Running Bear's January 2021 Coffee Shop


Status
Not open for further replies.
Worst part of Fla. is MIAMI/DADE county. Murders every day. Yeah, and drive-bys.

Has CHET been in ? If not I'll give him a call later
Fell asleep on the recliner about 8:30-woke up at 11:55 p.m.. To tired to go to bed.
Thanks for all the pics
Phil
.
 
Well I figure I can do up a post before bed. Still didnt feel up to doing any scenery work tonight. Not to say I was drawing up ideas in my head but otherwise nothing more. Touching base on the usps. Yeah I was slotted to get coal loads in for my walthers 36' hoppers tomorrow. Yeah they are still sitting in California. No surprise there. Anyways I had to sideline my 100T hoppers. They make my trains just a tick too long. So I just shuffled cars around and made my trains up with 70T hoppers in which my track plan pretty much dictates that's as big of hoppers I can go in my trains. Sure if I throw in a 50T hopper then maybe I can fit in a 100T hopper. For now it's all 70T hoppers. So did all the shuffling of cars. Not by hand either. I have locomotives. Let them do the work. I mean that's what they are there for. And it ain't as much fun doing it by hand anyways. To my amazement I didnt have a single derail. Had one stop over a turnout but otherwise everything went as planned. I stumbled on a video on YouTube. I feel this guys pain as well. I dont even run DCC on my layout and I still feel his pain! So I hope yall enjoy and I'll stop by again when I get a chance.
 
Good morning. It's cloudy and 27.
We have a Winter storm warning for tomorrow. Total accumulation of sn*w 1-3". While I don't consider that to be much to get excited about, our last sn*w was a year ago last December. And people trying to drive in that stuff here remind me of what people in Florida drive like in that much sn*w.
 
Good morning gang
5:33 this morning, the Ring doorbell goes off, saying there is motion in the front yard. Usually this means a deer. This morning it meant an Amazon delivery, something the kid ordered yesterday!!!
Flo, no coffee today, maybe some milk and a Zanex, I'm too wound up right now.
 
Good Morning from wet Southern Oregon, hope this day finds everybody well.
Who are you callin a geezer Jerry??
Ha Ha, Karl, anybody older than ME! ;)
Just a short note on Tribble Trouble....I was referencing the Star Trek episode is season 2, 1967.
when they were all green
Thanks Willie, that was just interesting, don't hardly ever see that particular scheme, green/bnsf.
Thanx for the likes/comments...way kewl!
Very nice layout/proto pics. It's great to see your guys progress....
Joe, you always have great photo's, your last two above, looking at the track work, whoa to be a maintenance welder in that tangle of track! o_O
Lets have a look back in the hay-day of passenger service.....

rt-rotr-empire_builder_glacier_national_park-story.jpg

EVRYBODY BE SAFE---HAVE FUN---TAKE CARE!
 
Hello everyone, it has been a while, which means lots of catching up to do. My finger is still slowing me down, although it is healing now. I would post a picture of it, but I don't want anyone to spill their coffee.

Wille- Hope you had a happy birthday!

I also have that Plasticville tower. Mine is in a far worse condition, but It will eventually be replaced with a scratch-built Mike & Ike (Missouri-Illinois) tower.
Plasticville.jpg


Guy- I have ordered many things from WeHonest. I am happy with what you get and the prices you have to pay. I will say this though, it would be a good idea to sort them by LED color. I know they are all supposed to be one color, but there seems to be a lot of variation. My dad and I wired up our roundhouse over Christmas break with 30+ lights and noticed that there is a good amount of variation down the rows of LEDs.

Something I plan on doing in the future is a little test of some of the adhesives I have to see how strong they are. This will probably happen in a month. I am waiting for two CAs to come in that I haven't even ordered yet. To test them I have bonded two pieces of small styrene together. Both are .060 wide, while one is .020 thick and the other is .010 thick. I will try pulling on them to see how strong of a bond the adhesive has created. Any suggestions are welcomed.
Adhesives .jpg


My dad got a couple of Amazon gift cards for Christmas from some people at his job, so with my mom’s permission, we ordered two cameras to try out. One is a Wyze (the white one) and the other is an Aerbi. I will talk about these over the weekend in this Forum.
Camera front.jpg


