Running Bear's February 2021 Coffee Shop.

[Sirfoldalot]

Going to place a "PLUG" for my good friend, Don Wirth's book here if it is permitted?
“Frisco Steam Salute”! This book is written by renown Frisco steam authority Don Wirth, and features a classic black & white study of the steam power employed by the St Louis - San Francisco Railway in the 1930s & 40s.
The book will be hardcover 8x11 in landscape format, predominantly black & white with some colorized shots as well as coverage of Don’s personal favorite 4-8-2, #1522. The photos are from Don’s private collection of negatives from dear friend Joe Collias, as well as William K Barham, Lucius Beene, Ivan Oaks, R.S. Plummer and others.
The study will be in locomotive numerical order, with Don’s knowledge of each class of locomotives and train operations, and will end with a tribute to 1522.
This is a book not to be missed by steam fans, has a target release date of April-May 2021. Cover price will be $39.95, but will be available beginning 90-days out from delivery for $35. Stay tuned for updates!"

Here is a photo that I think JERRY will like of his Ulrich gondola build?

 

[santafewillie]

Just happened to glance at the TV where my wife is watching some Super Bowl pre-game program. Stadium is pretty full of some pretty stiff looking fans already! Doesn't look like beer and hot dog sales will amount to much!

 

[Texas Hobo]

Good Afternoon all! Well a pretty nice day here in H-Town, might see some low 60"s with sunshine. The worm will turn come Wednesday.
Karp - Hop Hope you mend well.
Sherrel - Prays for your daughter
Willie - What's a Super Bowl?
Well in the train room I did manage to start some more scenery (photo below) I got some plaster cloth today so my next project will be put in the Deerfield River.
The other day my wife was looking at the layout and offhandedly said she was surprised I didn't have something Coast Guard on the layout. So a side project will be converting Waterfront Willie's into USCG Deerfield River Station. Pics to come.

STAY SAFE

LATER

 

[IronBeltKen]

Good afternoon yall, it's now 38*F and cloudy with an 8mph NW breeze.

Thanks everybody for the "likes" on each of my posts from yesterday.

Here is what my driveway looked like as of 1:30pm:

Not much a snow blower can do about that LOL. Hopefully this will all be melted away before sundown, can't stand the thought of walking on this s**t if it freezes!

Sherrell - good news about your being able to get the 2nd dose of vaccine, and that your wife's knee surgery can be performed!

Well fellers it's time to close the books on another day. Didnt get much of anything done on the layout today. Attempted to move the era of my layout to the Chessie System. That lasted about as long as my video last night. For some reason I dont feel Chessie on this layout. Everytime I do it up I just as quickly take it back off. Couldn't tell you why that is. I have en route ugh equipment and motive power to do it. Even the geeps I have in C&O paint would work for an early Chessie layout. Add in a few of my Chessie cars and done. It just doesn't feel right though when I do. It's strange because I would have never thought about modeling anything but Chessie System on my layouts. I could say it's because I have done more research however that doesn't stand either as both work the same. C&O operations match the operations for Chessie in the coalfields. Shoot I like to say the coalfields were the lines that time forgot. It isnt nothing to find blue C&O geeps well into the 70s. Have a pair here and there moving coal or moving light with a Chessie caboose in tow behind them. Which my initial plan was to do an early Chessie era layout. Just everytime I go that way I just dont like it. I dont even think putting my workhorse Chessie painted GP35 on the layout would change my mind. I've been on the fence on an era for this layout. Now however I'm on the C&O side of it. So I guess that's where I'll stay for now. I'd imagine I'll gain a renewed Chessie interest down the road eventually. For the moment though I'm not so sure. At any rate I also can say having C&O only books for reference isnt helping none either. I will say my books it what led me to buy my C&O GP7. Ofcourse later getting my GP9. They are my staple locomotives on the layout at the moment. Everything else is back in their respective boxes. Just refer to my sources here. These are the books I have on hand to guide me in everything. I figure yall can guess which one I refer to the most.
View attachment 124392
View attachment 124394
As a member of the C&O Historical Society I get their newsletters ever so often in the mail I have another one around the house somewhere. These too have some good reference material as well. That's all I have for now. I'll catch you guys tomorrow. Hope everyone has a good night.

Justin - Looks like you've been smitten by the C&O bug, they don't call it Enchantment Blue for nuthin'! The reason my era ends as of August 1972 is to avoid the need to have any Chessie diesels on my layout. Aside from the fact that I've never liked the bright-yellow and orange scheme - or even worse, the kitty cat logo - it helps keep my mrr spending within budget. And B&O blue-and-yellow diesels are so much easier to paint when factory-painted models aren't available; no masking required, and B&O/C&O decals are readily available from Microscale.

...that's my story and I'm stick'n to it...

