Running Bear’s October 2020 Coffee Shop


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The mind boggles. Any firsts to titilate the imagination. It's OK, we're not your parents. (Sherrel asked me to ask)
No, none of that type of activity, I had already seen that on the subways in NYC before moving! Just a total surprise at the lifestyle. My parents would have been totally shocked to know what was happening so close to our home. I'm sure that the authorities would have been just as shocked.
 
Morning! A frosty, cool 11°F here at 6:30am. Supposed to have a heat-wave pass through, that will warm up the area to 30° come the afternoon. - Remember, it could be worse! -40°F feels exactly the same as -40°C, and I've been out in the open air of both at the same time!

I was doing some in the hardware position and lighting experiments with the models in miniature. Wanted to know if I was wasting my time building these little implements and people. I took photographs from different height levels, trying to emulate what one would see if the store was positioned on the layout bench, from the perspective of an average height adult. - Turns out, the illusion of being in a hardware store works out quite well if the bench height is +/-42". However, the illusion is lost when viewing the scene at higher levels.

At eye-level, like you are walking into the store, the desired effect is lost, and it just looks like you are walking into a hobby shop. The backdrop creates the illusion:
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Now, if one approaches from a rough height of 42" (height of my module), the eye catches the 3-D effect of the tractor, people and stuff, and the background is less important. The backdrop just permits an illusion that there is stuff on shelves in the background. The main focus becomes the people and implements. All of a sudden, it might be a hardware store:
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I might need to build a new table-saw for that empty area behind the cashier. Maybe something in the stores right-hand corner, as well.
The hardware is important, as it will be the 2nd store in a line of shops in a town street scene, and it is very much out front.

Well, I hope that bringing in all these photos isn't boring you. Might be getting to be too much.

Thanks for the likes and comments on my posts. If it's cold and snowy where you are, try to get some modeling done and bring in some photos!

Have a good one!
 
Good morning, y'all. Happy Sunday! 45° and cloudy with more rain and damp coming our way. Only going to the mid 50s today.

A very privileged visit that I shall remember for many years!
Rich: I first learned of the Firth of Forth last winter when I was reading two sequential histories of the Naval Arms Race and Political Intrigue leading up to the First World War, followed by Naval Operations during said war, culminating with the sea battle off Jutland. Truthfully it was hard to comprehend what the Firth of Forth was until I saw your photos,which by the way are Awesome. Thanks for sharing them.

Harry has a bug on his head.
Guy: Damn, I hate that when it happens. Seriously, your counter is coming along nicely, as out the staff and customers.

Good Afternoon from Gulfport MS
Willie: Enjoy your time there. Hope Zeta doesn't interrupt your plans.

I never told my parents what I had found back there.
Willie: A Wise Decision. If your parents were anything like mine, and you told them of your discovery, you would have been grounded for the rest of your life, for your own protection.

Geez. Everybody wants to sell you something you don't need
GT: Especially, Medicare Plans, Reverse Mortgages, Cash for Annuities, Vitamins and Gadgets. Then there is the Tear Jerk Charity pitches, Political pitches, and Burial Insurance, home warranties and car warranties. When they are not running, there are public interest blurbs or dead silence for 10 minutes which is just as bad. And...that's just one afternoon... I guess I watch too much TV, eh?

One issue I'm struggling through the learning curve on is getting the turnouts figured out.
Troy: FWIW: Ive been modeling and building model railroads since the '60s, and still have that problem. :rolleyes: Duh!

Spent some of yesterday cutting out switch templates downloaded from Micro Engineering and printed "Landscape" on legal sized paper. Then I spent more time trying to fit them in place on the layout. This is the Reading Company portion of the layout, and is being built with code 70 track components, reflecting the Readings use of 100 / 114RE stick and ribbon rail. PRR branches get Code 83, (probably PECO), reflecting the PRR's later construction (1916 vs 1880s) which used 135 Psi rail.

