Running Bear’s October 2020 Coffee Shop


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for those of you worried about my clean work bench... it lasted all of 5 minutes. Once I started freeing up space on the (now) computer desk, the workbench got the old half-finished gaming projects and more tools.

Now, I've got a secret project I'm working on... may take a few days.
 
GREG- Have you ever rail fanned in WAUWATOSA ? CP AND UP cross and there is AMTRAK in the p.m.

Hope all well
Phil

Many times I've rail-fanned in Wauwatosa since my office was near the CP tracks in downtown Wauwatosa. There's a parking for vehicle immediately parallel to the tracks near Hart Park. I've seen the AMTRAK trains many times run along these tracks or in Du Plainville. Usually I take a lunch and wait for a friegth usually tankers and containers to come along.

The UP rail-fanning I do is in Butler where the UP has a yard. The best place to watch some action is in the Home Depot parking lot since the bridge is no longer rail-fan friendly after the remodeling. Also, there's a road that runs parallel to the yard to the east. The UP has been tearing up a lot of tracks in the yard.

Greg
 
Afternoon All,

Beautiful day today starting out at 62 F to a high of 79 F as compared to 92 F yesterday. Started out with outside chores then inside ones. In the train room I did a little bit of everything. I finished the rail painting but realized in the engine service area I always do a black wash on the rails :(. I glued together some risers, glued a spare rock face on (required because of the revised plan), put in cardboard lattice work then plastered it. I'll take some pictures in 2 or 3 days when I have something to show. No layout time tomorrow since I'm over at daughters helping with flooringo_O.

I remember seeing the cattle guards through the West ranging from West TX to MT. This was in the 60's and early 70's.

Hughie- That's funny.

Troy- Nice job on the workbench.

Jerry- I've only seen them on or around roads.

gseritt- Be careful it's 2020. The birds might be the extras in the Hitchcock movie.

Guy- Nice train photos.

Joe- Nice GG1 photo.

Chet- Great club photos.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Good morning. It's 41 and partly cloudy.
The downed tree in the front yard and driveway has been cleared. Now, of course, there's a tree cut into pieces sitting by the road waiting for the city to remove it. Someday, whenever they resume operations after the Plague... It may be there a while at the rate things are going.
 
Greetings everyone!

Woke up way too early, but the fuzzy conductor helped me get a cat nap in while I waited on the coffee to brew.

Shoutout to British Railway Modelling - a great little magazine I get on my tablet (to save shipping across the big and expensive pond between here and there). They've got a profile on Woodcroft, one of the club layouts that was damaged in May of 2019 when teenage vandals broke into an exhibition hall and destroyed several layouts. Good to see the layouts returning, repaired and ready for visitors (post lockdowns).

I need to go to the hardware and buy a quart of GN-Orange paint. Wonder what shade that is in housepaint chips? "Savagely Mandarine?" "Crusty Leaves under the Bridge?"
 
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I need to go to the hardware and buy a quart of GN-Orange paint. Wonder what shade that is in housepaint chips? "Savagely Mandarine?" "Crusty Leaves under the Bridge?"
You probably weren't expecting a serious answer to that, but here you go:
 
I need to go to the hardware and buy a quart of GN-Orange paint. Wonder what shade that is in housepaint chips?
I take a sample of what I want to the local Home Depot paint counter, and they point a spectrophotometer at it, which then tells them how to mix the color paint for you. Paint matching. The chip, even an existing loco, needs to be about an inch square, but sometimes they can use a smaller piece depending on the shape and also the skill of the instrument operator.
I have only used it for house paint types.
 
Morning all,

Lovely day in Doo-Dah today high in the mid-60's today.

Working at the moment trying to get all the servers up to date and play catch up here.

Over did the stuff at home yesterday and still didn't get everything done. Knees are swollen, so when I get home later, I may still not get everything done. I was with the kids last weekend assisting with planning a shed build by the company that built my shed and told them how I had critters getting under it between the slab and the shed. They told me how they fix it, so I did the same. That's what did my knees in, but rabbits should be done running under it to get away from the dog. The wife asked if there were any still under it and I said I didn't care as it would be entombed under it and there'd be more if I waited any longer. Still have the now dead tomatoes to get cleaned up and out of the yard. I do need to do what I hope is a final mowing.

Willie: Glad to hear you made it home safely. 11 hours is a lot of riding with replaced knees. I have to get out about every 2 hours to work the kinks out of mine. We even now plan for an overnight between here and the parent's house in the U.P. of Michigan, although I can drive it straight through if need be. Just takes longer.
 
Howdy. ... I hope all of you are doing well.

Thanks everybody for the well wishes. It's been a very stubborn sickness.

Here is a photo of a commuter train I rode regularly when I worked in Detroit. I boarded at this station in Royal Oak, MI.

