Running Bear's Coffee Shop LXIV


Good Morning All. 64° and clear to start the week. Noticeable lack of wind since Friday has increased the number of insects that buzz me when outside. They don't bite but are a real irritant when landing in eyes, ears, mouth or nose. Checked the pool temperature yesterday and it is up to 74°, almost warm enough to remove the cover and start using it. Wife left yesterday for a five-day babysitting adventure with the two grandsons, so I have a bit of additional housework to deal with. I already threw her out of the kitchen when I retired!
Did a little more bracing/gluing on the laser-cut structure yesterday, and primed some of the walls. Sundays are not always productive for me in the train shed due to church/socializing stuff.

Beady - I was not concerned that you were going to throw a fit...hahaha. I actually think that in some respects, some doctors perform a disservice by not dispensing prevention advice. They only get paid when you get sick, so it's not in their best interest to offer advice in how to avoid that. Now that should offend someone! So how did the pact work out? By the way, sort of repeating what Dave posted yesterday, around here Lowes also will rent you a small flatbed truck for a few hours to get your purchases home.
Terry - Hey! Great video.
Ken in MD - Retaining wall looks great.
Curt - Watching a Heart concert isn't such a bad thing. I do remember "lusting" after the Wilson sisters in my youth. One of them still looked pretty hot the last time I saw them on TV a few years back...not bad for a gal as old as me!
Joe - Ironically, I have actually had a frost in early May one year. Caught it in time and turned on the overhead sprinkler to beat it. Basically the water is warmer than the air and insulates the tender plants from the cold.
Sherrel - Speaking of jousting...there's an establishment in Dallas called "Medieval Times", there's other locations as well. It's a dinner theater of sorts, that features jousting. The connection is that they board their horses at a ranch that I pass every time that I go somewhere, and it is quite a sight. There's perhaps 100 of them and they are all beautiful and it's quite spectacular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Times
Louis - Good to hear from you. It's been a couple of days.
Dave - Congratulations on the successful auction.

Everybody have a great day.

Willie
 
Cheese and crackers! So many great post to comment on, but I am out of time again!

I'll leave you with this
kentucky-derby-horse-racing-d3940822a852f86b.jpg
 
Good morning everyone. I'll have a big cup of regular and a jelly doughnut - um, make that two jelly doughnuts - one for each hand. 61 here in SW MO heading for 83 today. Sun, sun, sun!! Beautiful weekend and next two days will be nice, then some rain comes back for a day or so. Yeah, we made it through the flooding fine. We live in a country subdivision on top of a ridge, so everything drains away from us.

I head for the doc's office in a couple of hours to have him check out my back - that's the only thing still giving me trouble, and I haven't seen any improvement in four days, so it's time to get it checked out. Not sure what to expect. Will keep you posted. Needless to say, no progress in the train room, although I did a little landscaping.

See ya later. Have a good day everyone.
 
Morning fellers. 51 is what weather channel says but my outdoor thermometer says 58.
Totally sunnny.
I finished two more models this morning. I got up early and got into it.
I'm about to start in on my Walthers cornerstone series "Trackside oil dealer with tanks".
Looks like I have another package showing up today and another tomorrow.
Sat. I had a boatload of stuff show up. My mail-lady, knocks on my door and walks in saying "Eric I have a LOT of packages for you!".
I had no idea. Must have been a couple came late and a couple came early.
I have a really nice selection of paints in my arsenal now.
My landlord in GA said he sent another box of stuff I asked for. Finally! This would be the box he should have sent first.
He's such a scatter-brained airhead sometimes!!
Never the less, it's good timing because there is a lot of surface area I need to paint on some of these and brushing just won't compare when I have my airbrush back on hand. I hope to God he found everything I asked. He said he did.
We'll see. I believe his package will show tomorrow - at my Dad's house. He doesn't have the address out here at the "home".
Gosh that weirds me out to say here I am at 56 living in a nursing home.
To think I'm going through this dam cancer thing is even weirder. Stuff like that just doesn't happen to me - until now and DAM have I had a rough go of it.
My next scan isn't until June 5 so I can't say I'm a survivor or cancer free yet. By God's grace and will that will be true.
E.
 
What happened with that NG?
Did someone pee in his corn flakes again and sent him packing?

Has anyone heard from Tony the Wombat either?
E.
 
E!!!

You might have a small business opportunity. I don't know what the market could be, but I suspect there are many like me with little interest and even less talent for building and customizing models. After I move and build a permanent layout maybe you could build and customize something for me? :)

Tip: you probably already know this, but I'll say this anyway; start your price high, you can always come down, but you can't go up.

You could give it a try by selling one or 2 on eBay.

