doesn't really know what to do with them, and Mercedes will only work on the engine. The clutch is also original equipment. I fit winter tires on it or it wouldn't be drivable here in the Wisconsin winter, so the brakes get inspected twice a year.

Brake dust has always been an issue with these cars, as I confirmed through several owners forums. We are a smallish group and share a lot of information, as parts are starting to become scarce and it's getting to be more of a challenge to keep them running. I didn't attempt to turn the rotors, as I was replacing them anyway, but I believe they are one shot. In the never ceasing quest to reduce weight lots of newer cars have these one shot rotors. There's nothing to turn. They're just too thin. Being it's a Mercedes under the skin I have lots of electronic "nannies" to pester me about service and critical systems, but I've never needed them. It's been a good car, and I intend to keep on truckin' with it.
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Alan, as I said in your case "probably" and I said it twice.

And I also said "Brake dust in general terms, It's unavoidable in some cases."

Cutting edge, high performance cars are something all together different. It's not an impala with tried and true systems. Cutting edge sometimes means new theoretical designs with new issues. In your case brake dust.

You can never be 100% sure of most anything.

I'm sorry if it seemed like I was talking down to you, forgive me. All my years in retail has me always subconsciously thinking of liability. I don't ever want to leave something out for fear of something bad happening. Every once in a while I offend somebody with lots more experience than I expected or even I have.

I did not see in your original post you had replaced the rotors. Also, I agree with you about most modern rotors, especially "hat" rotors. they are disposable for the most part. Unless you have a very expensive, high quality brake lathe in your garage and lots of experience using it. I would never trust anyone to even touch the brakes on a car capable of 155mph!

It sounds like a great car and most of all it sounds like you love it. Cars are a matter of personal choice and I respect that.

Enjoy your hot rod and again, I'm sorry If I offended you in any way.
 
Morning all,

Coffee this morning...Thanks Flo.

I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired....That said, I'm rarely sick, just tired.

I changed the front brakes on my '09 Colorado last summer at 150,000 miles. Rears are still going good at 168,000. I still had 30% left on the fronts, but they had a brake sale. Still cost nearly $700 for front brakes and an oil change due to the way GM\Isuzu designed them. The rears have a nasty habit if being slightly soft, so they get adjusted at every other oil change. They key to long brake life is to never stop!!! Just run them off the road! (J/K)

Not much going on yet today. They have asked for volunteers to be furloughed, unfortunately the IT department along with Police and Fire are exempt. Dang, with the additional $600 in Federal money and max state unemployment, I'd just be about even....that said, I'm one who'd go nuts at home. My wife has already said I'm like a caged cat when I'm at home as it is....
 
NYC_George said:
his time the copay was $70.00 for 20 pills.
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George: Sounds like it was filled with the name Brand vs. the generic, and the Insurance company restricted the amount. They should be more transparent, concerning what they are selling you. The wife will need a refill, next week. I told her to order the refill early.
FWIW: According to a publication the wife gets on line, your wife's Rheumatologist can prescribe an alternative treatment, if the drug remains scarce.
 
Good Morning All. Partly cloudy and 55° to start my day. Expecting low-80's for the next four days after reaching 71° yesterday. Probable rain tomorrow, hopefully, we need some right now.
These warmer temperatures will most likely mean an end to the spinach plants in the garden, but the tomatoes and peppers will spurt upward. I don't have as many this year as usual, 42 tomato plants and 24 pepper plants, both bell and jalapeno. I spent yesterday adding compost and mulch to one of the tomato rows, the one with 30 plants. I also started adding the cages around them.

How about a Mexican omelet this morning Flo. Extra hot salsa on the side.

Thanks for all of the likes and comments regarding yesterday's post; Sherrel, Louis, Patrick, Jerome, Joe, Karl, Bob, Guy, George, Garry, Tom, Phil, Curt, Ken.

I made a side trip in the train shed yesterday. I have never purchased any of the ready-made backdrops for my layout, but I got a few thrown in when I made an estate sale purchase a few years back. I have this blank spot along the back wall between two low relief structures that needed some urban scenery.
04-18-20 002.JPG

The red picture is just something that I printed and is a bit out of scale.
The backdrop was a cut-off piece of a larger commercial one.
04-18-20 004.JPG

However those skyscrapers don't really fit the scene. So out came the scissors and here's the result.
04-18-20 005.JPG

I had to move the left structure a bit to the right, but I can still spot two boxcars there without fouling the switch.
Meanwhile, moving south down the layout after the bridge posted yesterday, we come to a more rural community. The first industry we encounter after the passing siding starts is a pallet manufacturer.
04-20-20 007.JPG

Seebold and Sons Manufacturing is a Campbell Scale Models structure from years ago. It's the only one of their kits that I have.
04-20-20 008.JPG

I do need to paint the backdrop in this area before proceeding with additional scenery, someday!