Track templates.jpg

This is time consuming, but will save problems in the long run. My usual approach has been to plan by the seat of my pants, so to speak, with resulting problems once I start operating the layout.

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BP20s on the point of the Broker, departing Exchange Place, in Jersey City, back in the good old days.
 
Good Morning All. Partly cloudy and 61° here in Gulfport MS. Sunrise and sunset are both (obviously both) about 45 minutes earlier in this side of the Central Time Zone than back home.
Rather meager breakfast offering at this Hampton Inn, boiled eggs, bagel in sealed bag, cream cheese, yogurt, oatmeal and dry breakfast cereals. No bacon, sausage, or any other good stuff. Killing time right now before going to lunch and then visiting the model railroad museum which opens at 1200.
True to history, our visit to Gulf Shores will bring forth another hurricane to the area. We've had one four of the last five years! Our only real concern is whether or not the condo management turns off the elevator. If the local governing body deems it so, all building owners have to comply. It's done so the local emergency services do not have to deal with people being stuck if the power goes out. In 2018, we spent the first night at a local hotel that was exempt because they had a backup generator. Cost us less than the first night at the condo since they refunded that money.

A plate full of bacon and scrambled eggs for me this morning Flo; the hotel offering just didn't do it for me.

Thanks for all of the well wishes regarding my journey. And thanks for the likes and comments regarding the Murphy's Bar.

No train shed time yesterday for obvious reasons. I already miss it.

Richie - That photo of the loop on your layout sure resembles a toilet seat!;)
Thanks for all of the wonderful photos.
Troy -
Since Willie is off to holiday, the rest of us are going to have to carry the conversation while he's off enjoying lockdown in a new place.
I haven't fallen off the edge of the world yet! LOL;) I'll still be checking in occasionally.
You better leave the snakes and frogs behind your old house.
You're really a city boy, aren't you? Kidding of course.
Guy -
I have a mean feeling it is going to be lonely in here for awhile, and I can't quite figure out why. I thought most of us were an older, retired lot; just old farts playing with trains and models.
I think it is more evenly split between employed and retired folks here. It's just that more of us retired folks use the Coffee Shop as a sort of Facebook.
You're experiencing some of my anxieties about scene placement that I still have even after 35 years in the hobby. I just please myself and no longer worry about it. I even detail the sides of structures that will not be seen.
Tom O - I agree with you. Despite what politicians and bureaucrats are advising, I am continuing to wear a mask (uncomfortable as it is), social distancing and sanitizing often for my own good. I am eating inside certain eating establishments that I trust.
I have sent my kids Amazon pages as suggestions because they are all infatuated by online shopping.
Lucky can be increased with a few glasses of wine!;)
Chet - Congratulations on the four wins.
Willie - Maybe Murphy will stay in the bar and leave Terry alone.
I provide him a wonderful place to stay, and he doesn't bother me too often.
Joe - I appreciate the "mute" button on the remote at home.

Everybody have a great day.
 
Howdy, everybody .....

Well, the computer is working fine, but I'm not. I've been a bit under the weather in recent days. I hope it's not the virus. I'm somewhat better this morning.

Everybody ..... Thanks for the comments and likes for my photos.

Rich ..... That is an amazing bridge.

Guy .... The hardware store looks great.

Chet ..... Your layout photos are fantastic. Apparently, your 1/87 people take good care of their vehicles because each one looks new and shiny.

Joe ... I definitely like the PRR BP20's. Good to see progress on your layout.

WIllie .... Enjoy your vacation.
 
Good morning modelers. A crispy Sunday morning in So. Central Wisconsin. The Wisconsin weather depending on where you are at greatly varies this morning. Greg might have snow at his cabin or nothing but cold at his house outside of Milwaukee. Mike in Marshfield should have snow on the ground from the other day but our weather TV guy doesn’t mention Western Central Wisconsin. A good stay in day.