Jesse - I think it's an excellent idea to name a spot on your layout for something that changed the course of your life for the better! I've been at a few of those forks-in-the-road myself, and I shudder to think what would've happened if I'd chosen differently. Sometimes it's good to have props around to remind us where we've been so we can better appreciate where we're at today.

* * *
Got my junk shells airbrushed this morning, now I can turn my attention back to the F7 model itself. Not sure what I should do next, apply some decals or paint the radiator grille...decisions, decisions!

 

[DakotaLove39]

Superbowl & sportsball aren't my thing. Today is diesel shop day. Installing details on a few of my locos.

 

[PRR Modeler]

Afternoon All,

Spent most the day doing chores and then running out picking up a second full size bed (previously had 2 singles) and set it up for my 2 brothers that are driving down from VA on Saturday. I convinced them they should come down for a visit with Mom now and not wait until a later date. They'll be here late Saturday and stay a week. I will probably be off the forum for that period. My Mom has a appointment tomorrow so no modeling.

I've decided to order the B.T.S. Cabin Creek Mine to take the place of the Walthers New River Mine. I figure it will take around 2 weeks to build like the last one from B.T.S I built.

Thanks for the likes on the water pump. I really like that it's half the price of the the others.

Joe- Thank you. Interesting photos. I really hope you're able to get your wife's medical issues resolved for the better.

Hughie- Nice scene.

Steve- Same here. Nice job on the loco.

Sherrel- I hope your daughter and baby are doing well.

Karl- I hope your foot is feeling better.

I hope everyone has a good night.

 

[Texas Hobo]

Gary - I wasn't able to attach to the message reply but here it is:

Hope it helps

 

[BigGRacing]

Looks awesome!
thank you!

Texas Hobo

modelrailroadforums.com

 

[Boris]

I convinced them they should come down for a visit with Mom now and not wait until a later date.

Curt: Considering the circumstances, your brothers are making a wise decision...Still, hope for the best. How's your Mom doing?

Hughie: Nice plan.

Ken: The B&O Capital Dome scheme is the best to model, although the older tri-color is more attractive. I have a few 6 axle B&O Chessie scheme engines, and three Chessie B&O Athearn BB cabins, plus the articles to fix them. I also have a Tangent. Couldn't help my self on that purchase. When he re-runs the Blue B&O, I'm getting a couple.

It warmed up to 39° this morning and rained until 10AM. Then it changed over to snow and the temperature dropped to 33° and remained there. the snow dumped 4" before ending around 4PM. It was too heavy, to try out the newly repaired snow blower, so the wife and I shoveled the driveway and side walk in less than an hour. Since the temperature is still above freezing, perhaps the slush will melt away, before the predicted overnight freeze.

Hopefully, the wife's pox isn't contagious. Hopefully it goes away quickly.

A study in Junctions:

Ardmore Junction on the Philadelphia and Western in the 1950s Cars on lower level use overhead wire, the upper line, outside third rail.

Frankford Jct, 2/16/1978. EB Mail behind SD40s, on #1 Main, passes WB powered by E44s. on Delair Branch.

 

[chessie_system3]

Justin - Looks like you've been smitten by the C&O bug, they don't call it Enchantment Blue for nuthin'! The reason my era ends as of August 1972 is to avoid the need to have any Chessie diesels on my layout. Aside from the fact that I've never liked the bright-yellow and orange scheme - or even worse, the kitty cat logo - it helps keep my mrr spending within budget. And B&O blue-and-yellow diesels are so much easier to paint when factory-painted models aren't available; no masking required, and B&O/C&O decals are readily available from Microscale.

...that's my story and I'm stick'n to it...

Ol Ken. I'm surprised you dont like the Chessie System. Given you model a Chessie road. I'll say you are probably right. I have caught the C&O bug. The layout will stay that way too. That way I dont have to buy up B&O and Western Maryland hoppers to add to my fleet. I have mostly C&O hoppers as it is.

 

[chessie_system3]

Figured it's time to check in. I finally covered the last section of my mountain. Its go time now. I'll finish up the night adding a layer of plaster to it. Well atleast the dry sections. Then the real fun begins. Adding in scenery and the sort. Things to look forward to. That's all I have for now. I'll stop in before I head off to bed.

I used shop towels for this section. I went the towels with water. Then applied the plaster over top. Tricky but it works. Then I'll apply a second coat when it dries.

Side shot of my C&O GP30.

 

[chessie_system3]

Last visit before bed. I did an overview of my layout tonight. I'm not a professional so dont expect greatness with my videos. But here is a brief overview of my layout for anyone interested.

That's all I have for the night. More plaster tomorrow. Hope everyone has a good night.

 

[bnsf971]

Good morning. It's clear and 25.

 

[troyphoto]

Morning all. May make a donut run in a few, so just coffee Flo.

