Running Bear's July 2020 Coffee Shop


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Good morning from So. Central Wisconsin. I am the new guy here. Joined the forum a few months ago but have been reading the Coffee Shop and hopefully you won’t mind me joining in. I live outside of Madison, Wisconsin in a city called Verona. Retired to here from north Central Wi. in 2014. I always have enjoyed modeltrains but finally built the first layout in 25 years. Like many even without the layout I kept buying. I now free lance after trying the protolayout style for 5 years but found it too constricting. I model my version of the CN Valley Sub in Central Wisconsin. I love Paper Mills and Ethanol plants and will find them on my shelf layout. Hope you all have a great safe day.

TomOView attachment 114885
Where(location) did you retire from in NCWI?
 
Hello again ....

TomO Your trees look great.

Chet .... I'll never tire of seeing your archive photos. Keep on posting them.

Boris.... I'm glad you are making progress recovering from surgery .. Like the CNJ locomotive.

..

The upper Midwest has vast amounts of flat land. This SOO GP9 is hauling a very long train with a zero % grade and straight track.


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Where(location) did you retire from in NCWI?
I lived in the Town of Knowlton on Lake DuBay and worked in Marshfield. Also put in time at our Wausau, Wisconsin Rapids and Point locations. Traveled for 5 years with Hwy 153 north being my sales territory. I believe that’s when I fell in love with all the Paper Mills.

TomO
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An abandoned Central Wisconsin rotten granite quarry.
 
I lived in the Town of Knowlton on Lake DuBay and worked in Marshfield. Also put in time at our Wausau, Wisconsin Rapids and Point locations. Traveled for 5 years with Hwy 153 north being my sales territory. I believe that’s when I fell in love with all the Paper Mills.

TomO
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An abandoned Central Wisconsin rotten granite quarry.
Rotten granite, eh!. Where I am in Queensland, Australia it's called decomposed granite. Used for fill under concrete pads/slabs and as pathways when compacted. Somebody asked me one day when I was putting some down, how long it lasted if it was decomposed. I said, "longer than me, I hope."
 
Morning all,

Currently 81* and partly cloudy in Doo-Dah with heat index at 6:00a at 91* supposed to get to 97* today with heat indexes of 104-109* for the 3rd day in a row. It is humid enough outside that my truck rear window had condensation on the outside. Good news (maybe) is we should get some rain late this afternoon and overnight.

This is my last day for this week, so when I leave at 12:30, I'm done until 6:30a on Monday the 6th. Then I'm back to my normal schedule of 6:30a to 4:00p. I'll miss the bonus money, but I have projects that are getting behind as my hours are limited and not so when I return. I will say at this time the pandemic so far has been good for me.

TomO: I run through Eau Claire and Wausau when I go to visit my parents living in the SW part of Michigan's U.P. I used to work for a major insurance company and would often get called into the National office to work as a backup computer tech during vacation times. My area being smaller population wise, I often had time to be able to spend a couple of weeks on the road, backing up other areas when necessary.
 
Good morning to all and thank you for a nice welcome.

tootnkumin: sounds like the same stuff and definitely used for the same purposes.

patrick: my daughter played hockey for 2 years at UW Eau Claire, she transferred to UW Madison when thankfully she realized to graduate it would take maybe 6 years if she continued the hockey. This Chicago boy fell in love with North Central Wi and loved the Wausau area. It was a great place to bring up the kids and the wife worked in the Wausau School system.

The weather here will be high 80’s, high humidity and a definite deck day if the breeze continues. My daily goal after the 2-3 mile walk is 15 minutes of running the layout, usually switching an industry, twice a day. Why build it if you don’t run it? enjoy your day.

TomO

heading into the Paper Mill
 

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Good Morning All. Clear and 77° this morning. Weather forecast now has thunderstorms for next Tuesday, we'll see! Today is the weekly grocery/beer trek into Denton. Not needing a whole lot except fresh vegetables and restock of beer since my wife is out of town. I will need to purchase a few things to have on standby for when she returns Tuesday; if I go and pick her up!🥳 For Father's Day recently, my son and DIL sent me a large box of meat from some place called Crowd Cow. FedEx originally broke the package and spilled the dry ice, so it was late in arriving since it had to be sent again. Lots of steaks and ground beef, but no Wagyu Prime Rib.

How about a sausage, egg and cheese omelet this morning Flo. Doughnuts on me for the next dozen customers.

Thanks for the likes on the CUP progress yesterday; Sherrel, Rick, Chad, Patrick, Guy, Garry, Tom O, Curt, Jerome, Phil, Tom.

