Running Bear's February 2021 Coffee Shop.


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Well after the excitement of this weekend, I'm back with a humble purchase. An estate my club took in contained four custom-painted/decaled Northern Pacific F7's. These have been detailed, as well as having been given drawbars between the A's and B's.

Lo and behold, this A unit has Tsunami sound and cool white LED lighting. The B unit has a basic Digitrax decoder, and the super heavy metal brick athearn made to increase the power of these locos. I'll take it! They need some cleaning and could really benefit from a change to Genesis motors.

These girls will make a nice pairing with my RTR GN GP35 for my early BN stuff.

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Willie- the only issue seems to be the glue sticks to me better than the cardstock. I'm using it because it was what I had on hand. May try switching it up when it runs out.

Chet- I am enjoying it. It adds a little challenge to it, but I don't have to worry about not finding a kit that is exactly what I want. And by using recycled materials, it is very budget friendly. Still sad to hear about your layout, but hoping for a smaller version to come later. I echo other's sentiment: stay a part of the coffee shop. Great pics.

Curt- I am proceeding full steam ahead while I am able. Once spring arrives I will have less time to work on it, so I'm trying to get the more time consuming work done now.
 
Morning all,

Happy Pork Sausage day!

Time for a coffee with a steak and eggs combo. Thanks Flo!

New shed at the daughter's was completed yesterday, including paint. It is still a lot smaller than the on it replaces, but a lot of the old one wasn't usable anyway (leaky roof and walls), and too structurally unsound to fix, except when you're trying to tear it down. They got it from the same company I got mine from.

Now on to the son's house next door. He's happy as he now get's his garage back. All the stuff from his sister's shed is in his garage. I've got two weekend to get the area of the house with wood floors painted (most already has the first coat) so the floor guy can come in to redo the floor. They're mostly in good shape for being 65 years old. House was a carpeted rental for the past 35 years, so it's surprising they're as nice as they are. Then he can move in.

The wife asked me to sync her phone. I threw it in the lake and don't understand why she's upset.
 
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Good morning a second time y'all. Weather is dry, thankfully, but temps are low 30s will a feel of high 20s. Not conducive to motivation for outdoor activities.

Flo- Hit me with another round of coffee, and this time I will also have Mel's famous steak and eggs with hash browns and bacon. Better throw in some sausage as well, I'd hate to not celebrate.

Greetings BigG, you can keep all that. The rain has been more than enough to disrupt my work schedule, I don't need nor want any snow to add to it. The ground him is already like walking on an oversaturated sponge.

Patrick- Glad to hear that things are progressing nicely. The joys of home ownership never seem to cease. There is always something that seems to require attention of some sort. I guess that's a good thing though. What would we do with all that free time if not spending it working on or around the house, ours or someone else's? 🤣

I assembled the office for the maintenance shop yesterday, then decided I don't like how it turned out so it's back to the drafting table to plan a new one. I will have to pull new permits as well as call in the fire department to burn the old structure down. I also assembled the loading dock for the truck side of the terminal, but I can't build the roof for it until I can get the structure glued in place on the layout; which can't happen until after the roadbed arrives and the track is affixed to it. This is also delaying construction of the flatcar loading dock because I do not yet know exactly how tall to build it. Building interiors as well as exterior detailing is also on hold until after everything can be mounted more securely to the base. Amazon has already shipped it, now I just have to patiently wait for it. Until then all I can do is prepare the track for transference to the second layer of foam and try to build the frame around the bottom of the layout to accommodate the wiring I will be adding to control the siding isolation switches.

I'm not sure what the day will hold yet, but I will post updates from the Crossroads as soon as they are available. Y'all have a blessed day and keep the photos coming. Love seeing everyone's layouts and projects.
 
Oh the Snow is delightful to look at from here!
Starting the day at the low of 55 and looking for a high of 70 with mostly sunny skies. Yesterday's high of 68 was delightful and I even ventured out of the homestead for awhile.
The Spousal Units 97 YO Aunt was taken to the hospital. She is holding up rather well ... O2 is good, but she had become dehydrated and needed "pumping up" a little. There is some strong genes in that line!

Good morning, FLO and MEL -- just coffee at this time.
 
Good Morning World. Mostly clear and 39°, not nearly as cold as the weather geeks had predicted. Looking at three days of tee shirt weather before the next cold cool front Thursday night, followed by a real cold front Saturday, low now predicted at 24°. Looks like the jet stream is dipping down and pushing La Niña out of the way for a week or so. Cold miserable weather, but no precipitation in the forecast.
Happy Groundhog Day. Let's see if Punxsutawney Phil can dig his way out of the snow cover this year.

Busy day here in the Coffee Shop yesterday with 42 posts to review. Great to see all of the interest here.
Jesse mentioned yesterday, that politics is as depressing as his weather, I haven't seen politics as far in the gutter, as it has been for the last sixteen years in my whole lifetime. It's depressing to think that young people will consider this to be the "normal". I have a firm belief that social media is part of the problem, although not the root cause.

Flo, that steak and eggs that Patrick is having looks really good to me this morning. Send another plate this way, but make it OJ instead of coffee.

Thanks for the multitude of likes [loves] and comments regarding the rail line shots yesterday; Karl, Tom O, Sherrel, Alan, Patrick, James, Justin, Rick, Dave, Hughie, Chet, Garry, Troy, Joe, Ken, Chad, Tom, Curt, Jesse.
To all who made additional comments; I am attempting to make all of the right of ways look as realistic as possible. While they are all too narrow, a compromise I had to make, I think that it goes a long way to adding realism and interest to the layout. At some point I want to make some "cab view" videos, but I'm not there yet. I like many of those videos that I look at on the Internet, but one thing that I think detracts from the overall ambience is unfinished, supposedly out of sight places. That's why I almost always complete all four walls of a structure even if it won't be visible from the aisle. Exception being those that butt directly against the backdrop.

