Running Bear's September 2020 Coffee Shop


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Good Morning All. Partly cloudy and 64° in the neighborhood. Pleasant weather for the next ten days with a slight chance of rain Thursday. Highs in the mid 80's and lows in the lower to mid 60's. Great time to enjoy the outdoors.
Headed out in a few minutes to my quarterly doctor visit at 9:30. They'll siphon off a little blood and sell it to Wadley for extra income. Trip will be worthwhile as I will be in proximity to the LHS, well local to me, and I will "shop til I drop". I'll be looking for model RR paints, vehicles, DPM modular walls and hopefully a structure or two that will fit into the "on hold" town that I worked on during the summer.

A short stack of pancakes and a handful of bacon for me this morning Flo.

Thanks to all of my fellow Coffee Shop visitors who liked or commented on yesterday's post; Lee, Dave, Jerry, Tom, Karl, Tom O, Chet, Chad, Jerome, Curt, Phil, Garry, Patrick.

Made it out to the train shed for a short spell yesterday afternoon. Painted more details.
Added a customer of my own to the inside counter with Jackie the counter waitress (Roseanne's sister).
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Look at the prices on that menu board. Actually predates my era by a few years, but no one will notice.
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One thing about these Woodland Scenics kits, (I have done three before) is that all of the details that they provide have predetermined positions with posts and slots for them to mate up with.
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That means that you have to either put them there or cut/file/fill to put them elsewhere. I normally just go with the flow.
OK, a further mock-up with some details in place, roof has been painted black and all roof details have been added.

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The supplied vehicle is partially assembled and painted, and now ready for assembly.
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Actually before assembly, I'll paint the body trim, lights and convertible cover.

Guy - I'll get those stripes lined up eventually. They're just not easy for me. They're raised cross sections of the poles and between paint running off into the crevices, and the brush slipping off, they look awful right now. I fixed parts of two of them yesterday, but I need another couple of patient sessions to complete all four.
That autorack video is all over the Internet now. I didn't listen to the sound, but it's interesting that the camera person was in perfect position, almost like it was staged.
Sherrel - Glad that you were around to snap that picture before the depot burned down!;)
Chet - Those critters are just some of the ones that wander by the house. The mountain lion, coyotes, feral hogs, deer and bobcats stay about 300 yards to the south. Although some deer have paid a visit over the years. Occasionally small flocks of those geese will spend the night on my pond.
Sure is a lot of work to do up there when the seasons change. And you have yet to deal with the winter tires! Thankfully all I have to do is park the tractor/mower. But only for two months...mowing season here is February-November with a slight break in August unless it rains.
Breakfast looked good yesterday. Need to pass the recipe to Mel and the girls.
Chad - As an old school DC dude, your post yesterday made absolutely no sense to me. o_O Just kidding of course. I am learning though.
Joe - OK, for us non professional railroaders, what the heck is a "promotion to the Blue Room"??? Expansion is coming along nicely.
Alan - You have far more patience than me. I would have set it aside for a couple of days before picking it back up.

Today is National Sober Day. To each his own. I'll have a drink or two to celebrate and wash down supper.
Everyone have a great day.
 
Morning all. Flo Cheese omelette and Raisin Toast

Joe. Nice layout pics thanks for sharing

Alan. I agree with Willie more patients than I have

Troy. Layout looks nice I like those risers

Chet. That dish you cook up looks good now need to poor some homemade milk gravy on it

Mike. Thanks for the complement

Curt. Layout is nice an your moving right along and thanks for the complement

Jerry. Thanks for posting that ad

Willie. The Dairy Bar looks good and I wish too your Dad could see all the cool stuff has to offer

Yesterday I re- grouped on the HO layout and made a video of my Walthers FA2 Thanks for all the likes and complements yesterday. I’ll check in later


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Glad that you were around to snap that picture before the depot burned down!
Sure feels like it this morning. WILLIE, I am going to join KARL in the convalescent area today!
The barrels are crammed full except for one remaining stump that I just did not have the energy to get out; it may lounge there for a couple days longer. I took an Advil before lying down and I feel that another may be in order in a couple? Everything is stiff this morning (rephrase) MOST everything is stiff this morning (except what I wish still was!)
That little structure is turning out to be an awesome build, Willie. The details are outstanding!

ALAN - like Willie said - you have a lot of patience - I might have walked away - cursing - and let it sit for a while. Ii sure is a good looking machine though - nicely done!

FUNNY, NOT, today is the official start of the fire season here in CA! Well, blow me over, you could have fooled me - is there anything left to burn? Supposed to be 96 today (94 yesterday) and the Spousal Unit went out to the MIL to swim in the concrete pond - said it was cool - but she went in anyway.

PUPS are pestering me for their morning treats = so I better get them pacified before they scratch my legs pawing to get my attention - then I will see if JACKIE can get me one of those big hamburgers?
 