James - That drone video was rather well done, albeit illegal.
George - I'd say there's something amiss about that copay.

Today is National Kindergarten Day. How appropriate for our national politicians.
Everybody have a great day.
 
Good morning, y'all. Today started out sunny. That helps the disposition, eh?

Not much to contribute, this morning, I have a few pressing issues to attend to.

ENES coming across the Canal Moveable Bridge over the C&D Canal in DE..jpg

The Famous Canal Bridge on the Delmarva. Back in 1973, the bridge was struck by a freighter, resulting in a major catastrophe, for rail service and indirectly gave me the opportunity to sail the Chesapeake on a Penn Central Tug...(the Philadelphia, with captain Bull). This experience was one of the highlights of my railroad career. Obviously, the photo dates to Conrail days, and subsequently, the NS spun the line off to a shortline operator.
 
Bruette said:
Alan, as I said in your case "probably" and I said it twice.

And I also said "Brake dust in general terms, It's unavoidable in some cases."

Cutting edge, high performance cars are something all together different. It's not an impala with tried and true systems. Cutting edge sometimes means new theoretical designs with new issues. In your case brake dust.

You can never be 100% sure of most anything.

I'm sorry if it seemed like I was talking down to you, forgive me. All my years in retail has me always subconsciously thinking of liability. I don't ever want to leave something out for fear of something bad happening. Every once in a while I offend somebody with lots more experience than I expected or even I have.

I did not see in your original post you had replaced the rotors. Also, I agree with you about most modern rotors, especially "hat" rotors. they are disposable for the most part. Unless you have a very expensive, high quality brake lathe in your garage and lots of experience using it. I would never trust anyone to even touch the brakes on a car capable of 155mph!

It sounds like a great car and most of all it sounds like you love it. Cars are a matter of personal choice and I respect that.

Enjoy your hot rod and again, I'm sorry If I offended you in any way.
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Louis, You didn't offend me at all! I should have said that I appreciated the advice, but had it covered. I also should have added "and there's more than you ever wanted to know about the Crossfire!" but the post was running long. It's a weird little machine but has a sort of cult following. It was actually my wife's idea to buy it. She loves them. It's only real drawback besides the cost of parts is that it's something of a cop magnet. Things and Impala will get away with will get me pulled over. Once the cop just wanted to check out the car. I've only had two tickets since I bought it, and to be honest I deserved both of them. I tend to drive by feel as opposed to looking at the Speedo much and this car "feels good" at 80 mph. That's OK up here on the interstates, but you get so used to it that if you miss a speed limit change you can get into trouble :). I toyed with replacing it just before the apocalypse hit, mostly because parts and capable independent mechanics are getting hard to find, but since I don't put that many miles on it those plans are in on indefinite hold. It's all good!
 
Morning it is! Had a decent sleep last night - feel better today- so far!
Starting the day at 55 going up to 69 - was 70 yesterday - with partly sunny skies and scattered showers.
NOTE: Scattered showers normally bypass us here?

ALAN - Until my oldest daughter rear-ended a jacked-up P/U, we had a 2006 Pacifica. Cleaning the "dust" off the front wheels was a weekly chore. They would not stay clean!

Short and sweet this day - have to take the RV to the dealer for a recall on the hydraulic leveling system this morning.
Back at you later on!
 
Good Morning everyone!! And what a beautiful, happy morning it is! Already 40F at 7:00am, and headed for a 60ish high, in the sunshine.
I only have time for a couple of coffee's, as when the sky goes warm and blue, people start calling me up to build their projects.
Two calls yesterday; one to build six 7' outdoor planters, and one really ugly call. A freeze broken drain line under a mobile home has to be repaired. You have no idea how much I despise mobile homes placed in this cold environment. Buying a mobile home is a huge mistake, in my opinion. They are far and away too much trouble. And it is not cheap living.

Thanks for all the likes on my simple, yip-yap posts. I don't even have a layout yet; no-where easy to run a train. I try to keep the body of my posts relating to the hobby, none-the-less. Fact is, if one is only building structures and rolling stock, you are deeply involved in the hobby even without a proper layout.

Willie - I really like what you've done with that printed backdrop picture. Cutting it down made it fit right in there in a natural state. Good job!

Chadbag - I did indeed draw my stage name off of the McLeod River; it being my favorite river on the planet. I have fished it, camped and hunted along it's banks since childhood. The river is my one stable entity that brings me consistent comfort, no matter what the weather. The Athabaska is different; it will kill ya!