Also, does anyone know a good paint stripper for Proto 2000 paint? It is a GP18 from one of the first releases. Should I get some ScaleCoat 2 Stripper? I am modeling this one to be #4824 later renumbered to #528. In Joe G. Collias's book The Missouri Pacific Lines In Color, you can see it on page 89. I noticed that the bell in the photo was roof-mounted and had a tube coming out of the top for the air compressor feed, so I added a bell and wire to mine to give it more detail. I also replaced the sand filler hatches with the correct style, added lift rings, grab irons, horns, and a firecracker antenna so far. I first thought I would be able to just do paint touch up, but I noticed that the paint P2K used is the wrong color. Time for a repaint!
Bell.jpg
Short hood.jpg
Long hood side.jpg


Have a nice day everyone!
 
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 44°, won't really warm up much until Tuesday. Still have rain/snow in the forecast for Sunday; we'll see!
Today must be Thursday, grocery/beer trek day. The vegetable drawer in the fridge is nearly empty, eggs are low and there seems to be a lot of empty space on the pantry shelves. I also have to pick up a package from an Amazon affiliate at the post office. that is too large for the mailbox.
Sent Saturday from Arkansas...only four days including Sunday to get here.

How about chicken fried steak, southern gravy and grits for my breakfast Flo.

Thanks for the likes and comments yesterday regarding the cleanup progress and year in review; Guy, Jerome, Rick, Phil, James, Tom O, Patrick, Chad, Karl, Justin, Hughie, Justin, Sherrel, Curt, Dave, Luke, Tom, Troy, Ken.
And thanks also for the reactions on our weather summary. Didn't see that coming!

I will pause today on the year 2020 modeling review since I haven't had time to review the photo archives yet. Back on track tomorrow.
Out in the train shed, I did continue with my quarterly clean up project, albeit slowly. Toward the entry door, railroad north, there is an engine servicing area that I am skipping over or now.
IMG_5407.JPG

I am just not ready for this area yet because when I do attack it, it will be a complete overhaul and upgrading of the structures, among some of my 30+ year old kits.
To the railroad south from the switch tower, the aisle side is clear and I have a fairly large blank area on the back side of the tracks.
IMG_5444.JPG

IMG_5445.JPG

The next structure to be removed, inspected and cleaned is the power company's supply warehouse. I re-attached some of the windows that had come loose and dusted it off.
IMG_5410.JPG

It is a Magnuson kit, the name of which I cannot recall. I purchased it already built from the consignment shelf at my former LHS. When I originally got it, I had to slice all of the walls apart and swap end walls before cleaning and reassembling, The original owner had used Walther's Goo or some other kind of epoxy to glue the resin walls together. I also replaced the cardstock roof with a styrene one.
This go-around, not much else was needed to get this one into shape, except adding clear styrene to the rear door and a little bit of paint here and there.
IMG_5457.JPG

I can't seem to be able to find a good green paint match, so I just replaced the glass and made a note in the "project book" for the future. I probably have a match but I just couldn't find it. Since it faces the backdrop, it doesn't matter right now.
Additionally, I finally attached the roof annex that has been just sitting loose on top for many years.
Stay tuned folks. To be continued tomorrow.

Joe - Judging from events yesterday, maybe we should all stock up!
I truly like your historical first hand perspective on the photos that you post. Far more interesting than someone who just combs the internet and re-posts random stuff.
Dave -
Willie - Nice shot of your east wall -- helps me to put your operation together in my head
Essentially I have two layouts, the lower deck and the upper deck. I have a plan in mind for constructing an external helix to connect the two, but I presently don't have it in the next "two year plan". I enjoy switching the most with 35+ industries on each level. I don't have any intra-industry switching going on, so it doesn't matter that the levels are not yet connected. All freight cars originate or terminate in one of the staging/classification yards

Everybody have a great day.
 
Good morning, 22 and foggy. The air is full of tiny ice crystals.

I will have two blueberry pancakes and two over medium eggs, if you please Flo

Willie
- that Killowatt caricature brings back some really old memories of seeing it in places and on ads.

Been thinking about the train room. We are talking about the new house every day, our excitement is a just about more than I can handle as a senior citzen.

