Running Bear's June 2019 Coffee Shop


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Good! I'm the first one to muck it up! (Interesting, the difference one letter can make.)

It's been about two weeks, and I've heard nothing from Athearn about my Big Boy. I'm going to interpret that as good news (I'm afraid to contact them, for fear of jinxing it).

I must have had some kind of low-grade bug over the last few days. Since Monday, I've been getting upwards of 20 hours of sleep per day. Finally, went to bed about midnight last night and started waking up about 4:30. Feeling OK, maybe I can get back to the basement, today.

The weather hasn't helped; I don't think we've had 24 hours without rain for a month or so. There's supposed to be a dry spell coming up in another week but I've heard that before.

In the news:

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Good Morning Folks. Clear and 66° here in North Central Texas to start the month of June. The unforcasted rain event yesterday passed by south of us, and despite being very obvious, never got into the forecast for that area either. Chance of rain every day and temperatures return to the upper 80's and low 90's for the next ten days except Wednesday; when the rain chance increases, and the temperature doesn't get above 75°. I'll start the day with two eggs over easy and sausage this morning Francine, I see Flo over there flirting with Beady, probably to no avail.
These low night time temperatures are playing havoc with my pool temperature, it's taking up til 4:00 pm to get warm enough to use; however it's really great sleeping weather with all of the windows open. Having to run an A/C from about 3-8 pm right now. No need to mow yet this week, the ground is still too wet anyway and I don't want to tear up the turf. I did fire up the weedeater for some trimming yesterday and will do more today.

Thanks for yesterday's comments and likes; Garry, Jerome, Sherrel, Chet, Phil, Curt, Sherman, Joe.

Made quite a bit of progress out in the train shed yesterday. I finished all of the ballast on the siding and spur at the grade crossing, as well as on the main on the other side of the road. That's as far as I will go for now, since the next section of main/siding is not yet painted. It runs through 12' of blank plywood that needs to be plotted out. I am resuming scenery work on the other side of the peninsula by the fertilizer distributor/spur, but that is just a small area until I determine what other non-rail served businesses will go there. I have a laser-cut kit from JL Innovative that will work well between the distributor and the existing flour mill, but it will have to wait on the Masonic Lodge to be completed before I start that build.. Alas! I didn't have time for any pictures yesterday, but I will wear out the camera today. I am getting to the point that I need to paint some more of the existing backdrop, that should have been painted before scenery (some) was put in front of it. Structures are not a problem as I rarely fasten them down anyway. Progress continues on the Masonic Lodge with the 21 cut-out areas!

Joe - Nice to read that you are getting back "on track" with the next module.
Garry - I am considering doing a build thread on the Lodge as I get further along. It could be helpful to folks who don't frequent the Coffee Shop.
Chet - Thanks. You're absolutely correct about the Lodge fitting in with many of the other structures that I have amassed for those unfinished areas. I will use it as a city hall or a library though, as Masonic Lodges in the locale that I model were not quite so grandiose. I am certainly glad to read that your absence here was self-imposed and not a result of health issues or other acts of God. As usual, great club pictures. I would love to have a layout that large if I thought that I could maintain it.
Sherrel - I have seen pictures of other railroads with different shades of ballast on mains and sidings, but I don't know how widespread the practice is or which other roads do it.

Another month is upon us. Time to put out an APB for Justin and David (Trussrod).
Everyone have a wonderful day and an awesome weekend.
 
Happy JUNE - complete with the GLOOM! As I was driving back from the MIL's yesterday (Spousal Unit has a 4 day weekend there), I was watching the clouds roll over the mountains to the South and West of us - the Marine Layer was in full swing.
To you folks in the plains states it looks like a giantic roll cloud spilling over the tops of the hills and cascading down the valleys. So, needless to say, it's overcast, foggy, and cloudy this morning which will give way to P/C around 10-11am - then clearing after 2pm.
We still having cooler than normal temps, but now it has reached what we like ... 74 expected for a high, 82 last year, and 93 record in 2013.

WILLIE - I had a call from DAVID, but I had already gone to bed - and I forgot to call him back yesterday; I will do that this morning. I was wondering about the guy with the irrigation work (forgot name) too? We have not heard from him lately neither?

BEADY - You are on a roll!

Where's LOIS this morning?

Think that I will start stopping a little further back from grade crossings from now on?
 
Good afternoon. A new month. Time sure flies.

My wife got in early this morning from Las Vegas. The women were going to stop and spend the night around Idaho Falls, but the hotel prices were too pricey. They said that the cheapest were $120 a night and up. Idaho Falls is only around 4 hours away so they pushed it and made it home around 1AM. They should be in the money in the tournament. One more week and the final results will be in.