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Hopefully, I can start catching up with each of you soon. .... Have a nice Saturday.
 
Good Morning All. Clear and 44° here in beautiful North Central Texas. Temperatures here did not reach freezing while we were gone, all of the annual herbs on the back porch survived. Temperature range for the next three days is going to be slightly below normal, lows 35°-70°, but will return to the normal 50°-78° on Wednesday.
Great to be home again. My bed, my pillow, my 17.5" tall toilet, my shower, my kitchen and I can pee in the yard again. No leaving distracting lights on at night to assist in guiding me around in the middle of the night. While it was not the normal vacation this year, it was enjoyable nonetheless. The China Virus did reduce some opportunities to do things that we wanted to see or do. And other than the power outage of 17 hours, the hurricane didn't have any negative effects on Gulf Shores or our trips either way. The only hangup was driving home through the outskirts of Dallas between 4:15 and 4:45 (Friday afternoon) on the way back. While the freeways moved pretty well (they usually do), there was major congestion at three different interchanges that we had to go through. The fourth one was smooth sailing. I most likely could have avoided two of the congestion spots if we had thought soon enough to use the Express toll lanes to bypass those spots. They're not that expensive. Toll or Express lanes have become the newest money maker for the state, instead of just adding extra lanes to the existing freeways, they add these toll lanes. In some cases like along IH635, the loop circling Dallas, they actually reduced the number of regular lanes to make room for the money makers.
Yesterday, was a great trip until Dallas, we left Gulf Shores around 0520. We went through Mobile AL before rush hour and hit the New Orleans and Baton Rouge before their noon rush hour. If you've ever been to Baton Rouge, you would understand this. We arrived in Shreveport La a bit after 1300 and avoided most of their lunchtime crowd. Ate some lunch there at a Whataburger with indoor dining. In Texas their dining rooms are still closed. Again the only hangup was those freeway interchanges in Dallas. What normally is a 20 minute trip around took almost 45 minutes.
Here's where we stayed the first 3 1/2 days as viewed from the beach. Middle condo, 6th floor, second balcony from the left.
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The condos on either side were closed for repairs from the damage caused by Hurricane Sally in September.
View of the structure to the left from our balcony.
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Lots of roof and window damage.
Most of the high rise condos along Gulf Shores Blvd were damaged.
Here is a view from our balcony taken on Monday while the water was nice and very calm.
IMG_4846.JPG

All other years that we have been at this place, the beach had a lot more folks. All of the condos being shut down had a significant effect on the number of people. Can't blame it on the water, which was about 82° by my guess.
Taken after the hurricane.
IMG_4975.JPG


Troy - Very nice bench. One reason that I made my workbench just 36" x 18" is so I wouldn't have so much space to lose things.
Jerry - We have a few, not many, of those cattle guarded crossings nearby. It doesn't look like a road crosses at that one unless you drive a Hummer or Jeep. I cannot get a photo because I don't make field trips that far into other peoples property (or the railroads) at this stage in life. They don't stop the train from hitting cattle at 60 mph at the actual crossing, but they keep the cattle off the rest of the railroad right of way where ranchers cannot access to retrieve them.
Tom O - Continued good luck with your media withdrawal. Just don't leave us!
Guy -
a cow can tip-toe around it
Cows don't tip-toe anywhere.:rolleyes:
Greg - Just a curious question if you happen to know the answer regarding the China Virus there in WI. I think that you have mentioned before of acquaintances who passed away from it. Were all of these people mask-wearers or not? If you know...
Chet - Always love your photos whether at the club or at home.
Patrick - Fortunately my wife's knee didn't give her any problems. We made a two day trip going there to see how it would hold up, and then she decided that a single long journey home was in order. She had problems with a blister on her foot; the result of buying a new pair of shoes the day before we left and not breaking them in!:( Since both of our blood pressure meds contain diuretics, we have to stop and stretch out every 2-2 1/2 hours anyway at local convenience stores along the way. We already know where all of the clean ones are!

On the way home yesterday, I had to endure the usual "you're going too fast" statements from my wife which I ignore anyway. I never used cruise control on any trip before, but I decided to try it out on the way down, and then used it extensively on the way back once I got familiar with its operation. I normally set it at 9 mph over the limit, which meant I had it at 84 mph for much of the trip. Passed numerous highway troopers that didn't even give me a second look. At some point on IH49 coming north near Alexandria LA, we switched and my wife drove for about 45 minutes while I napped. After making a restroom stop, I took back over. She had been using the cruise control (she always does) during her stretch. So I got in and got back on the highway and hit "resume". Guess where she had it set? That's right, 84 mph!