Good morning from my section of Wisconsin. The grandkids are here getting ready for online school to start in 62 minutes. Terry and I are both former educators as I taught second grade for 3 years and Terry was an LD teacher for 20 and an administrator for 16. This is so different but the kids can handle it. We have to be there for technical issues.

My sister is in Desert Mountain, near Cave Creek Arizona house sitting for our brother. She walked her dog and went in, turned to close the front door and there was a bobcat checking out were the dog had just been. My brother told her that bobcat was more scared of her but would have loved Frannie the dog for a snack.

Went to the post office already and the trees are shipped. I need to remember to wear gloves when I use Tacky glue. I won’t see the trainroom till after dinner today because of the g/k’s. Have a great day. TomO
 
Good Morning, everyone!
Slept in until 7:00am, so not much time. I'm supposed to be augering out fence post holes today. Luckily, it's only 43F this morning in light rain, so it's a good day to do that type of work. My manual post hole auger was my dad's, making it far older than I am. It has dug for 'gold' all over Alberta. So, it's just coffee and toast this morning.

Thank you for all the likes on my photo posts. Myself; I like collecting and posting photos.

Willie - The burger joint turned out really good! Reminds me of the Burger Baron here in town, minus the rooftop ice cream.

I'm on the run, so I'm just going to leave a photo behind.
The CN staging yard just outside of town limits. It's only a 9 track yard, but, it is still interesting. The portable transloader can be seen on the left.
The yard sits right between the McLeod and Athabaska rivers, where the rivers meet and become just the raging Athabaska:


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Have a good one!
 
Karl: I didn't learn any. I'm ex-Navy. Not only do I tend to profanity, I have professional training in it. I did dust off a few I hadn't used in a while though.

Willie, Sherrel, Lee, and anyone I missed: I got close to walking away for a while. In fact, technically I did. I broke for dinner and a half hour or so of Lazy Boy time. I collected my thoughts, and headed back downstairs. Binds typically live in three places. Gearbox, side rods, and driver quartering. I hadn't got the gearbox in yet, so that left two places. The best thing to do is give up your progress, no matter how hard fought, and start over. It hurts, but will cause less pain in the long run. The drivers were all in quarter, so that left the side rods. I had noticed earlier that one of the crank pins was loose. this is a dead give away. Usually it means you have a short shouldered one where a long shouldered one goes. These all looked the same (and were all the same on that 2-10-2, same builder, same time frame). It was not possible to tell by naked eye that they were different, so I had to use the dial caliper to check them. Turns out two are short and two are long per side. The longer ones only by maybe .001-.002, but that's enough! Guess I should go over to the tools forum and post a pic of my dial caliper! 🤪 💩
 
Afternoon fellers. Didnt get to stop by this past weekend like I had hoped. I did however get to work on the layout some. Mostly cleaning it up from all the railroad clutter. Had a bunch of old couplers and plastic wheel sets from all of my upgrade work. Got all that cleaned up. Reclaimed as much ballast as I could from the yard area on the layout. I have supplies in stock to make the yard more of a C&O style yard. That's about as far as got work wise. Running wise I got in a few good hours. Made up mine runs. Spotted cars at the mine. Pulled loads from the mine. Ran some laps. Yeah all the good fun stuff. Spot cleaned track as needed. Mostly the mine and yard tracks. Used the lap time to think up some landscape ideas. Probably will start on that tonight. Have to cut up some foam for my small coal town on the mine side of the layout. I kinda need to kickstart myself. I've not really done anything to the layout and it shows. Once I get rolling though I'm all over it. That's all I have for now. I'll leave a layout shot for yall to enjoy.
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Good afternoon. A smokey start to the day. I was thinking about going flying but not with all of this smoke.

Joe - Nice to see some photos of your layout, old or not.

Alan - Looking at that photo of the chassis makes my eyeballs hurt. Used to do a lot of custom painting but old age has taken its toll.

troyphoto -
Like the photos. keep them coming as you male progress.

Patrick - A good teaser. Waiting to see it completed.

Willie - That burger joint is coming along nicely. Love the menu prices. Problem is that I am old enough to realize that they are appropriate for the time period I am modeling. We do have s few critters in the area. Skunks are around most everywhere. This time of year the deer like to come and eat the apples off of the tree in the front yard. Had a really nice buck as a regular customer last year. No nore bears sind Fish & Game relocated the one rooting through the neighbors trash.

TrucTrain55 - Here's a short video on one of the guys piggy back train at the club. I think he bought every different model Walthers released.


Justin - Nice photo of the B&O geep.

While the weather holds, I do have a few more outdoor projects to take care of.

Later.
 
Afternoon All,

Did a couple of small chores today then in the train room I painted the upper dried plaster and after lunch I plastered 2 lower slopes that I should paint tomorrow. I should also mount the rest of the "rubber rocks" tomorrow. I had to go out and get more brown paint since I pretty much had none left over after the painting today (bought a gallon this time). The tree removal company returned today to remove all the debris from the stump grinding. I have a nice mud spot now but it's flat instead of a small hill.

Justin- Nice layout scene and loco.