As for New Guy, it was me. He gave me some unwanted medical advice and struck a nerve. I was overly harsh in rebuking him and I have not seen him since. I did apologize for being too hard, but to no avail.

I have not seen or heard from Tony in a month of Sundays.

I can't wait to hear your "free of cancer" announcement. God be with you my friend!
 
BigE said:
What happened with that NG?
Did someone pee in his corn flakes again and sent him packing?

Has anyone heard from Tony the Wombat either?
E.
Click to expand...
I guess we did,
And no, we haven't.
Phone calls and emails to Tony have gone unanswered.
Bruce indicated he was taking a hiatus.
 
Good morning. 43 degrees with mostly clear skies.

Saturday was a long day. With all of the rain we received over the past couple of weeks plus warmer weather, I did end up with a hay field. My grandson mowed the yard, but there was so much grass clippings that I had to go over the yard a second time, starting from the center moving all of the clippings to the area outside the lawn. Took quite a while to get that done . I did take the hand mower to a great small engine shop to see if they could do something with it. Ilder mowers had a throttle and you could adjust the carb and engine speed. Newer ones don't give you that option. He said that they could try to bring the rpms up and also try to make the engine run smoother. I told him that if it was going to mere than 50 bucks, they could trash the mower.

Gene - Glad to know that I'm not the only one who prefers switching ops, but I do still have a few steam locomotives. Having grown up when they were still in operation, I couldn't pass up having some on my layout.

Ken in MD - Thanks for poting the photos. Looks fine to me. Looking forward to watching the progress you make. I only have one BLI locomotive that I got from a forum member. I of course wasn't interested in a DCCl ocomotive, but it was their heavy Mike and I really liked the chunky looks of it. At first I had a problem running it on DC but it had an upgraded chip in it. I got the factory chip and now it runs fine but I can really do without the sound. A mike is the largest steam locomotive that I run on my layout. Consolidations are the most common, but diesels are the main stay of my locomotives. Apparently Curt isn't very impressed with BLI steamers either. I had no experience with them at all before this mike, but so far I has run well, but then, I don't run it very often. I do usually have trains running while I am working on the layout, but after a while, sound locomotives drive me nuts.

Joe - I was tempted long ago at considering DCC, but being that I am a one operator and also that my layout is built for switching and also that I rarely run more than one locomotive at a time, I am really happy that I decided to stick with DC. For me it is a lot simpler. Put the train on the track and turn up the throttle. Don't have to deal with decoders and the related problems.

Karl - There's nothing that will make a car look pld like fogged over headlights. Nice job. Do=id the same to my daughters car the other afternoon. What a difference.

Eric - Sounds like Christmas in May - You should be able to keep yourself busy for a while with all you got. Nothing from NG for a long time. Sounds like Terry may be the guilty person. :D

Terry - Nice video
 
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BigE said:
What happened with that NG?
Did someone pee in his corn flakes again and sent him packing?

Has anyone heard from Tony the Wombat either?
E.
Click to expand...


I texted with TonyWombat about 3 weeks ago...he was sidetracked with some family stuff and has been focusing on his new n-gauge layout so hasn't been here as much...check for him in the N-gauge forum.

As Louis said..NG got his feelings hurt, and as he does in such a situation he has done a runner for the time being. Btw Louis..I don't think you were particularly hard on him at all....he is just very over-sensitive to what he percieves as unwarrented criticism....he reacted the exact same way here last year and on another forum about 6 months ago.
 
Montanan...I do have some steam locos, about 5 including 3 Bachmann 2-6-0s....the rest are either 0-6-0s or 0-8-0s.
Two reasons why I prefer switching ops to just running or passenger ops...1) My space is so limited I can only do a point-point layout with a max length of 12 ft at most...which obviously precludes long freight or passenger trains anobviously precludes any roundy-roundy running. 2) I get bored very quickly, like in 5-10 minutes, just running around a layout without some sort of action....having a nice long train running around a layout is fine as a background thing for me but I like building and switching trains. Thats just me.

I go to my local club layout if I want to run long trains around a big layout...but I only last about 10 minutes before I get bored. My favourite thing is building,modelling and operating smallish, grungy,urban, industrial kinds of layouts.
 
Everyone - just got back from the doc's office - it's a "compression fracture" and he thinks all the problems I experienced after moving all that furniture are related, including the back pain. It's not from osteoporosis or cancer, just hurt it along with several other things at the same time. Given time and no strenuous activity, this should heal itself within 4-6 weeks, maybe sooner. If not, I go back for further analysis. Right now, it looks like I dodged the bullet on this one - thank the Lord.
See ya later.
 