Interesting to hear from my neighbors in Wisconsin and our commonalities in Dorchester!

Here is todays layout photo, it is the same train as yesterday but shows the front and the track in front of it.

_MG_5573.jpg



Looking at all these old photos makes me think the lighting was not that good down there (in that basement). I remember sometimes setting up a light to get more of a shadow effect, maybe that is what I was doing here.

more later, Dave LASM
 
Good morning y'all. Sunny and 33° right now. Looks like today might be pleasant all day.

Willie:
Thanks...I avoid photos of operations in areas I'm not familiar with. Most of the time, there are plenty of subjects I'm familiar with, that I can share.

One bad feature of going to Costco,is their Bakery...they sell so many favorite treats...Yesterday, we selected a package of Raspberry/Walnut plus Chocolate Rugula W/ Cream cheese, and once home I over indulged...not to mention that Cream Cheese and Walnuts are known irritants to my digestive system. So today...I suffer! :(

Yesterdays events were appalling.

PC # 209 Single Car out of BSB for BC - 12-28-1971 - M. Bernard.jpg

PC # 209, a Budd EMU negotiates a double slip switch within Broad Interlocking. Looks like the single car train is routed for the Maryland Division, (Media West Chester, or Main Line Chester - Wilmington). One of the teaching points is not only to watch the signal, but to watch the points in case of mis-route.

Lancaster, PA - PRR - 1955.jpg

View of an Eastbound Blue Ribbon working at Lancaster, PA. This picture is dated 1955. Lancaster remains a major generator of passenger traffic for Amtrak. There has been a significant reduction of track at this location, (Cork Interlocking), since this photo was taken.
 
Morning from the SW! We are at the overnight low of 40 degrees and going up to 73 this afternoon- same as yesterday with "mostly sunny" skies.

Just a large coffee to go, FLO -- have errands to do this morning. I'll catch everyone on the flip side.
 
Good morning from the frosty foggy confines of Wisconsin.

Dave one more commonality. My brother’s ex-wife lived in Dorchester until they got married 7 years ago.

I was painting yesterday some silos when the world changed yesterday. I got more tv yesterday then I do in a normal month combined. Then around 11 last night I remembered the poor airbrush. It was not fun cleaning it. We will see how I did later today

Have a great day
TomO
 
It was 23F when I got up at 7:30am. Going on 9am it is up to 25F. Supposed to hit about 38F and be sunny. Let's hope so as I can get 5 deg gain in my house from the sun and the windows.

Last two days was on loan back to my actual group at work (from the group I am temporarily assigned to) in order to work a critical bug. The other team members are out this week except one or two in India and since it was critical they didn't want to wait a "day" for them to be able to start on it. I never reproduced the bug but was able to come up with a solution (we hope) together with the director of engineering and we got the fix submitted last night. So back to the swamp of my new group -- stuff I know nothing about and am trying to come up to speed on.

I had a package (not train related) ship from MidwayUSA back on Dec 18. It shows that their local USPS received it (meaning the trailer that had it was received by USPS) but it still shows "waiting for acceptance". MidwayUSA has already volunteered to ship a a replacement but I said they could give it one more week, since it is not anything I am needing at the moment. But nothing has happened at USPS with it so I will contact MidwayUSA tomorrow to get the replacement (assuming some last minute thing doesn't happen).

I had another package that was scheduled do be delivered by USPS on the 4th, from Brownells. It looked to have been lost but late last night it was scanned at our local USPS hub, so I guess it is just taking the slow boat and is not actually lost.

This is the first year I have experienced so many USPS problems. I empathize with you all.
 
Good Morning Everyone......overcast, foggy and just plain terrible here in SE Wisconsin.

This morning I had to go the the hospital and clinic for blood testing and then blood draws. The first came out perfect and now I hope the second is as good. I have three med appointments next next week each a day apart.

The best part was coming home and my Walther's order was sitting on the front porch. I watched a video of Mike Confalone's on TrainMastersTV do weathering using basically only Pan Pastels with some oils and he did a great job and even with some experience using the Pastels, I learned a lot from Mike. Then I had to order more Pan Pastels from Walthers since I didn't have all the colors Mike used so now I do and hope my cars turn out as good as Mike's looked in the video. I still have a Walther's Gift Certificate that I'll need to redeem in person at Walther's.