Yesterday's time in the train shed was mainly painting figures. No photos of them yet, as they are all unfinished.
That damn drag freight finally moved out of the way, so I was able to get a few more ROW pictures.
Still looking north, taken from the siding switch.
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On the left, the beauty salon, on the more rural right, the feed store.
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On the left, a large fertilizer/seed dealer, on the right some back yards.
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More backyards and fences.
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The turnout headed for an industrial siding, part of which leads forward to the propane dealer, backward to the previous seed/fertilizer dealer. Engine in the distance is on that siding. This can be a busy stretch of railroad.
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Jerry - Can't help with the E4 hook up since I don't have one. My SIL said to check here.
Sherrel - Interesting thought regarding ScaleTrains starting a rebuilding program, but I don't think that they have the infrastructure to do that. Maybe down the line sometime. Drove by there once, just south of Knoxville, but they were closed. Looks to be only about 5000 sq ft at best. Maybe they could contract someone locally? There did seem to be additional room on the property.
Alan -
I thought about that, but the condition of the roof is too good!
Point noted.
Chet - Good luck with the sale of the entire layout to one individual, it would certainly be a lot less hassle than selling off individual parts, although probably not as lucrative.
Justin - Best wishes for you finger recovery.
Ken - The Walther's MR kits do not come with interior walls. I made my own on one of them and completely covered the windows on the other one.

Everybody have a great day. Stay safe and separated.

Looks like Garry answered about Punxsutawney Phil.
 
Good morning from St. Paul,

21 and cloudy, headed for 28. Headed for the below 0 F Friday, so I have to enjoy the mild weather!

Thanks for comments and likes on my truck project. Currently working on the old Varney locomotive.


Willie - more deluxe photographs down the track

Ken - glad to hear the snowblower worked!

Justin - hope the finger gets better quickly

TomO - you really work out! My body would moan and groan under a regimen like that.

Here is a photo of my old layout. This end of the layout was salvaged because it was all on one sheet of plywood here. We gave it away to a young person who had room for it and parents ok. He was really excited!


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Everyone have a great day...


Dave
 
Good morning.

Punxsutawney Phil says :..... "Six more weeks of winter." .....

Cheers!

I try to put little stock in the opinions of rodents, whether they live in the ground or a big white house. 🤣

Here's a pic of the loading dock. It looks off because the building is not securely fastened to the base. There will be a lean-to style cover over it after everything is set in place.
I was hoping to also post a picture of the maintenance office, but the crews are lollygagging around today and construction has not been completed yet.

Y'all have a good day and I'll pop back in for dinner later. Bypassing the lunch special to enjoy a lunch date with the rail boss.😁
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Wild start to my day. Had a nice close call in my truck today. Neighbor got as far up the hill as they could and where they were sitting forced me to take a different route. Well said route put me in a spot that required a tractor and a lot of shoveling. Truck is fine. I'm fine. Neighbors car is fine. Yeah I hate living where I do sometimes. When 4 low cant even save you. That's pretty much the time when you know your screwed. With my finger. I'll have to splint it for 6-8 weeks. Maybe longer. Unless ofcourse I wanna live the rest of my days with a crooked pinky finger. Funny thing is it doesn't even hurt! Just feels weird. I can still function it. So yeah that's the update on that mess. So I put to paper a recommendation for track cleaning. It so far works! Works well in fact. I ran my layout last night without so much as a light flicker. So only time will tell on this one. This is what I used this go around:
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Yes I know it states it's a lubricant. However it actually worked for me. My locomotives have improved greatly with it. I switched my layout last night far slower than I normally would. Like creeping to the point of stalling out. Not a single hitch. So I hope this stuff can go the distance. Anyways that's about all I have for now. I'll stop by again later. I'm home bound today so who knows what the day will hold.
 
Afternoon All,

Spent most the day in the train room. It's amazing how much better I feel mentally compared to yesterday. The instructions for the Walthers substation are rough at best. I have to keep looking between the directions and picture on the box to figure it out, oh well that's Walthers instructions for you! I have 2 more steps but both are very large so probably a couple more days on the kit.

Dakota- Very nice acquisition. Did you get the full ABBA?

Tom- Sometimes it's amazing how much effort we put into getting things "right".

Patrick- Ouch on that joke. Sounds like great progress on your kids homes. They should be very happy with you.

Willie- Nice rail shots and I agree with Sherrel (please don't tell him) :D.

Dave LASM- Very nice layout shot.

Jesse- Nice job on the building.

Justin- I hope your finger heals well. I didn't know you had hurt it.

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This is my first locomotive made by Tyco. Can someone tell me what the designation is.

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I hope everyone has a good night.
 
This is my first locomotive made by Tyco. Can someone tell me what the designation is.
As Willie has said, it's a GP20, First appeared in 1959, so just scrapes in if your "era" ends at 1960. They were the first of the GP's but the 2 main spotting features are the curved cab roof of the previous Gen1 diesels, instead of the angular folded sheetmetal of the later styling, plus the slope down low nose, the later being level. There were also SD's in the range which "sported" the air tanks on the top of the long hood, colloquially called "torpedo tubes". The erroneous road numbering is common from the time the model was made, before makers were made aware of their importance.

I have a Proto 2000 UP one from one of their late production runs, DCC/ ready. They did a W/sound version too. (Tsunami). It doesn't fit in with anything I model, but I just like it, it's "cute".
 
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