Out in the train shed, I started on Jessica's Salon. I painted all of the windows and assembled the walls.
07-02-20 002.JPG

Next up is the concrete window sills and maybe a new batch of mortaring paint.
On Monday or Tuesday, Sherrel asked about a burned out structure on my layout. Here it is.
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It is a Model Power structure that was pre-weathered. It is appropriately enough called "Burned Out Townhouse".

Tom O - Great layout scenery and pictures. Welcome to the Coffee Shop, finally! I had seen you lurking recently,
Sherrel -
Willie - You better put up some warning signs at that crossing? The approaches look as if they could launch "General Lee" into the next county! I hope that the semi's don't hang up there?
I did not realize that I had told the armadillo story?
The crossing is not really that bad, lousy camera angle.
If I recall correctly, it was you who posted the story from your youth when your father brought one home under a bucket in the pickup.
Greg - Funny thing about armadillos on the highway, is that when spooked, they jump straight up and hit the underside of the vehicle passing over them. They would have a better chance of survival if they just froze in place.
The tomatoes were sent FedEx, so someone at their terminal is enjoying them.
Do you have any locomotives that aren't "rust buckets? ;)
Curt - Sorry that you are still feeling badly. Get well soon. I'm with Chet regarding the Florida humidity. It seems to be like the humidity in the Texas Gulf Coast region, especially Houston. Duh!
Joe - Glad to read of your progress so soon. You are obviously in better physical shape than my wife was at the time of her replacement. She was also very hesitant to push herself too much.
Chet - I realize that it is after the fact, but Blair Line now makes a 24" radius crossing that I was able to fit comfortably in a 28" radius curve with a slight amount of filing.
Chad - Congratulations on the house plans.

Everybody have a great day.
 
Good Morning Everyone....sunny and getting hot and humid here in Wisconsin.

Domestic chores kept me way from the trains yesterday and so far this morning. Need to change hoses and the SuperFlex is just that.... a super flex hose. Water some plants and and then ours and the neighbors new seed. I want to remove the Landscaper's sign who removed the trees advertising sign in the lawn between our lot and the neighbors. My wife will not let me remove the sign and I say why give the guy advertising when he doesn't follow up on returning phone calls about concerns.

Next is a trip to the landfill, nothing like a mountain of garbage on a hot, humid day!!!!

Hopefully trains later after lunch.

The Mrs. purchased a couple of Porterhouse steaks for dinner tonight, but she buys them when on sale (on sale for a reason) with no fat or graining and too thin so they don't BBQ too well and are usually hard to chew. The steaks should be between and inch and an inch and a half in thickness with nice marbling to taste good.

Willie: I do have a lot of unweathered or little weathered locomotives in the fleet. Having nearly 100 locomotives, many are NIB and never ran. I usually buy the same locomotives with different numbers. Nice burned building.

I was in Huston for a conference in July and was it humid and hot!!!!

I like the desert over tropic areas or high plains area.

The tomatoes were sent FedEx, so someone at their terminal is enjoying them.

Willie: My check is in the mail too!

Time to get back to some work.

Greg

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Bachmann 70 Tonner - Lettered.jpg
One of a pair of 70 tonners that will run in a consist. Nice and clean locomotive to prove to Willie that I do have some clean locomotives. I lettered and numbered the locomotices for the CM&N.-Greg
 
Good Afternoon for all those East of the Rockies?
A very pleasant 68 degrees at 10;30 am and expected to reach 83 this afternoon.
Mostly cloudy with patches of sunlight poking down.

Willie - Actually, I was looking for more of a collapsed, burned, and crumbling building - but that a good start. I happened to be looking at a much older MR and it had a few pic of one that had partially caved in floors and piles of brick where walls had fallen down. The guy must have spent several weeks or more in getting it to that condition - a real masterpiece.
Your memory is much better than mine - I did not remember telling the armadillo story, but I do remember when my dad removed the bucket off of it. It hurriedly made one fast trip around the sides of the P/U and cleared the side with one leap - not slow at all!
I was so fortunate in having a loving, kind, stern, caring father who wanted me to experience all life has to offer from riding in the loco at the refinery to working derricks in the oil patch to driving a semi-tanker ... he steered me to try them all. My mom, on the flip side, was afraid for me to do anything and she used to give him hell all the time ... was like water off a duck's back to him ... he wouldn't argue with her - he would just look at me and grin!
Sure I am boring you all .. so I will hush!