Gene - Having a limited space is something that a of of modelers face unfortunately. I can run a train around my layout by using hidden staging tracks if I lift up a drop down bridge in the hidden tracks. I usually do this while I am working on projects on the layout. I will let different locomotives run to make sure that they are working properly instead of letting them just sit around.

I like you idea of switching in grubby urban areas. I have seen a few small layouts like that in magazines and they really look interesting. I did model a more rural area, but each town on the layout has a built in switching problem just to make things interesting. In my signature, I have the short video of Switching in Churchill which will give you an idea of what can take quite a while to switch out all of the rail customers. I have spent well over an hour in that one town alone. As far as passenger service goes, I don't normally run long trains. An RDC with a club car of a combine with a coach behind a small steamer is the norm. I do have a tourist train that uses a couple of coaches and dome cars behind a Northern Pacific F unit that I will run from time to time because I really like the Lowey paint scheme. I really enjoyed riding the North Coast Limited when I was a kid, but that train would never have shown up on my railroad, plus it would be so long that it can be in two towns at the same time.

I saw you mention that you don't like steamers wit pilot trucks in an earlier post. I have been lucky in that respect. The mikes, mogul and consolidations that I run haven't had any problems, but a Bachmann decapod does have that problem. Almost bounced it off the wall a few times. I use it as a yard switcher only when I do run it because it is such a wimp that it can only handle perhaps 4 freight cars on my grades.

Although the steamers that I run do operated quite smoothly, I find that I usually will use a diesel to perform most of the switching duties.
 
Chet...its not so much that I don't like steamers, its just that in my experience,they seem, especially the ones with leading pony-trucks are more prone to de-railing than either my 0-6-0s,0-8-0s or my diesels. My 2-6-0s are total rock-stars but otherwise I tend to shy away from the 2 and 4 wheel leading truck steamers. Most of the guys at the club are into steamers,especially the larger ones and they are constantly having problems with either derailing or running-gear.

I wish I had room for an around the room layout or even a 4x8 oval.....I've done some of your camera rides on your layout...its a perfect amalgam of continous run with switching opportunities. If I only had the space...but we make do with what we have.
 
Gene - I do consider myself fortunate to have to room that I do but wish that I had a club in the area. I did find one recently in Livingston, about 40 miles away, over a mountain pass that is a really nice club with a really nice layout. I do plan on going over there again in the near future but unfortunately, their meeting nights don't really work out well for me at all and in the winter, the pass can be quite a problem at times.

Here is a video of the club layout. They really did a nice job on the ir scenery as it really is so close to what is out here.

[video=youtube;rdJ1mlLwE-s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdJ1mlLwE-s[/video]

I am hoping to possibly find someone over there that can turn down the sound on a couple o the DCC locomotives that I have.
 
santafewillie said:
Beady - I was not concerned that you were going to throw a fit...hahaha. I actually think that in some respects, some doctors perform a disservice by not dispensing prevention advice. They only get paid when you get sick, so it's not in their best interest to offer advice in how to avoid that. Now that should offend someone! So how did the pact work out? By the way, sort of repeating what Dave posted yesterday, around here Lowes also will rent you a small flatbed truck for a few hours to get your purchases
Click to expand...
I have to disagree with you about doctors. They really don't need to intentionally feather their nests in order to afford larger swimming pools.

Sherrel - Speaking of jousting...there's an establishment in Dallas called "Medieval Times", there's other locations as well. It's a dinner theater of sorts, that features jousting. The connection is that they board their horses at a ranch that I pass every time that I go somewhere, and it is quite a sight. There's perhaps 100 of them and they are all beautiful and it's quite spectacular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Times
Click to expand...
We've been to the locations in Toronto, Orlando (the "home office") and Baltimore (in a shopping mall adjacent to BWI). It's a really good show, but be sure to take a virgin credit card; you enter and exit via the gift shop, and they've got some really neat and expensive stuff. Hint: when you buy your tickets be sure to specify seats on the 50-yard line, hopefully in the front row.

This signature is intended to irritate people.
 
Bruette said:
As for New Guy, it was me. He gave me some unwanted medical advice and struck a nerve. I was overly harsh in rebuking him and I have not seen him since. I did apologize for being too hard, but to no avail.
Click to expand...
Holy Christ on a pogo stick! Don't apologise, that was one of the best take-downs I've ever seen. I'd gladly pay to be able to watch it again. Eric, you really missed something.

This signature is intended to irritate people.
 
Home from the cabin. Worked my butt off. The oaks finally lost their leaves so I used my garden tractor to blow the leaves into the woods. Lots of minor jobs done. Back to the cabin on Thursday.

On Public television at the cabin, they had they a spring fund rising and the subject was Tourist Railroads in the United States. Had short videos of each. Nice.

Today some train room work...fun.

Thanks.

Greg
 
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