Awhile back, I posted a photo of a pedestrian bridge crossing the tracks; a 600grand white elephant that not a single person ever used. I mean, why climb up all those stairs when you can simply walk across the tracks.
Well, yesterday I came across someone actually using that monolithic waste of angle iron.
Here is a fireman, in full fire-fighting gear, going up one side and down the other, multiple times. He is using it as his training obstacle course.
I really do admire this front line fire-fighter for his effort, and give him huge respect.
BadBoy_04-20-2020.jpg


Anyway, I've got to get busy, and go crawl under a trailer to fix a leaking, smelly drain line. Yippee!
 
Just wanted to offer a "bravo" to the workmanship, specifically on weathering, executed on Running Bear's layout (if I didn't screw this one up too and got the wrong guy). I think it was dead on. A lot of railroaders believe they're grand masters of weathering. All you have to do is slap a lot of God-awful paint and some dry powers around and "shazam" - a gold metal award winning weathering job. Truth is, when it comes to weathering, most people have no idea what they're doing. You really have to know what's going on to get it right. There are some really gifted pros out there who will take on a project you send them if interested. These guys are fanatics! If it happens to be a loco, they will spend months hunting down info on an actual prototype that existed within the time period your loco was built and in service. They will study panel fitment and pour over accident reports. Spend hours looking at insurance photos of how and where the damage clam hours were charged, parts lists, reports on who did the repairs, how, when, and where. It may take over a year before they even touch the thing; but when you get it back, and your wallet is a lot lighter, you'll own a true work of art. I wish I was a millionth as good at doing anything.

Does that mean every engine you own should have the same level of weathering applied to it? No, of course not. A lot of guys are happy with what they've got - even proud of it. All I'm saying is from the pictures I saw, the weathering job was a notch or two above what's out there and deserves to be celebrated. After all, sometimes, at the end of the day, you'll be paying for it. You should be aware of what you're likely to end up with.
 
Afternoon All,

Did some house work then spent about 4 hours (split up) at the workbench. Today I finished placing windows on the walls, glued the walls together, put trim on, attached 2 more legs to the upper tipple and mounted the upper tipple walls to it's base. In the pictures both sets of tipples are the same color. Don't ask me why the upper looks so much darker.

Louis- Nice pictures. That would be a hard yard to model. I don't like ham like you do. On one 3 month deployment I did in the early 80's we had ham included in 2 of the 4 meals daily underway. It was also that nasty large institutional canned ham. It's been almost 40 years and I am just starting to eat spiral sliced ham, and then I like it cold better than warm.

Guy- Tichy must of changed their kits since I made mine, because mine had all the underside details included. Maybe a cost cutting measure. I would not want to do that sewage pipe repair.

Willie- Nice backdrop. Once you cut it down it looks like it belongs there. Seebold's looks good.

Joe- Great story and photo.

The front is facing the instructions.

20200421_142651.jpg

The front is facing the viewer.

20200421_142401_copy_3024x2268.jpg

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Hey Shop Dwellers! It's clear and 60*F with a 20mph NW wind in my Central MD neighborhood, with a freeze warning in effect for tonite.

The digital "office" has plenty of work to keep me busy for the full 8 hours every day (not complaining - I need the income), and with the return of above-freezing temperatures, lawn-mowing and related yard work has once again become a regular weekend chore. But this time I did manage to get a teensy bit more stuff done on the layout.

I've been at a creative impasse trying to decide what to do about a strip of open plywood between two rights-of-way, but on Sunday I decided to abondon my goal of trying to be a "Lance Mindheim junior" and instead, just tack down clumps of lichen that have been covered with Super-Leaf. Of course this wasn't a quick n' easy task; I had to cherry-pick the clumps at varying sizes and leaf colors and make sure they'd look natural, while also preventing them from being too wide to the point where they might snag a passing freight car. This is as far as I got before bedtime on Sunday (serious lens distortion with the cellphone camera 😣 ):
SouthBrklynLichenOnTheCurve.jpg


I was using that 89ft flatcar to test the curve overhang clearance. Soon as I have the rest of the vegetation planted, I'll need to put in a chain-link fence to establish a boundary between the pipe dealership (white gravel surface) and the steel mill railroad ROW. I have a Cornerstone fencing kit that I'm hoping I can use.

Louis - I'm enjoying the pics you're sharing of the Chessie motive power. I recall back in November '72 when the first Chessie locos appeared at Riverside, I hated the scheme because (1) it seemed too kitsch and (2) it obliterated the distinctions between the three member railroads (B&O, C&O and WM). But now after all these years and seeing archive photos of them weathered, I have a totally different perspective and I've gotten to the point where I'm kinda fond of them! But I still keep my modeling era ending at September 1972 (prior to Chessie) in order to keep a lid on my mrr spending!

