Running Bear's September 2020 Coffee Shop


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Just cannot seem to get all my ducks locos in a row!

ALAN - Loved your club shots of the SP (both colors). Having flashbacks of the 'Cotton Belt' FT's screaming in my old hometown with sparks flying from the exhaust - the days before spark arrestors. There was a grade on each side of the depot and the locos were sure noisy struggling either direction. I think they emptied the yards with the number of cars on every train!
 
Good Morning Model Railroaders...clear skies, calm winds, 50 degrees in southern Ore. Fires are being contained, smoke infiltration has let up, not nearly as bad last week, as weeks prior.
Thanks for the likes on last post......Tom, Bori's, Ken, Flip, Mcleod, Chad, Garry, Sherrell, Alan, Troy, Lee.
Enjoy the pics & vids.
transition era with first gen diesels
Alan... nice fleet 👍 The "Black Widow" scheme, another one of my favorite paint jobs.....😁
And we'll fast forward to now, and this new ES44C4, relegated to work train duty this week and pulling "turnout" gons.
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Everybody have a great day, stay safe!
 
Good Morning One and All. Mostly cloudy and 59° this morning. Cold front came through right on schedule last night, but with wind gusts of only 35 mph instead of the 45mph+ that were in the forecast. Tonight will be chilly with temperature dropping into the upper 40's. A bit unusual for September here. Then highs in the 80's again beginning Wednesday. We'll use the A/C intermittently until the end of October in a normal year. I guess that I better sweep the chimney for the wood burning heater pretty soon. I took the remnants of last years ashes out yesterday. We have been seriously looking at alternative heaters this month, as I am not too sure how much longer I want to deal with firewood. My source of free 4"x4" oak firewood is going to end after October. While I still have plenty of high BTU trees on the property to thin out, that's been getting old after 40 years of living here. It's also somewhat time consuming. But it's been free heat (except for labor) all of these years.
Update on wife's knee replacement recovery: She went all day yesterday without using her cane and has been sleeping straight through at night without having to strap on the ice water circulator. She'll be dancing real soon, alone!

Morning Flo, I'll take some scrambled eggs and sausage links along with some of Troy's leftover doughnut holes.

Thanks to all who commented on or reacted to yesterday's progress report (and the hairy eight-legged visitor); Lee, Sherrel, Garry, Jerome, Chad, Guy, Karl, Curt, Phil, Chet, Ken, Tom, Jerry.

What happened in the train shed yesterday you ask? I did some more ballasting and only have a couple of switches left to do. I also started to add ground foam and gravel between the tracks.
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Those I do slowly and carefully!
Doing some contemplating about the industry (unnamed) up against the backdrop and the small area in front of it.
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Might just extend it out from the backdrop a little and move the spur closer to the siding.
Meanwhile over on the workbench, I started with the window sills and lintels on the DPM structure.
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Yep! A little sloppy right now, but I'll fix that.

Sherrel - Good to see that you have recovered and have returned with your witty posts.
Chet - Another series of excellent layout shots, most of which I haven't seen before. I especially like the shots of the switcher traveling through the playground!;)

Today is National Drink Beer Day, kind of a daily holiday around here. It's also National Neighbor Day. So grab a few beers and get together with your neighbor's wife and have a good time.
Everyone have a great day.
 
Good morning ....

Jerry .... BNSF 3273 looks remarkably clean for work train duty.

Willie ..... You are making a lot of progress with your current project.

Joe .... The gaudy NH paint schemes look even worse with all the grime and dirt. Yucky looking. ... We can see how the ground should look at engine terminals. Don't allow the environmentalists to see the oil seeping into the soil!

I'm slowly building a P2K kit for a stock car. I can't work with the tiny plastic grab irons that are included. So, I make my own grab irons out of brass wire. It will be several days before I'm done. Numerous interruptions for non-model-railroad-stuff are not helping.

Here is my Prairie View depot.

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Everybody.... Have a nice day.
 
Morning all,

It's a Monday! Morning almost gone before I get a chance to get on today. I'm the only one in the IT department for the next 3 days, so it can get kind of messy sometimes. At least everything important is still running (finding wood and beating the heck out of it).

Weekend was good. It was nice to have all the kids and grandkids together for the first time since March. Saturday it was 96* and breezy and yesterday 65* and windy with drizzle. Today sunny and 70* for the high. Crazy weather.

Nothing on the train front as I had to catch up on the other chores yesterday.
 
Good morning folks from cool at 54 So. Central Wisconsin. We have the grandkids here today for their online learning classes today. The 1st grade grandson’s 1st class went great. Between classes right now.

We used to heat with wood but the insurance company put a stop to that. If I were to do it again, the pellet stoves sound interesting and much cleaner.

I have not hit the trainroom for a few days, no desire. Lots to do in there, but...

Back later, class is back
TomO
 
It's been a few days since I last posted. Figured I'd stop by again. Pulled my roster of locomotives i have on hand. Didnt know I had so many. My count is 15 locomotives. I've lost a few and I've gained a few. I recieved a lot of fanfare on facebook. However I recieved more fan fare for my C&O painted locomotives. I'll share those with yall.
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I did work on some structures. Started working on my company houses. Mostly painting the stone base on them. Hopefully I can start putting them together this week. Company store will be next up. That's all I have for right now. I'll stop by again when I get a chance.
 
