Running Bear's December 2021 Coffee Shop


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troyphoto said:
Well, howdy there internet people in awe of Christian's cactus planting skills

It's Troy again... Today, lets talk about double-doubles, animal style... no... that's in Sherell's neck of the wood. Don't want to exclude Willie and the Tx contingent... ;)

I'm up. With a dull headache. Thanks Flo...Coffee and one of Mel's mother's holiday cookies. Heavy on the icing. Yeah the Pagan Tree one is good.

So... the more I read Tony Koester's book, the less inclined I am to try to model a second (upper) deck right now. Not saying no to it, just don't want the commitment to the double layer. Yet.

Fortunately, on my freelance route, I was planning on being in the Pacific NW, so mountains make a good backdrop. And those mountains can let me embed a few wide curving climbs and eventually disguise a ramp up to a future 2nd level. that ramp would take up three pieces of 3' flextrack - or six if I want a double mainline -- so not a huge investment in prep for expansion.

BUT, If I do add an upper deck, I still want it at a lower than eye level for me (5'10 standing.) That means to get a 12 gap between the lowest railtop on the lower, and bottom of the upper, adding 5 inches for construction of the upper deck (1x4 + 1" foam + roadbed and track.

My current benchwork is averaging 45" off the floor (uneven basement floor) to top of lowest rails. Add 16" plus 5 inches, and my upper level top of rails should be at 5' 6. That's about eye level. Grrrrr... I'd like 2 less inches of height.

I'm facing two main questions:
1. do I drop the current deck by about four inches? That would be a good and tallish version for seated operation.
2. How extensive of a rebuild do I work on - especially if I'm going to dismantle enough to lower the lower/current deck?

Considerations: This area will be shared with the 4x6 ft (ish) gaming table.
The primary role of this layout is rail-fanning with continuous run trains
I'm looking at a folded dogbone design

Here's the current scribblings of the mind... I know the right end of the dogbone needs serious work on design. My idea is a mountainous waterfall are in the V corner to get some separation between left and right scenes. Just not sure what or how to keep the loop running and still keep some interest on the right end of the dogbone. Feedback is welcomeView attachment 136836
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troyphoto said:
Feedback is welcome
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Very possible,
You may have already seen these notes but here might be a reference as well
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Good morning model RR people! Hope this day can be good for all, especially the people ravaged by the recent tornadoes. How awful! Now is when the fed's need to get their heads out and do something GOOD!

santafewillie said:
I've had brake wheels in every Accurail kit
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Willie......you made me think, I got out the three GN open top two bay canton hopper car kits from the GNHS special run, by Accurail, nada on any brake wheels.
santafewillie said:
Congratulations
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Thank you Willie! 🙂
TLOC said:
also congrats
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Tom, thank you! 🙂
TLOC said:
When you draw and why are very important
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So, shouldn't decision making be getting easier getting older? wtf?o_O
TLOC said:
Has anyone have any ideas on the nail plate
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I haven't read the three pages between here & the end, somebody may have answered, some painted, very small screen? Or just painted on the end of the tie.....
Bruette said:
1639337566478.png
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Louis, nice!🙂
troyphoto said:
I may be in for a total redesign
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Troy, hope you find something out there, have you seen Linn Wescott's 101 track plans? There are plans for 14 very small RR's. 13 plan's for 4x8 size & 8 plans for 6x10 layouts. Not sure of your layout size, but there is plans up to really big layouts in there also.

Looking to do a reverse mortgage on the property as part of the retirement thing, have the appraiser coming this morning, have some things to do....
EVERYBODY HAVE A GOOD DAY, STAY SAFE!
 
Morning rom the west! Looking for a 65F high today - currently 38F. Sky supposed to be "partly" sunny.
Weather guessers saying that tomorrow another "atmospheric" river will "slam" us! (take it with a grain of salt)

Hard for me to keep up with everyone -- think I will just look at photos or ... I will get in trouble on the political spectrum. Interesting ideas from many.

CURT - lovely looking "office"!

TERRY - have a few bugs to work out. The bold seems not be cooperating with what I am requesting?

BBL -- FLO - save me some bacon!
 
Good Morning All. Clear and 39°, headed up to 70° today. I won't bother with the extended forecast since it changed so much overnight and most likely will change some more. The NWS is really using their dartboard this morning.
We went to Dallas yesterday afternoon to celebrate my granddaughter's 7th birthday which is today. We went to her favorite Mexican restaurant (really my daughter's favorite) for a delicious dinner. Our grandsons and our other daughter's family joined us as well. As usual, Grandma made Grandpa pick up the tab for the whole table even though all four of the other adults individually make more money than Grandpa ever made while working!

Thanks a bunch for the comments and likes regarding my progress on the bakery project; Steve J, Jesse, Rick, Karl, Guy, Christian, James, Sherrel, Hughie, Jaz, Tom H, Tom O, Gary, Louis, Curt, Tom, Chad, Jerry.

Just a plate of bacon and an OJ this morning Flo. I'm still stuffed from last night.