Looking forward to getting back into the train shed today. Still have to unpack and do a few household chores first. Then I'll have to prepare for the trick or treaters tonight. I have a single mint candy from the hotel in Gulfport to give away. Seriously, we haven't had a visitor on Halloween night in over 44 years, 40 here and 4 at our former home.
Need to end this long-winded post for now and get busy. I'll be returning with more pictures later. I took 58 at the model railroad museum that I need to review and sort.
Everybody have a great day, an awesome weekend and Happy Halloween.
 
Good morning y'all. 31° and...SUNNY! :) There was a heavy frost over night, as predicted. Now that our growing season is officially over, the NWS will no longer forecast frost until next April.

My PC survived a lengthy MS Windows 10 update last night. Might be my imagination, but right now it appears to be running better. I do have to reset a few preferences that the update changed.

As many of y'all have probably noticed, I have an interest in passenger trains. A friend of mine, keeps sending me a series of downloaded CT220s, which were telegraphed passenger train wheel reports. Currently, they are from April 6, 1961, and involve all trains including foreign railroad trains operating on PRR lines. Noteworthy, within the current group, is the usage of Heavyweight Sleeping cars of the "Oak" series and "Harbor" Series in regular consists covering regular car lines. The "Oak" series were 12 Roomette, 1 Single bedroom, and 4 Double Bedroom, and the Harbor" series were 6 double bedroom, buffet lounge cars. The car lines included two on the Southern, and two on the PRR.

More progress on the layout rebuild, I started putting track down yesterday. This time, I'm carefully measuring, and dropping feeder wires as I go. Once the alignment is right, I'm going to drag ballast, instead of putting it off.

C&DR Main Restoration 10-31-2020.jpg

This is an unusually large photo, considering it was taken from my phone. Once this track is in place, I can accurately measure the centerline of the adjacent track, and repeat the process.
 
Good morning from Wisconsin. Possible 50’s for temperatures today and the missing in action Sun, has appeared again.

Willie, the withdrawal had a bump yesterday but I survived. I am reducing where I visit on line in addition to the reduction in time online. But I will return to 24/7 on 11/10/2020, just to less places. I am just trying to get past the current news cycle. The current events have driven me crazier. I have reduced indefinitely the visits to train forums. I only plan to visit 3 daily including Modelrailroadforums, the MRH forums and Rail-Line forums. I dropped the Drudge Report, NYT, the WashingtonnPost, Huffington Post, Briebart and a few others. I removed the news apps from the phone after yesterday’s failure to stay off line. The news apps were sending hilites every 1/2 or so and that led me to checking up on stuff. Those are gone from all my devices. Not watching TV has sort of become my thing during Covid19, I just don’t miss it but my beloved is a TV news junkie, so I am avoiding her TV. I will watch NHL hockey and for the first time in 3 seasons watched a full football pro game Sunday.

Enjoy the day
TomO
 
ere is a photo of a commuter train I rode regularly when I worked in Detroit. I boarded at this station in Royal Oak, MI.

Garry: Always liked the GTW's CN scheme for their passenger equipment and power. Glad to hear you're feeling better. None of these seasonable viruses are pleasant. And, they are all dangerous.
Willie: Welcome back. Sounds like a good trip. Like the before and after shots of the beach. Always like Gulf beaches because the water is generally relatively calm.
Yesterday, not only was my mail box full of political junk mail, but I kept getting calls and text messages from both sides. They all seem concerned that a lot of people around here might exercise their "right" not to vote, as my wife did. My ballot is in although it took me a while to decide whether or not I was going to take the time to fill it out, properly stuff and seal the inner and outer envelopes, and drive over to Town hall, and drop it off in the ballot box.
Tom O: I have been avoiding TV news for a long time now. Tired of the Embellishment and Dramatization and Partisanship. It's much easier to read the Times on line, and not hear all the vocal emphasis TV presents. Good luck in your effort.

Budd MUs at Chestnit Hill, PA.jpg

Budd MUs line up for the morning commute from Chestnut Hill, PA. This is a great example of a modest end point terminal. Station building, to the right of the platform shelter, houses ticket office, waiting room, Trainman' room, and an Interlocking and Block station.
PRR 9452, @ Richmond & Norris 10-28-1967 Hal Smith.jpg

Alco on street railroad, Richmond and Norris St. Philadelphia in 1967. H. Smith photo. Note I-95 under construction in the back ground.
 
Willie: To answer your question about Covid-19 in Wisconsin. Right now the rate of infection is higher than NY at its peak. My BIL, a doctor, wore is mask when around his wife who is also a doctor. He passed away in April. Everyone else here in Wisconsin who contracted the virus that we know did not wear a mask in public. There was a wedding of people we know and countless people contracted the virus at the wedding.

Dan who we found out had died, never wore a mask. He was 71.

My wife always wore a mask in public and she contracted the virus and is slowly becoming her old self, but no taste or smell.

Greg
 
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