Sorry to hear of all the illness and health issues. Positive vibes to all those facing health issues!

Boris... get your snowblower's model # and call your local lawnmower repair shop. You can probably send them a couple of pics of the faulty part and have them order a new one. I did that several times before the move to a condo. If it's got a small engine, they can look it up and order it.

As for me... well, the wife is hotly anticipating our vaccines. We're still 2 groups away from getting ours (I'm 56, she's 55). I might qualify before she does since it looks like Indiana is going with half decades for age blocks.

Wife is planning a cruise for Jan 2022 - IF everything is better by then. Got a call into our travel agent. Planning on going with Sis-IL and her partner. Get them on their first ever cruise.

In other news, I hobbied yesterday!
Back muscle that I pulled is mostly better, but still tender. Need to do stretches for a few weeks to keep it limber.

Used T-pins and my handy-dandy metal yardstick to mark the center line on the curves. This section of the layout is mostly curves, so the ruler was well used.

Than I used up all but one half-strip of cork (and a bunch of shorties cut from others) in the current box. My back started to twinge, so I rang the shift-over bell. I only put down about 10 half-width strips, but it was progress.

OH, that greenish blue piece of foam with a nail in it... that's my center finder.

Cut it to the 1. 25 inch width needed for the 2.5 inch WS foam risers. Position that flush with one edge of the riser, and mark the other side. Do that every 6" on straights and 2" on curves and then lay my metal ruler in place to draw the line.

 

[kbkchooch]

Good morning gang!
Clear and 19f out there, might make it to freezing today. Just gonna sit in a booth with the foot propped up and sip coffee for now.

 

[CambriaArea51]

Good morning....8 degrees and clear. Just got back from clearing snow,mostly drifts.

 

[BigGRacing]

Good morning everyone from snow covered Halifax!
Lots of snow yesterday for lots of us across the continent again yesterday and today. We have almost 2 feet again this morning and it is still snowing. That is about our average monthly amount in one day again. Just enjoying my coffee, some blueberries and some fresh bread toasted with butter and peanut butter. I will head out with the snowblower again shortly and everything will be normal again. Loved the SuperBowl last night ( it was exactly as I expected) and The Weeknd nailed the half time show. What A stage show!
We got the framing completed on the Sunshine Dreams charity layout finished yesterday that some from our club are working on for a young fellow that asked for a train layout as his dream. I only play a small part as extra set of hands and getting my share of under the bench brackets set up. Everyone has old knees.....lol
I wish everyone here on the forum a fantastic day !

 

[ACL-CSX]

Good morning y'all. It is presently 32, feels like 26, with clear skies and wide scattered light coming in from the east.

Flo- The usual please.

First off, Railroad News: There is no news to report, Other then assembling the stairs and trimming the platform for the oil storage tanks, there was no progress made and no freight moved, either by train or by truck.

On to other matters:

TomO- No worries. The pain of our hard times has been replaced with joy in my family. Now I use the hell we went through to help others who may be headed down a similar road as what we were on. It was a difficult decision to make, but having my wife back and starting our long awaited family was more important to me. However, I will point out that it is only through the grace of God that I am hear to tell that tale. I did not learn of some of those details under after we had come to faith and started living our new life. My lovely wife knew that if the old me had known what had happened, there would have been a dead body and a jail cell in my future instead of a happy and complete family. It is because of the love and grace God has shown me that I was able to forgive and not avenge. It was still a difficult thing to accomplish though.

Sherrel- I think we all have something behind us that has significantly changed the course of our lives and led us to be who we are. It may not be as severe as mine or yours, but we all face challenges and test we must overcome. I was once a bitter, rage filled human being that hated and distrusted everyone, and now I am not. That former life came to its peak during that 6 months of hell, but didn't fully end until the fall of 2017. That's when the old passed away and the new came into existence.

IBKen- Thank you. I agree totally. As my story indicates, I have not always taken the right fork at the crossroad, but thankfully at the major intersections I have had enough guidance outside of my own understanding to not make the major faux pas that would have drastically altered the outcome of my life. As I mentioned above, there is a man alive today because I was prevented from ending his life twice. Once would have prevented some of what happened, the second time would have destroyed the fresh start. It is always good to have a reminder of our history, it keeps us from repeating things we are better off not to. Looking back on who I was before makes me appreciate who I am now all the more. I had little in my life I found joy in until what I had was nearly taken from me. Now I delight in everything, even the bad, because without it I wouldn't know just how good the rest truly is.

Hey, Flo, I've changed my mind. Please bring me a couple of eggs and some waffles to go with this bacon...Ok, better bring some more bacon also. It appears that I have eaten it all.

Just looked outside. It looks cold. I'll be in the corner warming up. I have to try and get some work done today, but I'll be lurking around until it warms up out there.