TOO Quite!
Did I mention that it is supposed to be 99 this afternoon - 100 tomorrow - 101 Wednesday!
That is all! Spousal Unit will be back in a couple hours from her duty days at the MIL's.
I had better pick up a few things - otherwise she will think that all I did was watch 15 episodes of 'McLode's Daughters' while she was AWL. (no official here?)

GARRY - nice pict!
Justin - great looking fleet; I did not know you had that many?
 
It's been a few days since I last posted. Figured I'd stop by again. Pulled my roster of locomotives i have on hand. Didnt know I had so many. My count is 15 locomotives. I've lost a few and I've gained a few. I recieved a lot of fanfare on facebook. However I recieved more fan fare for my C&O painted locomotives. I'll share those with yall.
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I did work on some structures. Started working on my company houses. Mostly painting the stone base on them. Hopefully I can start putting them together this week. Company store will be next up. That's all I have for right now. I'll stop by again when I get a chance.
That’s some Putty Tat Power Justin nice collection
 
Afternoon All,

Started out with some chores then added a few trees to the left hand slope so it doesn't look so bare, then I put down about 10' of flex track (right side) and a T/O on the upper level (will go to a coal trestle that a business owns). I soldered the track together and attached the feeder wires (correctly this time). I'll do the buss hookup tomorrow and test.

My bush order from WS went from St. Louis to Des Moines. That's in the wrong direction :(. We got about 2" of rain last night and it looks like it's getting ready to start up again. The yard is squishy when you walk on it.

Don't get me started on Photobucket. I lost 1000's of photos when they pulled their crap trying to hold me hostage. Didn't happen.

Chet- Great looking vehicles and scenes.

Willie- You shouldn't tease Sherrel. He might fly off the handle...get it? Fly off?:p:p:p Please don't kick me off the forum. How do you ballast the T/O moving parts? I just set a little bit of ballast loose in that area without glue.

Alan- Beautiful job on the locos.

Lee- Nice looking box cars.

Joe- Nice photos. A friend got the NH FL9 from Rapido. It was gorgeous.

Garry- Interesting video and great scene.

Sherrel- I believe the quickest results outside a hospital is 24 hours.

Jerry- Nice looking photo.

Justin- Very nice looking loco roster.

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I hope everyone has a good night.
 
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Sherrel- I believe the quickest results outside a hospital is 24 hours.

I should have just waited for the announcement? News from the Gment is a new test kit being shipped today that will give the results in 15 minutes. That's wonderful!

You guys will have to return to school if you "wanna get my goat" -- I have two ex's who are way out in front!

CURT - Rocks, Trees, and background look real good - not so sure about the blue rail?
 
Y'all are quite entertaining this evening. It cleared up, and with the sunshine, made it to 81. That made for a pleasant fall afternoon.

Curt: That's nice background scenery. Well worth the effort. I always avoided gluing the area around the switch points, so the ballast just sat there. Downside was when I vacuumed the rail bed, I had to reballast. One observation is that main line switches had little ballast in the vicinity of the point rails, because the MW people dug out the cribs when clearing snow and placing portable switch heaters (Smudge pots). Sort of timbers on road bed with a little stone and a little mud, plus some spilled oil. I'm going to try some muddy olive brown paint then cinders and a small amount of a darkened ballast and see how that works. The rest of the switch gets regular ballast that is glued down.

Justin: That's quite a fleet you have there. "Purrfect Transportation"!

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Westbound Passenger on #4 at North Philly.
 
Spent the afternoon with my son working on his equipment. Prepping cars for weathering, some light weathering, and weathering a new Southern GP-50 he bought yesterday. Seems the Milwaukee Road leased quite a few Southern units when they had the need. we did this with a combination of airbrush, Tamiya panel line accents, and Pan Pastels, plus a little oil paint. Nice model!

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Looking good there Alan. That is the Genesis version,yes? William.
 
Anyone use Photobucket here? I used them for a long time, but since they pulled their little scam of denying you access to your images if you don't pay up, I pulled everything down from there today. They can kiss my a$$!

Anyhoo... I don't remember what photos I may have posted here, or at least not all of them, but it has been mentioned that some folks aren't into steam the way I am. I get that, and I wouldn't want you to feel left out ;) I've done a few other "family photos" at the club, and I'll share those as well. First up is the transition era with first gen diesels:

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I like the second and third gen power too, and like I told Willie, as the era of the club moves forward I'll be able to stay current with this group! It's a mixed bag, but all favorites of mine, especially the Cruds!

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Alan those SP Locos look awesome. BTW,do you still have the one I painted? I think it was a SW 1500. William.
 
Morning all!

Chilly enough last night, I had to break out the extra blanket. Wife is still too warm, even with temps in the 40s overnight and the windows open, so I got the cat to help keep me toasty.

Breakfast of Blueberry yogurt and dark roast Flo.

Made an update to Still Untitled Layout thread yesterday. Almost caught up. Still gluing down foam risers. I think I'm about done with my fourth caulk gun tube of PL300.

Wrote 2400 words yesterday. The novel is nearing completion. Need to get at least 4,000 words today, and the same tomorrow. That might put this one to bed. Needs to go to the editor on Saturday.

Here's a semi-current state of the layout image...

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Morning all,

Today is coffee day, so I'll have a big cup along with a pecan roll this morning.

Clear and cool this morning with a temp of 43*, expected high of 78* today. Not supposed to get much above 80* the rest of the week.

Nothing really new to report.

Everyone have a great day!
 
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