Running Bear's Coffee Shop LXX

[montanan]

Justin - I'm with you. Sticking with DC too. With the way my layout operates, DCC would be of no advantage with the exception of causing a lot of work installing decoders and emptying my wallet.

 

[chessie_system3]

Very reason I won't take the plunge. Shoot I can't even get my layout to work properly with DC I can only imagine DCC. But that's my fault all on my own.

Justin

 

[BigE]

I didn't mean to start a dC vs dcc debate.

 

[chessie_system3]

I don't think you did. I'm not debating this. Everyone has a preference. You are DCC. It works for you. Just not something that will work for me right now. Best believe though all of my motive power is DCC ready. So if the time comes it's plug and play.

Justin

 

[montanan]

Eric - You didn't. There are some layouts that really couldn't work without it. Look at Ken's D&J, my model railroad club and so forth. DCC is a necessity for good operations. Then there are layouts like mine, built for switching and rarely if ever have more than one locomotive running at a time.

Different strokes for different folks.

 

[BigE]

I don't think you did. I'm not debating this. Everyone has a preference. You are DCC. It works for you. Just not something that will work for me right now. Best believe though all of my motive power is DCC ready. So if the time comes it's plug and play.

Justin

I like it because of how I can play with the sounds.

 

[Trigster]

For anyone curious here's a link to a PDF file on the Marklin 6600 Controller...
http://www.digital-train.com/Digital/Maerklin/Maerklin_6600_UK.pdf

That's about as close to 'Automation' as I get...All of my gear is analog and I've always enjoyed manually controlling
a layout...It isn't terribly complex it's just that it's been 15+ years that I last hooked the silly little device up !!!...And
as I remember it functions fairly well for a 'Station'...Stop / Pause / Start...That's 1st on the list for testing...Maybe i'll
get around to it today...I want to make sure I can get it Bi-Directional without using a 2nd control track...I think so ???
We shall see...And 'All In Good Time'...I do have an Advanced Degree in Procrastination !!!...There's Always Tomorrow

Trig

 

[chessie_system3]

I like it because of how I can play with the sounds.

I think that is a good selling point for converting to DCC.

Justin

 

[Boris]

Good Morning -- 41 degrees going up to 82 today, still no moisture in sight. Clear and calm here, but have not checked the fire
situation up along the coast up North.



Had a USPS guy ring our doorbell at 7 AM Sunday morning - either he really started early or maybe was a holdover from the night before.



Funny - one showed up here last evening around 8 PM as well!




JOE -- Pretty sad when two fire trucks run together - Blind Intersection?

Sherrel: Wide, open intersection, with minimal obstructions. Traffic Lights, early Sunday morning, no traffic. Should not have happened. Engine 3 was on the N-S street, Engine 4 on the W-W street. 4 was following engine 5 moving E to W, E3, should have been slowing, to make a right turn S to W. Neither engine yielded, and E 4, hit E3. Ladder 1, following Engine 3 observed the whole thing. Board determined both engineers were guilty of not proceeding into intersection with caution. (Of course, both Engineers were killed - attributed to being thrown from the engines at impact).

 

[Boris]

Joe ... You may have heard CSX stock is down about $4.00 / share this morning because CEO, Harrison Hunter, is taking a medical leave of absence.

Closed @ $53.92, -4.38 or -7.64% . Interesting.

 

[Boris]

Eric and Chet: DC vs. DCC? No debate, use what works best for your interest. I currently have a DCC controller and DC controllers at my disposal, from previous layouts, and I'm using rudimentary DC right now. I'm leaning toward sticking with DC, but reserve the right to go full DCC, on a whim. After using DCC on the previous layout, I kind of like the simplicity of DC.

 

[montanan]

Joe - I will have to agree with the simplicity of operating DC. Initial wiring may take a bit more work, but I don't want to have to screw around with decoders. I can't count how many posts I have seen over the years from members having decoder problems. I like to put the locomotive on the tracks, turn up the throttle and watch it run.

 

[PRR Modeler]

Afternoon All,

Spent most the day Christmas shopping followed by groceries. My legs and feet are tired puppies. Tomorrow I'm going to drive down to visit my buddy that lives in Orlando.

VA Ken- Nice job on the sound install.

Sherrel- I remember the Cotton Belt, Southern Pacific, and Santa Fe from my childhood. When I was trying to decided what to model years ago Cotton Belt was a serious contender.

Chet- Nice track photo.

Greg- I am sorry for your family's loss.

I hope everyone has a good night.