Trees are planted, some adjustments made, I will clean the tracks and test some clearances, then make more adjustments. Some bushes are in but after a night of sleep I will lookin this morning with a different mindset.

Masks, we just all need to understand it’s for our health.

Monday online learning tomorrow for the grandkids maybe a sick day. The 9 year old g/d seemed fine Friday when we had them over. The 6, I will be 7 poppa in a month, had a slight cough. Urgent Care this morning says Croup but tested for Covid. He plays hockey and his age group practiced 2 nights and Saturday morning this past week. Too much in my mind and I was the President of a youth hockey organization for 6 years in Central Wisconsin. We neverpracticed any of our teams let alone 6 year olds that much in a week. Hockey in Dane County here is too serious as we were in Central Wi. but this is nuts.

Love those pictures from over the pond.

Have a great day and here are some tree pictures from the layout. TomO

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Yes those are tree planting tools. The ground goop was extremely hard for some reason. Also the trees seemed to have made the hill disappear in the photos. There is a definite height difference in person
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'Morning all! Another weekend going by too fast! Work continues on O'Niell's Fabrication. There's quite a bit of board by board construction in these kits. It can get tedious, and it's a bit of a challenge trying to get steps done before your glue drives. This particular kit uses an interesting technique. You get laser cut clapboard board siding, but you use the clapboard as a guide to place individual boards. This means you can build a wall with quite a bit of character. It's been pretty interesting so far. I've finished the three walls of the addition and they are under 1-2-3 blocks while the glue dries. I really like the look of it! Here's an "in process" shot:
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Good Day from LA-LA land! It is projected to only reach 63 degrees today - down from 73 yesterday. Don't fret - we will be back to the high 80's by midweek!
There may even be a rain shower around somewhere though not much likely here?

I have been AWOL a couple days. I have been staying up with reading all the posts, but have not taken time to respond. I have been helping my retired carpenter neighbor build a wheelchair ramp for a VET about 20 miles up the road who fell and broke two vertebrae in his back. We should finish it up today - I sure hope so - I am so sore that it's really hard to get up and down. The 'ole bod' just an't what it used to be.

Hey der FLO .. please have MEL give me a chicken fried steak with eggs up and hash browns ... wired my computer is stuck on bold again?
Ahh - finally got it turned off-

Rich (it came on again by its-self)
The area you are showing - I think - is where my ancestors are from .. I haven't looked at the map lately, but somewhere along the coast NE from Edinburgh? I may be off -
GUY - Been following all along - great modeling!
JOE - Great photo of the sharks - If memory hasn't totally gone - I think the Pennsy was the only one to have those?
Willie - Enjoy your down time - it's time for girl watching there!
RAY - You are just trying to get me in trouble - aren't you? I get in enough by myself without help!

Gotta run - the neighbor is calling ...... later guys
 
GT: Especially, Medicare Plans, Reverse Mortgages, Cash for Annuities, Vitamins and Gadgets. Then there is the Tear Jerk Charity pitches, Political pitches, and Burial Insurance, home warranties and car warranties. When they are not running, there are public interest blurbs or dead silence for 10 minutes which is just as bad. And...that's just one afternoon... I guess I watch too much TV, eh?

My favorite is when they say ..."Have you died as result mesothelioma or some other horrible disease ? Pick up the phone and call 1-800-LAW-SUIT,...Call Now " .What do they expect ? the dead to rise ? Does burial insurance include a shovel in case you have to dig your way out so you can file a law suit ?


GUY: My vote is for weed wackers and wheel barrows. One of the ACEs around here used to have a Model A Ford pickup in the store , they chucked all the specials in the bed.
 
I don't think they had weed-wackers in 1965. If they did, my dad would have had one.
I'm considering a wheel-barrow, though. And shovels-n-picks and anything else I normally shy away from.
I had two different weed whackers around that time. One looked like a golf club with a blade instead of a club head, and the other looked like a sickle.
 