I did nothing out in the train shed yesterday due to the road trip to Dallas. That means a trip back to the archives.
Next door to the Magic Pan Bakery, is the Whitewater Brewing Co. It's one of those DPM Gold Series kits that came out some years back. It didn't look like it would be large enough to meet my needs, so I added a dozen or so extra DPM wall panels to make it bigger. It has double the footprint and has an additional floor from the original kit.
Excuse the clutter on the left as these first shots are from 2015 before I straightened that area up recently. Same with the people laying dead on the right.
04-02-15 007.JPG

06-18-15 192.JPG

07-18-20 012.JPG

You can see it's proximity to the bakery, and I will move over there when I finish the bakery project, since I have all of my materials close by.

Jesse - N scale furniture doesn't have to be quite as detailed as larger scales. In many cases, painted scraps of wood or simple cardboard cutouts can be made to represent many things quite adequately.
Steve J -
MilwRoader_Steve said:
And this forum is beginning to kill me . . . . . . 5 pages of posts Friday to Sunday morning! ! ! !! A shame, really, just can't read all your great posts.
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And that's just the Coffee Shop! Seriously though, we have had an influx of members in the last three years that in my opinion has been beneficial to the entire forum. All of the new members seem to be just plain nice folks.
Joe - I contributed to SS for 48 years, but many of those years I didn't expect it to be there when I retired, because I didn't believe that the government could take care of it. So I saved in retirement accounts starting around 1981 just to be sure I could take care of myself. To me it's not "public source" income until I get back all that I put in.
Regarding the rest of your post, I am looking forward to the elections of 2022 to see which way the American people really think now.
Tom H -
gjslsffan said:
Willie,
I have a basic drawing I did on a large piece of paper shows the benchwork and basic main track layout. Bu no I really dont have any drawings.
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Not to worry, that's all that I have. I was just curious as I know that you built a dedicated train shed (as I did) of 1500 sq ft. Mine is smaller though.
Tom O - I may have posted before that I like your egg carton project holders.
Jerry - That's interesting regarding the brake wheels on those Accurail kits. Were they bought new or used?

Today is the US National Guard birthday. That's one to celebrate. Others who share today as their birthday are my granddaughter and Taylor Swift.
Everybody have a great day. Stay safe.
 
Good morning global modelers from the crispy coolness of So. Central Wisconsin where the high for the day should hit 47f degrees or 8.3c per the online calculator/conversion thingy app, oh heck, the program I bring up to let me know the numbers.

Sleep issues I thought were getting better as of Friday and Saturday, but last night sleep did not come till after 2 but woke at 9 so at least I got sleep. I will take 7 hours of sleep. I can’t take wait till 2am to do it.

I took the recycling out for its pick up today at 3 on Sunday. I also separately took out a canister vacuum by Electrolux. It is still sitting there as either the scavenger who normally comes around in the dark on Sunday night was watching the Bear/Packer game or he has enough of them. I will take the canister only to Best Buy as they will recycle it fit free but our town recycling will not. Hey I tried.

Besides some projects I have been posting I pulled every bin out from under the layout that has anything in it. Either it gets tossed in garbage or recycling or into another bin for an additional look. That’s how I found 5+ packages of purchased ties, the old 2 stall round house and a few others. Books, Terry had 4 large rubber made Menard special bins filled, they are separated into childrens and adult reading. The children‘s books will head off to the childcare center business office so they can look them over. I had 2 bins of books and they will head off to St Vincent dePauls. I have been purging material things from the bins since retirement in 2014 and it still amazes me what we have to purge

The now 8 going on 35 year old grandson yesterday came down to run the slot track. He watched me looking at the books for recycling and said, “poppa why are you looking at those books.” So I told him about recycling them. Unimpressed he says to me you know you can read books on your IPad and never have to recycle them. I am getting old!

Ah, the tax bills are (got property taxes Saturday on 1206 acres) arriving in the mailbox at the office. Terry said we got tax bills for the 50th state too but by email. She said that she has to sit me down and we need to look at the markets and what we should try to do in them. Told her to schedule it and I will rearrange my loaded schedule. When I try to be funny with her why do I get these strange looks? I said yes to a meeting didn’t I?

The son in Texas asked yep asked if he can bring the g/f up for Christmas. He never asks he just does. SO, stupid dad that I am asked, are you going to propose? He said if he were to do that he would do with her family. Terry who was on the Skype call said no matter when or how DO NOT do it the way your dad did.

enjoy the day
TomO
 
Morning all,

Called in sick this morning and 2 hours later, I get a call about systems being down. So I'm in, although not feeling the best. Boss called in, as did the Ops assistant, leaving our newest employee in to run the place by herself and she's not completely familiar with all the things that can go wrong. In my case it's a stomach bug that kept me up all night with reflux (not usually a problem I have), so I'm running on only a bit of sleep.

Jaz: I loved the picture of the Messerschmidt KR200. I've see one on some of the British shows I watch occasionally.

Louis: Glad you're feeling better and thanks for the Allan Sherman. I listened to his records through the mid-70's when dad finally got rid of his records. He was a man gone too young.

I did run trains yesterday and no derails, so I think I'm good finally, except for the 3 axle diesels. Even my 0-6-0 steam engine runs without issue.
 
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