Greg - I will have to tell you about my daughter's Father Day dinner for me.
It was a $56.00 a pound steak. OK. I will be brief! She went to a local meat shop owned and run by a HS classmate. She was not paying attention at all and told them that she wanted four ribeye steaks pointing at the ones in the counter. It was not until she was half way home that she looked at the receipt and discovered the bill was $218.00. Because it was her classmate and parents she had been talking with, she was too embarrassed to take them back.
I wouldn't dare tell her, but I did not think that they tasted any better than the ones I generally get on occasion for $7-8.95 a pound. In hindsight - we will all survive and we have a heck-of-a-story to tell!

JOE - congrats on the progress of the knee! Glad to hear that.
CURT - YAY on the layout building. When I hear of the sweat rolling off, it almost seems nice to live out here where it take real effort to work up a sweat.

Better go and see what Gov. Nuisance has worked up today.
I managed to cheat him out of an extra 3.5 cents increase in the gas tax yesterday - filled everything up the day before!
 
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Joe - Glad to read of your progress so soon. You are obviously in better physical shape than my wife was at the time of her replacement. She was also very hesitant to push herself too much.

Willie: Concerning my recovery, I'm sort of fortunate. You may recall, back before Covid-19 was part of our vocabulary, I was prescribed some Pre-surgery PT. Although I had to cut it short because of fluid accumulation, i kept doing some of the exercises. Turns out this helped prepare me for what was coming. it was also helpful that the surgeon didn't have to cut the Quad muscles. Did my first Outpatient PT this morning. was able to do all expected. The at home Therapy sessions helped immensely. When you stop and think about it, I've been rehabbing, since I left the recovery room. Dressing comes off on Monday. See what the Doc says about driving...

BTW, Your CUP Project is moving along nicely.

It's kind of frustrating, as I'm sitting around here watching old Thin Man Movies, and other mentally stimulating stuff on TV. I'm still somewhat restricted from the trainroom, and keep coming up with all sorts of brilliant projects and ideas, I will not remember once I can railroad again.
Meanwhile, I ordered two books on the Penn Central...

Port Road Passenger Train @ Odenton 1972.jpg

Amtrak # 541 - The Broadway Limited - Washington Section, passing through Odenton, MD, in 1972. In May 1972, I was the regular assigned Fireman on this job, and was Promoted to the Washington, DC Freight Engineers Extra List, from this job. Used to run North to Perryville, MD, then West along the Susquehanna River to Harrisburg. PA, where we met the New York Section.
 
t's kind of frustrating, as I'm sitting around here watching old Thin Man Movies, and other mentally stimulating stuff on TV. I'm still somewhat restricted from the train room, and keep coming up with all sorts of brilliant projects and ideas, I will not remember once I can railroad again.
Meanwhile, I ordered two books on the Penn Central...

Boris: I subscribed to TrainMastersTV for six months to watch the videos and "How To" sessions. Under $10 and its a good deal. I'm thinking about cancelling my MRVido Plus since its getting stale during the COVID - 19 period.

I like the free MRH online magazine that's related to TrainMastersTV series.

Get better soon and follow that PT and OT and their instructions.
 
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Good Afternoon Everyone.....spent too much time out in the sun and now I'm exhausted. The Mrs. went to the landfill by herself.

Should be working on my layout's track plan, but I'll find time next week to do that project.

You should have our Governor who I believe came from Gov. Nuisance's School of Government.

I think everyone should display their favorite kit project or start a kit during this COVID thing and post your kit's progress on the Forum like twforeman's Tylick Tools kit.

Greg
 
Afternoon All,

Unfortunately since chance didn't favor me yesterday I participated in the monthly round robin grocery extravaganza. This time it included such hotspots as Aldi, Bravo, Sav-A-Lot, and Wally World in 2.5 hours. At least it's done for the month and we didn't go to Dollar Tree like we normally do.

Both grandkids birthday is this month. One will be 15 and the other 13. I believe they're being celebrated on the 11th and 18th (not their actual birthdays).

I finished the framework today :D. The closest distance between the large ends is 3 foot, the sides and the peninsula is 27 inches, and from the ends of the layout to the wall by where the picture was taken is about 4 foot. I'm thinking seriously of taking off the wheels on the rolling toolboxes, put them on sliders and place them under the layout (the wheels make them too tall).

Patrick- It just rained like that here. Lots of thunder but little rain.

Joe- Nice CNJ Centipede. Penn Central? :( Just giving you a hard time, I know you model them. Good to hear about your knee progress.

Chet- Great layout photos.

Garry- Nice looking SOO loco.

TomO- Very nice scenes. I have never heard that term of rotten or decomposed granite, but I have lived around granite mining locations either.

Willie- Great scene. Love the fire damaged building. It gives the scene character. Thanks for the concern but I'm feeling fine now although I still had 3 trips to the can last night.

Greg- Nice looking switcher.

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I hope everyone has a good night.
 
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