I'm going to tone down my weathering effects slightly, less is more when it comes to weathering, but my goal is to weather all the cars on the layout. I have four Fox Alley Wisconsin box cars that will get a shot of DullCote and then some very light weathering along the sides of the cars and of coarse the trucks. I been down in the Valley of Milwaukee near the former Milwaukee Road yard and I've seen seen very rusted, dirty locomotives still at work. The UP yard (former C&NW) in Butler, Wisconsin I believe has a wash rack for its locomotives. Butler is a old railroad town and a friend of mine showed me that his Dad built a garage out of old box car siding. Many of the cars' markings could be seen inside the unfinished garage.

Thinking about doing some small waves on the largest water feature on the layout. The poured water looks too still.

Montanan (Chet) knew I liked dachshunds but I couldn't find a long hair, tan and black female in my part of the world. I tried breeders, rescue kennels Humane Societies and watched the ads in the local newspaper with no luck. (I did find one nearby at a breeder for over $3,000, a bit pricey). Then, Chet let me know of a breeder in Iowa who just may have what I was looking for in a new pup. She was expecting a litter the day that I called and she called me back the next day and said she had a female new born that would be right for me. Anyway, I'll be traveling to Iowa to pick her up. Stay tuned for photographs.

My previous canine girl, Katie, would come down to the train room room every hour or so to check on me. Katie was a mix of a Chow and Border Collie. Medium sized, strong, short brown hair and a purple tongue. Very stubborn, but a devoted dog that loved the cabin, truck rides and was extremely protective of Cathy.

Again, some very nice photos of members' layouts.

Have to run.....................

Greg

##############################

LED Truck at Crossing (1).JPG

A delivery truck waits for the WC box cars to move across the roadway. The truck is a Woodland's LED vehicle with operating head and tail lights. The roadway was built using sand from Sedona, Arizona. A co-worker brough me a plastic bag full of sand after I forgot mine after I visited Arizona several years ago.-Greg
 
Good evening, everyone. 33° with clear skies last I looked. Terry's snow storm will remain to our South, and we will have another cool and sunny day tomorrow. This morning's trip was to Macy's where my wife returned a coat that just didn't fit right. While she was waiting on line, I wandered the perimeter aisles for exercise. Not as much walking as the two previous days, but the goal is to keep moving.

Once home, we had lunch, and I spent some time working with family finances. I took advantage of the pre-pay offer with my lawn fertilizer service. A savings of $200 for the season. I also paid my quarterly property taxes, the annual Homeowners maintenance fee, and sent my stimulus money back to the Treasury, in the form of my Estimated tax payment, due 1-15-21.

Again today, there was no time for the layout. I'll make time tomorrow, after I take the out door decorations down and box them. If I feel real ambitious, I may even place them in the storage loft in the garage. I'm going to start on a few building its, to finish the module.

I have been participating in a discussion on the Passenger Car List, concerning PC # 4316, an E-8. This loco had the distinction of being the first road locomotive to be painted for Amtrak. It was a one of experimental scheme, designed primarily for Publicizing Amtrak Day 1. This became a topic because Rapido, is running a limited subscription of the HO scale version of this engine, in conjunction with Amtrak,to commemorate Amtrak's 50th Anniversary this coming May 1. Not for nothing, who would have thought that Amtrak would still be around 50 years after inception, as an under capitalized, smoke and mirrors operation, to relieve the railroads of their Passenger "Burden"?

AMTRAK 4316 HIALEAH, FL 1972 BILL MCCOY -1.jpg

Amtrak (PC), #4316 + B&O E-8 on pit at Hialeah FL, in 1972. Bill McCoy photo, courtesy Warren Calloway. Amtrak painted it Phase 1, later in 1972, but PC retained ownership for a while longer. Eventually, Amtrak bought it and renumbered it into their 3 digit sequence. BTW, 4316 was originally a PRR unit.
CR 332  1-23-1977 - BC or Wilm - M. bernard.jpg

PC 332, a 1974 model GE Married Pair, off the Maryland Division (#3M Track) heading for Suburban Station, in Philadelphia, on a very cold january 23, 1977. Photo by Martin Bernard.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.



Back
Top