 

[Trigster]

Not So Sure A Quick Images Gets Me Out Of Actual Testing...
Some Interesting Historical Artifacts In This Image...Trig

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Not So Sure A Quick Images Gets Me Out Of Actual Testing...
Some Interesting Historical Artifacts In This Image...Trig

LOL, Trig-- You have already lost me with the schematic - and now - this?

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Weekend Eve guys. Only two days till Monday morning. I only worked half a day in the office then came home and finished my work here. I really think my boss calls all my work a half days work.
Anyway, tomorrow, I'm picking up my two youngest g'sons and taking them up to the Dulles Expo center for the train show. I'll give them each $5 and see what they can find. Food is not allowed. We will get a Chic-Fil-A lunch on the way home. Might stop by the club layout at Quantico to watch trains for a little bit too.
The older g'son is still on his F bomb snit with his mom so I really don't want to have to deal with that.
Got a little work done on the intermodal facility tonight. Cleared the weights away, rounded off the corners of the foam and spread some plaster over it and smoothed it out with the paint brush.

 

[Trigster]

LOL, Trig-- You have already lost me with the schematic - and now - this?

Sherrel...I specialize in confusing as well ...Especially myself more often than I care to admit !!!...But I am quite please that the controller
still works and setting it up was a piece-a-cake...As I was guessing to make it Bi-Directional all I had to do was run 2 leads out of the control
track (bottom left) and splice them together as a single connection to the controller...Small Success...But I'll Take Whatever I Can Get !!!

Now here's the question regarding the under-loved tarnished artifact in the center...Ya' got any idea what that is ???...You might know...Trig

 

[bnsf971]

Now here's the question regarding the under-loved tarnished artifact in the center...Ya' got any idea what that is ???...You might know...Trig

Looks like an air whistle.

 

[Trigster]

Looks like an air whistle.

Terry You Are Correct...My Train Whistle To Be Precise...Came from the gift/toy shop at the 'Nut Tree' which was a Restaurant off of I-80
between S.F. & Sacramento...I guess it's going under a revival of sorts but it'll never be the same as it was in the 60's & 70's...What I
liked so much is there was a 'Train'...A Kids Ride but it was also very functional as it was one of the ways to get to & from the 'Nut Tree
Airport'...Long Ago & Far Away...Just found it this morning going through some of my Marklin stuff...Haven't seen it in a long time...Trig

https://www.bing.com/images/search?...ages&qpvt=nut+tree+vacaville+images&FORM=IGRE

 

[Trussrod]

Good evening 'Rail Layers, Spike Drivers and Ballast Tampers',

Hi Flo, Francine, Things seem to be quite lively down here at, Jeffrey Running Bears' Dinner. You ladies are doing a great job keeping his memory alive.

Well today is my 72nd Birthday so I'm wondering what to have? How about a nice size of that Beef Stew with some Sour Dough bread and real butter & of course Coffee.


51°F Wells rd Station Report
5:36 PM PST on December 15, 2017 (GMT -0800) | Updated a few seconds ago
--°F | 41°F
51°F - Feels like 51°F and Partly Cloudy;
Winds from the N at 0.0mph;
Humidity is at 68%
Tomorrow is forecast to be Cooler than today.

The desire is there but I don't seem to make it out into my attached garage to work on my layout either but maybe this evening? I'm planning on it.


Say Greg: The Barber shop does indeed sound like a real classic. I have to settle for some Old Bum that comes around to cut my hair. Funny he looks a lot like me when I look in the mirror. LoL

I also seem to be having a hard time getting going on my layout again too.

Sorry to hear about your Brother in Law, sounds like he had a rough go of it towards the end, that not a good thing.



GarryCBQ: Looking forward to you returning.

Good Morning Everyone. 33° and clear today. Spent the morning yesterday on the grocery/beer trek in Denton and after lunch/nap, I moved money around in various retirement accounts. They're making me lots of money on their own, but I am 75% in guaranteed...I moved about 4% into a more aggressive position in anticipation of tax cuts. Wife hates that! She freaks out when the overall accounts go down by $50, so I just don't tell her when they occasionally collectively lose $3K or so in a day. Usually makes it up and then some in a the next few days anyway lately. Gotta be prepared for losses as well as gains when you own mutual funds. Overall I've done remarkably well since the election last year.
Out in the train shed yesterday, well hell, I don't remember what I did besides run a few trains. Did do some cleaning and vacuuming until I got near the power switch!