Joe, I sailed under that [then-PC] lift bridge at the age of 15, when my Father and I were helping one of his friends bring a sailboat down to Annapolis MD from Cape May NJ. We had to blast one of those air horns-in-a-can to get the operator to raise raise the bridge so the mast could clear it.
 
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Louis, my very first model was a Chessie GP38-2 (we pick road name from TrainWorld in NY) so have had a nostalgic spot for them. I've only seen two in person, one called Patches on the PCC in eastern Washington and one at MPI in Boise, in for a rebuild.

Nice job on the buildings and background, Willie.

Bruette, have you ever heard Leo Moracchioli? He's a 'Tuber that makes everything into metal, kid songs, pop songs, metal, whatever. I enjoy watching him just because of how much fun it looks like he's having. One of my favorites is his cover of Adele's "Hello". Another is "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

I've not been motivated today, I woke up with a head ache and it's just now leaving. I did look at the YouTubes and they suggested this video of the line between Matucana and San Mateo, Peru. Wow. That GE sounds really good and has the infamous flame thrower going on too @ 18:32.

First a Google route map to orient yous all. https://goo.gl/maps/DEid7DkRmMoukp1Q8
An interesting view of the lower switchback with extra drama, https://goo.gl/maps/2AeFLeSe4UueLqAr8 Not sure how that happened, they are going up the hill.
A cool bridge with the road threading the piers. https://goo.gl/maps/MPQwVAQ5Q52K7Brm9

And the video,

I'm going to try and do something now.
 
Espeefan said:
I tend to drive by feel as opposed to looking at the Speedo much and this car "feels good" at 80 mph. That's OK up here on the interstates, but you get so used to it that if you miss a speed limit change you can get into trouble :).
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Yeah I tend to drive the same way and have caught myself going much faster than I should be. Even though I drive an Audi with a VW 1.4 Turbo in it (and electric aux drive -- A3 e-tron PHEV) it is still an Audi and feels smooth and sure (as sure as you can in a small hatchback).

I've driven the autobahn in Germany a bunch of times, and a few times drove Mercs. One time was in 1991 or early 1992 when I had a borrowed Mercedes of some sort after an accident left my car, a US Made VW Golf, in the shop. The shop owner was a friend and loaned me his Merc. It was super smooth and you did not feel like you were going the 80-100 mph you were. I didn't really test it out much, with only a couple minute "high speed" run on the Autobahn since it was a friend's loaner. That was when I lived there 91-93.

The other time was when I was on a short visit (long weekend) after finding $300 round trip from Boston to Munich and a YES concert in Stuttgart to go to. I got to Munich on the plane on a Saturday morning and had a little micro sub compact car reserved for like $45 for the whole 5 days. (Those were the days). Anyway, I get to the car rentals and wait in line. They only have a Mercedes C180 left on the lot. So guess what I drove for $45 for 5 days. It was only a 4 banger 1.8 liter but it was still a Mercedes. And it was smooth. It only topped out at 135mph (yes I pressed it until it wouldn't go any faster), and on the A8 from Munich to Stuttgart there are not that many places where the speed limit is/was unlimited, but as you got near Stuttgart, the last 50 miles or so, it opened up from a 2 lane each direction highway, to something like 6 or 7 lanes. The normal 120kmh / 75mph from the two lanes part of the highway felt like you were going 50 mph in any other car. Super smooth. You did not realize how fast you were going (not that 75mph is super fast). But as it opened up and the pedal went to the metal, so to speak, going > 100 mph felt like you were going 60mph in any other car and the max speed of 135mph felt like maybe 75mph. It was super smooth and made me a believer. The nice thing is, most better German cars feel that way to a certain extent. Obviously the $20k VW is not as smooth but it still travels well at faster speeds. And the higher end cars are proportionally smoother (and more expensive). I've had various A3/A4/A6 Audi loaners when servicing my Audi and they are all pretty smooth.

My 88 Golf GT (US Made) topped out at 105mph on the Autobahn and you felt that it was topped out. It didn't shake and rattle as much as an 80s era American car probably would have but it was not the same smooth ride. The late 09s Ford Ka super sub compact I had in 2000 in Germany topped out at around 95 mph and again was not Mercedes smooth, but the wife told me I needed to slow down so I went from 95 mph to 90 mph and she was happy. She did not realize I had changed very much as it got a lot smoother.

I guess the Germans design for Autobahn travel at all levels of their cars so they have a lot of experience.


Sorry for the ramble.
 
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