Running Bear's April 2020 Coffee Shop


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Good night America! In order to do my part, here's a picture of a 2-8-0 that Willie is probably familiar with!


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I bought these 12 years ago...because I drove for them (Werner)
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for 2 years after my divorce to re-group and get away after selling house and everything. It was what I needed for a restart. I drove a new truck every 3 months KW, Peterbuilt, & Freightliners. I drove long haul over the road. During the 2 years I drove 425,000 miles almost a half a million. Then I had enough after seeing the country here in the US and Canada. I was ready to get back to the world of concrete and steel. So I got these for a reminder. Life is good now.
 
I bought these 12 years ago...because I drove for them (Werner)for 2 years after my divorce to re-group and get away after selling house and everything. It was what I needed for a restart. I drove a new truck every 3 months KW, Peterbuilt, & Freightliners. I drove long haul over the road. During the 2 years I drove 425,000 miles almost a half a million. Then I had enough after seeing the country here in the US and Canada. I was ready to get back to the world of concrete and steel. So I got these for a reminder. Life is good now.

I doubt I could handle that job. To much stress. I bough around 10 model trucks 15 year ago. I think I paid $5.95 per truck now their $22.00 or more.
George
 
... I bough around 10 model trucks 15 year ago. I think I paid $5.95 per truck now their $22.00 or more.
George
George, I think prices are like that with most things.

My kids often ask me about household appliances and projects; "how much should this cost dad?" I've learned to double what I think it should be and I'm usually still too low.

No inflation?

I still compare prices, but for the most part I ignore prices and buy what I want. I'm getting too old to be stressed out over prices.
 
Good morning Everybody!

I was on the usually busy, often slow going, bumper to bumper, Baltimore Washington Parkway (I295) last night at about 5 pm and I did not even see 10 other vehicles.

Amazon only gave me 16 packages to deliver. The stops were few and far between, from west Baltimore to north Baltimore. That tells me even Amazon is very slow. Amazon groceries are another story, just the opposite, extremely busy, but I'll leave that to the youngsters for now.

I've only worked one day in the last 2 weeks and I really miss working, but my family worries too much. I only worked last night because Amazon specifically asked me and last week they gave me an unexpected, unearned bonus, but keep that under your hat, not everyone got it. Amazon did give me a mask to wear.

"This too shall pass" Oh well, on to the to do list.

I hope and pray everyone is healthy.

God Bless Everyone.
 
How about this beauty Boris?! I have a Lionel Conrail SD 60, It's not a Legacy Locomotive, but I love it! I'm hoping for a Vision Line Conrail to grace the pages of a Lionel catalog.
Conrail SD60I 5580, leads 6169, and 3362 eastbound on the Boston line with autorack train ML482, rounding the curve at MP64, South Spencer, MA on April 19,1999.
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Good Morning All. Partly cloudy and 55°. The forecast is for thundershowers thunderstorms later today with over an inch and a half of rain predicted, continuing tomorrow morning with another half inch. This is the time of year for those unpredictable storms that might dump 4" or more and spawn a few tornados. Or they could turn out to be much ado about nothing.
Happy to report that every part of the yard within 240' of the house is mowed right now. Some places I have gone much further. I found a few dead limbs in a couple of trees yesterday that I removed. They will lay in place for a few days until I get around to making firewood out of them.

How about some ham and sunny-side up eggs this morning Francine.

Thanks for the likes and comments regarding my rehab project, Tom, Jerome, Guy, Bob, Phil, Sherrel, James, Patrick, Chad, Karl, Curt, Chet, Garry, Johnny.

Life goes on out in the train shed. Another unexpected surprise on the building that I am rehabbing. There's no glass in the windows to the left of the fire escape, or in many others either.
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Among all of the spare parts that I also got in the same estate sale, I found some clear styrene that will fit.
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In the next picture, you can see where the modeler(?) just glued cardboard to the inside of the structure, windows on the left, another wall is the same way. I am leaving it alone for now as those walls are in back and I don't have any ready-fit sized styrene for them. Besides this project is lasting longer than I had expected.
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In this picture, you can see that the handrails for the lowest stairs for the fire escape are glued on backwards.
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I did remove them yesterday without breakage and cleaned up part of them.
I did do some more track cleaning and vacuuming on another 24' of track, which is what I set out to do before getting sidetracked on this structure.
Hope to resume the photo tour tomorrow.

Patrick - Wow! You still have a Radio Shack nearby? I miss that store.
Hair dryer to flatten out that ladder is a possibility. Right now the weight seems to be doing the trick. I do have a hand-me-down dryer that my wife gave me years ago.
Tom - Interesting use for the old front runner car.
Bob - I love my electric chainsaw for all of the same reasons that you posted. They are also lighter in weight. I have a regular sized 16" one and a smaller 8" one on a 14' pole. On big stuff I have to use the 18" gas powered one which requires all of the prep work as well as hearing protection, (and safety glasses of course).
Foam board is not easy to get in the South. It's not just current conditions.
Garry - Nice job on the grade crossings.
James - I really like those trucks.
Louis - Easy to tell that you're not working right now! ;)
Mikey - There's been a noticeable uptick in forum participation in the last month. Definitely some progress being made on some long idle layouts. Lots of new members as well. Happily, even Louis has been able to return. Heck, we might even see Bruce (new guy) return some day!

I have been seeing some really nice N scale pictures being posted here on this forum in the last few weeks, especially Hughie's. I know that there are probably lots more out on the Internet, but I really don't have a lot of "surfing" time. Looking forward to seeing what Bob comes up with.

Another day of self-isolation for us today. A big pot of chili is on the menu for tonight after the "kitbashed" shrimp & broccoli dish that I made last night. Wife is getting itchy being home all of the time, she misses shopping but many of her favorite stores are closed right now. She is going to work tomorrow, alone in the closed office to do tax returns that have been dropped off for her to do. Downside is that she is missing those generous $100 tips that she usually gets from those customers.

Everybody have a great day and an awesome weekend. Happy Easter in advance if you're not here tomorrow. Keep your distance.
 
Keeping our distance is critical, but hard to do in a crowded work place. My wife is on the front lines everyday in her retail store. My youngest daughter is too, she works for Costco. I have 2 nurses and a doctor among my nieces, they know all to well. My other kids are lucky to be working from home.

I'm fortunate in my work, I don't come close to others. Amazon has my route staged outside, I scan my packages, load my van and go, without any contact with anyone. I wear a mask, I use hand sanitizer before and after handling packages and if I have to go into an apartment building.

Customers are more than considerate, they often wave at me through their screen door. I don't come closer than 6 feet to anyone.

I know keeping our distance is critical, but I worry for those out of work. As we have learned many small businesses are in no better shape than individuals. Many individuals live from week to week and many small businesses survive month to month. The last statistics I saw most Americans work for small businesses. Even big corporations have only limited cash reserves. Many big corporations were already carrying a heavy debt load. Before this virus the only strong economic factor was consumer spending.

I worry this virus will die down in the summer, only to return in the fall like the spanish flu did. I can survive an extended time with little or no income, but many others can't. For me work is therapeutic, it keeps me active. I built a basketball court in my back yard, I take walks to replace the activity of working. Others don't have simple solutions to their problems.

It seems to me we are caught between a rock and a hard place. If we don't stay home we will suffer, If we don't get back to work we will suffer.
 
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