Chad- I have no clue what language you were posting in about the throttle (just a lot of words that didn't make sense to me) :D.

Joe- The benchwork looks good.

Alan- Patience is a virtue...I have very little. At least you had the calipers to help figure it out.

Troy- The layout is looking good. I'm curious, do N and HO use the same width risers?

Willie- Great looking build.

Patrick- You may have to go with a CA that dries clear.

Guy- Interesting yard shot. In 1:1 there always seems to be more room between yard tracks than on our layouts.

Chet- Nice video.

Lee- Nice video.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Good afternoon all. Think I'll have some of those 5 cent onion rings that Willie was showing at his diner.
Just came back from UPS, sending a Broadway Limited SD40-2 back for repair. It was a strange issue. For the past 6 weeks or so this loco was "mu'd" to another BLI SD40-2 and they ran great. Suddenly the train wasn't moving. The lead loco was try to drag the second and a 18 car consist. I removed the second loco as it wasn't responding to any commands. I then reset CV-8 to 8. The loco would run in reverse but no forward. To make it even stranger, in forward the sounds all worked. Revved, speed and power sound increases as more throttle was applied. slam the power off and the brakes squealed, yet the loco hadn't moved, not one iota. Anyway BLI said they would repair it under warranty.
 
Out and about today, I noticed that the Robins are grouping up. Getting ready to fly the coop and head down south for winter. Looked like something out of the Hitchcock movie; it's a bad sign, anyway.

It's just too wet and raining too hard to worry about fencing today. Suppose I'll try again tomorrow.
So, since I was out anyway, I took the opportunity to cruise the local CN yard. There I found a couple of SD751's just coming into town to park on the south siding. I title this photo, 'Wet Engines' :
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The SD40's must be out working somewhere. I suspect they are switching in the staging yard in my earlier photo; those SD751's came into park empty, so they put their train somewhere. Same with the SD70 and ES44 combo.

I took a couple dozen photos in the Whitecourt yard today. I'll share them with you, starting tomorrow. It's the yard I want to model, but, I intend to change the town and the landscaping.

Here I am again; nothing better to do right now than post stuff on the forum. - Think I'll take a nap on the couch. Have a good one!
 
Of course our prairie robins head south and we have your northern ones all winter. You can tell as our robins are skinnier until spring. Of course winters here aren't what they used to be. Still have a 6 year old snow blower with less than 2 hours on the motor...Armadillo's are still progressing further northward. 40 years ago, they were barely at the state line with Oklahoma, now they're 40 miles north of me (I'm 45 miles north of the Oklahoma border).
 
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Welp... got the bathroom painted yesterday.

Installed super toilet (a new one) today! It installed correctly (I think). Sherrel: the raised flange was no issue. Even with the thick wax ring, I just needed to sit and rock a bit to get it flush to the floor with no shims.

Did have to run to Lowes for a new water supply hose. The new toilet is taller and narrower. Had to upgrade to a 16-inch hose.

Gave it a good dozen flushes (at least) while trying to set the float correctly. No leaks in the bathroom, nor any dripping from the light fixture underneath (I had removed the figure so I'd notice if any h2O was coming into the ceiling box.

Then I cleaned the light up, shortened the chain (chandelier) so I wouldn't bump it.

Happy Toilet.
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Troy- The layout is looking good. I'm curious, do N and HO use the same width risers?

Woodland Scenics only makes one width, so, yes, we use the same width. What you can do with that width is where the difference lies.

I might try to get two mainlines in N-scale, but the curves would be difficult to maintain a decent operation between the sleepers in each run. I'm not sure how HO would handle it, but I suspect they'd need 1 riser width per line.
 
Evening, interesting day today, had to put in a water service for a new home build. So in 99% of the time a water main is on one side of the road unless it a townline road then they would have it on both unless there's an agreement between the 2 towns.
So back to the service that we have to do, the across the street from the new build has the main on his side and a very,very nice lawn. I think you can see where this is going. So the guy with the nice lawn comes out (a teacher with a masters degree at least don't worry my wife is one) and asks why are we digging his lawn for something across the street. I tell him we're doing a water hookup and the main is on this side. Why isn't there water on the other side. Because it would cost to much. Then it went into how big will the whole be,do you guys fill it in when can I plant grass,I want grass before winter. I told him that with the lack of rain it'll take time for it to settle. Why does it need to settle I'll have my landscapers level it and plant grass. I said ok you might want to wait and let it settle, the gas main is on this side too and they're going to do the same thing. He got mad and stormed off. Then he came back out to ask when the gas is going to done,I said I don't know I'm the water dept.
 
Good news, and bad news this evening. Good news, the keyboard arrived. Bad news, it's the wrong keyboard.
More bad news, the cover for the tablet never shipped, they forgot to mail it. Even more bad news, somebody jacked my Dell account, and ordered parts for their computer, and I got the bill.
On hold with Dell now, then I get to deal with wrong keyboard people, and get a return label, then cancel the order for the cover.
Sigh...
 
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