Thanks for all the comments guys, glad you enjoyed them. I'll dig some more out from a different part of the UK in a few days time. Don't want to bore anyone tho!

YEAH, RICH, It's 10 'klicks" or so from Kirkcaldy called Wemyss. I have not been there, but have heard that there is a Wemyss castle?

Hi Sherrel,
Yup, your spot on there. Wemyss is a bit further around the Fife Coast from the bridge - going back to my watch face its about 4 o'clock. On the train its 20-25 minutes from the centre of Edinburgh.

Fascinating place with a huge railway history - there was a private industrial railway there - the Wemyss Private Railway (see Wikipedia) and this picture gives you a fairly good feel for the railroad.
From Wikipedia

The power station at Methil, very close to Wemyss, only closed about 10-15 years ago.

Lovely part of Scotland.

Rich
 
Good morning modelers and friends. Cool and wet in So. Central Wisconsin. The high today maybe 41.

The Wisconsin courts removed the limits to how many people can be in a public space yesterday. I understand the ruling but Health Departments should have leeway to mandate things for people’s safety in a health crisis. We still won’t eat inside a restaurant and will continue the curbside pickup.

All trees are done as mentioned the other day. Between the layout and the grandkids slot track all but 10 trees are plantEd and I will do that and some more bushes today. My wife suggested since the next tree building is planned for March that I should let the kids know for Xmas what supplies and where to get them would be helpful. Last year I explained to the family I wanted nothing but things for the layout. Finally they listened, it was great. My wife suggests like last year send the Amazon page with the info and I might get lucky again. Yes her idea of lucky and mine are slightly different but I know what she meant! And with her it’s not luck anymore it’s when...sorry lost the train of thought!

Willie safe travels.

The St. Point Brewery tours. A tour where they literally take you through the brewing and bottling processes. You walk the aisles and into the crannies between machines. The sample room was great if you are a beer drinker.

A very sterile but super educational tour for a Wisconsin craft brewer is the New Glarus Brewery in New Glarus, Wisconsin home of the great Spotted Cow and others. I also believe like there used to be a church or 2 in every town, Wisconsin has an unwritten rule there has to be at least one Brew pub in town. If you like bar food and enjoy a beer Wisconsin is the place for you. Our craft beer and pubs are every where and many are excellent.

Not since college have I had a tour of the Milwaukee big national brewers and I think it was the Schiltz one and long gone.

The tractor and hardware store brings back so many memories.

Enjoy the day
TomO
Tom- We’ve done the Miller Valley tour twice. First was my 2nd visit to WI, when MNSU picked me up at MKE(got RT airfare for less than the gas & tolls for 1 way). The 2nd was about a year later, when Mom flew in for a visit. We stopped at MV after dropping Mom off to catch her flight back to Philly.
 
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Afternoon All,

I think I'm 1 day away from finishing the back right hand side scenery (finally) :). Today along with painting and mounting the right side end pieces of fascia I "planted" 6 bags of WS broken up clump foliage. Have I mentioned that I am sick of clump foliage? I figure I have used 20 bags so far and have a little less than 5 more on hand. Not sure what's on the honey do list tomorrow.

Sherrel- I'm pretty sure at least the D&H had them.

TomO- Great layout shots. I've been looking at photos of engine service areas and mines to do the proper ground cover. On the last layout I just used cinders as the ground cover, but this time I want to up the game a bit.

Alan- That's going to look awesome.

Rich- Great pictures. Back in Oct of 1976 I was on a boat that pulled into Holy Loch after a deployment (not a missle boat). A friend and I got on the train in Dunoon and traveled to Edinburgh via Glasglow for a weekend liberty. We had a blast and the beer was amazing.

Willie- Been to Gulfport many times while my boat was in overhaul in Pascagoula. In fact my boat sent me TAD (temporary assigned duty) to the boat that I mentioned about stopping in Scotland. I was sent so I had enough sea time to actually qualify in Submarines for the first time.