Y'all have a blessed day. And don't forget to take a moment to remember where you've been. I find it makes where I am much sweeter.

 

[Espeefan]

Happy Monday all! I spent a good amount of time on O'Neill's this weekend. As with most craftsman kit builds you get hiccups. Something I wasn't happy with: I was blending the walls and couldn't get the dark stain at the floor I wanted for rotting boards. I tried a little black chalk. Bad idea! That stuff is strong. It got way too dark. That's Rembrandt. No binders, no fillers, all pigment. I was able to get some of it back out by additional wire brushing, but it's still wasn't where I wanted it. From here you stare at it and wonder what to do for a little while and cuss yourself out. Black chalk is powerful stuff and must be used sparingly. The technique here is to scrape a little on the wood and use alcohol to wash it in making a stain of sorts. it is much more powerful than A/I and I wound up with this: Yuck!

I did find a way out though. I hit the walls with 234.3 (a light brown) chalk and rubbed it in with my fingers. It has a tendency to fill in seams and detail when you do it this way so after I got the color lightened I brushed lightly with the wire brush shown to clean out the detailing. Things look a little more reddish brown than they are due to the lighting here.

I wanted a darker color to match the upper wall area so I added the other two darker chalk colors the instructions tell you to use to stain the wood. I think I'm there. Based on previous experiences with "If I just do this one more thing" screwing up the entire process, I'm going to stop here and begin detailing the walls. Disaster averted, at least until the next step! That little wire brush is awesome.

There's a ton of detailing that gets added to these walls before the building assembles. A shelf, hanging junk like hoses and chains, misc. gear, the windows and the doors which have to be built up board by board. Still a couple of weeks before this one goes together!

 

[santafewillie]

Good Morning America. Cloudy and 48° on the back porch. Should hit 60° before the polar vortex approaches tomorrow. Forecast didn't change much from yesterday, NWS must have had the day off. Still anticipating down near 10° Saturday night with Saturday and Sunday's temperatures not going above freezing. Guess that it's time, on average we only have six days each winter where the temperature does not get above 32° in the daytime. Minimal chance of snow Saturday and Monday. They really don't have a clue, they haven't even been close most of this year so far. It has tended to be much warmer than their predictions. Hope that the trend continues this week.

I'll go back to my usual two eggs over easy and a pile of sausage patties this morning Francine. And add a toasted English Muffin and an OJ to go with it.

Thanks for all of the likes regarding the archive pictures yesterday; Karl, Rick, Sherrel, Gary, Hughie, Guy, Justin, Chad, Ken, Lee, Tom O, Tom, Ken, James.

Train shed time was limited again yesterday as it usually is on Sundays. Attacked the crossing signal issue a bit but then decided that I wanted to do some real train running instead of going back and forth multiple times with the same train. As I posted, they are working flawlessly with southbound trains, but northbound they seem to skip around and don't recognize that some of the cars are over the photoelectric cells in that direction. I have about a 75% recognition rate. I think that I will look at rotating the sensors a bit today.
I need to move on to another project before this one gets me too far down. Meanwhile, I have nearly depleted my supply of "good" pictures to show off parts of the layout, at least ones that I can find. I still haven't sorted out the volumes that I imported from the old computer back in November.
But here are a few that I may not have posted before. If I have, enjoy them again. These are a rural residential neighborhood outside of Vernon. Pictures were taken before I placed figures, except the last one.

Jesse - Touching story regarding your layout's name.
Sherrel - Continued prayers for your daughter.
Joe - Here in Texas, the vaccinations are being distributed primarily to county health departments and mass drive through immunizations are being done at sports complexes mainly. In the county I got the shot in, it's the high school sports complex which has a massive unused parking lot. In Tarrant County (Ft Worth), they are using the parking lot at Texas Motor Speedway, which technically is across their county line, but is readily accessible to their citizens. A limited supply is going to pharmacies and I don't know what criteria they are using there to set up appointments, but it is a very limited supply. My observation is that the health departments are doing an outstanding job, however there seems to have been some data collection problems earlier in January. I'll know next week as I get closer to the second dose date. I have not read or heard of any reports of unused vaccine at this point. The governor put a stop to ethnic favoritism about a month ago, which was complained about in some larger cities like Houston and San Antonio. All citizens within the classification are supposed to be considered equal.
While I am not an anti-vaxxer, I only got tetanus and pneumonia vaccines before this covid mess. No flu or shingles.
Best wishes for your wife's health.
Hughie - I am disappointed at the news of the demise of Waterfront Willie's.
Alan - Nice recovery with the walls.

All of the snow pictures that you have been posting are quite scenic. The temperature readings that you have been posting are quite bone chilling to me. Keep warm and don't overdo it with the snow removal. Be safe with your equipment.
Everybody have a great day.