That way I can switch them all without the cardboard stand-ins that I have seen on other layouts. There are still about a dozen switches in place that don't lead to anything. Those I will use for future industries, many already purchased but not yet built. Re Preiser figures - In the 90's I purchased at least eight of the 120 unpainted figure sets and I spent many icy mornings at the dining room table painting them over the years. I have a whole bunch ready to go, but still have ~185 left to start with around 30 in process. Counting animals, there's at least 700 on the layout right now, supplanted with some more recent Woodland Scenics offerings.
Justin - Good to read that you dodged a bullet with the truck. There's such a feeling of helplessness when transportation is an issue. I get really frustrated because I don't know enough or have the right tools to do many repairs myself. Fortunately I have a very good "shade tree" mechanic that I use, I just have to get the vehicle over to him 17 miles away!

Curt - You're overfeeding your cows in the holding pens! Supposed to process them, not fatten them at the packing plant! Just kidding, of course.

Sherrel - Reusing the plywood is situation-specific. With proper and copious bracing, some types of warpage can be remedied. On a 2' x 4' piece, two 4' pieces and three 2' pieces of 1" x 4" can easily take care of it with 1/2" plywood, not 5/8" though. Although Justin indicated in a follow-up post that he wouldn't be doing that. On my own layout, I use 1/2" with 1" x 4" box frames underneath and have no measurable expansion/contraction, but I also don't have any major humidity problems.


Everybody have a great Friday.

Willie

Say Willie: Sure sounds like you've got your work cut out for yourself painting figures and animals. That's quit a number you have to work on. I'm sure your glad your not in 'N' scale.

I also use 1" x 4" lumber on my layout with the main table work 'L' girders being glued and screwed together for each side with Dry Doug Fir 1 3/4"x 1 3/4" legs with T Nuts set into a center hole on the base for height adjustment if the cement floor isn't even. I also use 1/2" x 3/4" for the 45% angle bracing between the Legs and the L girders as well as X bracing between the legs. Everything is positioned and pre-drilled with a counter sink and dry wall screws are used to bind everything together. No glue on the table work except for the L girders themselves to ensure their rigidity. All lumber is Kiln dried as I recall and selected for straightness. I haven't noticed any movement or warpage either.

Here's a rail picture for today.

View attachment 64173

Later

Chet: That's an interesting picture, not sure if it's a photo or painting of branch line trackage judging by the tie spacing.

Mine is the sacred sheet. Good ol 4x8. I'd like to change that. I have enough space for it. I can expand 6-7 feet one way and 2-4 the other. And I have gotten the go ahead from the wife to do a tear down and rebuild. Now whether or not I want to go ahead and do that I don't know. I may keep the sacred sheet I have now. I need to even out my rough spots though. I have to this point been unsuccessful in this endeavor.

Justin

Justin: The info Terry provided which I've seen before, but forgot about, is probably your best solution in several ways.
As is pointed out, a 4'x8' layout actually requires a space that is at least 8' x 10' in size so it only make sense to build an around the wall layout in that same size room with a centeral area that is open to move around in as well as offering walls to apply back ground scenes too or just paint sky blue.

It's also very enjoyable to move around with your trains from the inside looking toward a back drop. Depending on the track plan you come up with, it also very enjoyable to see the trains make Right and Left hand turns as is the case with a folded dog bone type of layout with a loop on either end if that is to your liking. Keep in mind, even though you can run the continuous loop you don't have too but can still operate it as a point to point when you want to. Anyway, lots of ideas to consider in the various plans shown.

I'm very sure you'd be much more satisfied as even if you just had an enlarge oval style track plan your track footage would be about 1.5x that of your 4x8 = 24' or an 8' x 10' = 36' plus if you have some added curves it just adds to the length as well as considerable added space.

As far as the type of wood to use, keep this in mind, I used, oriented strand board (OSB) I bought at Lowes, 7/16" thick, and have a 4' x 4' piece laying on top of the table work for the second return loop on my layout. The table work does have 1"x3" joists on edge about every 12" that are screwed to the 'L' girders to give good support. The garage roof above did leak and the OSB did get fairly wet but I see no evidence of any warpage as it's glued together with a water proof[?] glue as the water didn't seem to soak into the board or allow the water to drip through it a I recall.

I've also heard that CDX plywood is suppoed to be stronger though in some ways?

Afternoon All,

This is my meat packing siding

View attachment 64168

I hope everyone has a good night.

Say Curt: That quite some meat packing plant as well as the stock pens. What brand of stock pens did you use? I'll need to a couple of those for what I have planned.

Weekend Eve guys.
Anyway, tomorrow, I'm picking up my two youngest g'sons and taking them up to the Dulles Expo center for the train show. I'll give them each $5 and see what they can find. Food is not allowed. We will get a Chic-Fil-A lunch on the way home. Might stop by the club layout at Quantico to watch trains for a little bit too.
[[

Say Ken: Your grandsons should really enjoy the expo as well as the trip to Quantico.



I hope everyone has a very enjoyable weekend.