Troy- Did you mean to post a picture on post #660? It sounded like you did.

Joe- Great to see your progress. Nice Shark photo.

Garry- I hope you feel better quickly.

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A hobo scene is going in the upper brown corner.
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I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Rich- Great pictures. Back in Oct of 1976 I was on a boat that pulled into Holy Loch after a deployment (not a missle boat). A friend and I got on the train in Dunoon and traveled to Edinburgh via Glasglow for a weekend liberty. We had a blast and the beer was amazing.

Thanks.

Oh you almost did the west coast to the east coast of Scotland with that trip! Dunoon would have been a ferry trip to Gourock or Wemyss Bay for the train in - back on the days of the Strathclyde Electrics as they were known. The Scottish beer is superb - its the water up there! I say that, despite most British beer being brewed elsewhere!!! 😂🤣😂

Love that rock face in your photos - one of the upcoming tasks on my Rock Creek ... can I ask how you did it? Is it on a thread somewhere?

Rich
 
Good Afternoon Everyone.....over cast and cold with a few flurries. Home from the cabin and it's closed now for the season, but the alarm and neighbors will keep watch over the property and we do go there often to see friends and socialize. Found out Thursday tha a friend of ours died from the Covid-19 virus on Wednesday....the virus complicated had heart problems, but still ruled a virus death at 71 because without the virus he would not of had any heart complications.

At the cabin turning the water off is a bit of work, but I have a checklist that I use it following during the winterizing with about 27 steps to get the water drained, anti-freeze in the drain traps, toilet and the pressure tank drained. Fed the mice some Tom Cat bait bars and the first night already had action the first night at one of the bars that I can see without effort. I usually hide the bait bars behind cabinets or under furniture. Everyone near the cabin is talking about the amount of mouse activity this year.

Catching up on the Forum since I left. Lots of great photos everyone.

Keep an eye open for a Southern Pacific locomotive patched for the Union Pacific to make an appearance on the CM&N Railroad as lease power. It was last seen on the rails in North Carolina.:)

My two N Scale decoders from Yankee Dabbler arrived on Saturday for installation in my two 70 Ton GE switchers. I've read that the cheap stock Bachmann decoders make for increased motor noise while running on DCC. While only $15 each plus shipping, they are inexpensive, but are Digitrax products. Tiny little decoders and should be easy to find a mounting location in the locomotives. The biggest challenge will be the replacement of the LED lights in the two locomotives. Since they will run as a consist, only the front headlights on each locomotive require replacement with LED's, but I'll do all four while I'm doing the project. I have some Day-Glow LED's and I'll glue them to the body using canopy cement. The cement is relatively fast drying.

Tomorrow after the chimmey cleaner leaves I can work on the railroad projects. This will be the second chimmey cleaning in over 40 years.

My Win 10 updated and changed a lot of my settings. Just love that when they do those up dates!!!

Time to get back to football and Miller Time.

Greg

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Curt - The Baldwin BP20 was the shark passenger model with the A-1-A trucks.
D&H (I think) only had the freight Units with the B-B trucks.
Source: WIkipedia
606SC-engined DR-6-4-2000 locomotives[edit]
These were produced exclusively for the Pennsylvania Railroad and were delivered in 1948 in the sharknose body style designed by Raymond Loewy, as diesel running mates to the T1 steam locomotive; also built by Baldwin and similarly styled by Loewy. Eighteen A units and nine B units were produced, producing nine three-unit locomotive sets of 6,000 horsepower (4,500 kW). The PRR classified them as BP-20 (Baldwin Passenger, 2,000 horsepower or 1,500 kilowatts). They were originally used on top-flight express trains such as the Broadway Limited, but problems soon relegated them to lesser service. They ended their days on commuter trains along the New York and Long Branch in New Jersey. A small number were de-rated for use in freight service (re-classified as BF16z).



Your layout is starting to take shape! ME Like!
 
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