Sherrel - Nice picture of the E-8.

Willie - You just keep moving ahead on the layout. What! No photos?

I did screw around down in the train room yesterday. I hadn't run any NP passenger trains for a while so I put together a short tourist train to make a trip to West Yellowstone.

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I also got the "water" put i the pond and waiting for it to finally get cured. Some sunbathers did find it.

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Have to get out of here and head over to my grand son's high school graduation.

Later
 
Happy JUNE - complete with the GLOOM! As I was driving back from the MIL's yesterday (Spousal Unit has a 4 day weekend there), I was watching the clouds roll over the mountains to the South and West of us - the Marine Layer was in full swing.
To you folks in the plains states it looks like a giantic roll cloud spilling over the tops of the hills and cascading down the valleys. So, needless to say, it's overcast, foggy, and cloudy this morning which will give way to P/C around 10-11am - then clearing after 2pm.
We still having cooler than normal temps, but now it has reached what we like ... 74 expected for a high, 82 last year, and 93 record in 2013.

WILLIE - I had a call from DAVID, but I had already gone to bed - and I forgot to call him back yesterday; I will do that this morning. I was wondering about the guy with the irrigation work (forgot name) too? We have not heard from him lately neither?

BEADY - You are on a roll!

Where's LOIS this morning?

Think that I will start stopping a little further back from grade crossings from now on?

Yah, Willie, Sherrel and others that may have inquired about me, Thanks, just bern having problems with my Left leg muscles so been trying to figure out what the problem is ? Also I don't sleep very good at night which doesn't help matters. All this saps my energy so I tend to sleep a lot to make up for it.

I've also turned my interest toward ir Rifle shooting and selling the various Leapers-UTG line of products.

Hope everyone is doing well,
David




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Thanks again for posting the pictures.
It's 4p.m. and a sultry 93* . The air is almost to heavy to breathe . We actually had a 3 to 4 minute drizzle this morning. Just enough to wet the ground . Might have some real rain tomorrow, hope so.
Wish all a pleasant night and a nice Sunday
Prayers for all.
Phil
 
Good afternoon all. Was a pleasant day until an hour ago. Heard some thunder
Checked the weather radar and nothing. Next thing I know, the power goes out and it starts raining really hard with hail the size of dimes. That changed to quarter size rapidly. I'm stuck in the train shed without power, but the beer fridge is full.
 

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Willie, I hope the mower is not in the second photo. It rarely rains hard enough here to put the wipers past intermittent.

I'm trying to fix things today, the power steering on the 06 Forester is whining, especially when temperature is below 65. I was hoping for an easy fix and changed the intake o ring on the pump but that didn't do it.

Also working on a Scale Trains SD40-2 in BN that surges like an old Athearn when the idler gears in the trucks aren't round. I think it is in the back half of the back truck but I don't see anything. Their gears are cast much nicer than the old (early 90s) Athearn gears, the hole looks like it's in the middle and everything. Then I'll modernize it to look like it did in the mid 1990s, just before the BN/ATSF merger.
 
Also working on a Scale Trains SD40-2 in BN that surges like an old Athearn when the idler gears in the trucks aren't round. I think it is in the back half of the back truck but I don't see anything.
Interesting. I have just put a Soundtraxx Tsunami2 decoder into a Gevo T4 and noticed a jerkiness and bit of a surge when accelerating away from stand-still. I haven't as yet done any tuning of the start voltage, as it moves on step 1 nicely as is. (ESU motherboard removed)
 
Good morning. It's mostly clear and 60. There was a round of severe weather that went through here last night. Lots of rain, very high winds (50+mph), and a little hail. Other than the unpleasant fact all the ground that had started to dry out over the last couple of days' lack of rain, is now soggy again. Luckily, we are parked on asphalt, but there are several hundred people parked in fields, that really needed the ground to be dry so they could leave today.
 
Good Morning All. 68° and cloudy with occasional sprinkles. Wow! What a weather event last night. Totally not in the forecast, wasn't even on the radar 15 minutes before it commenced. High winds, quarter size hail, lots of thunder, loss of power and just over 3.5" of rain in less than an hour. Initially I was trapped in the train shed, but it eventually abated enough to take off my shoes and make the trek to the house. Here's the view from the front porch.
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So much rain that the spillway couldn't handle all of it and my pond overran it's banks which are usually 24" higher than the full pond.
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Drainage swale was doing it's job very well.
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Front yard again two hours later.
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The electric co-op didn't get the power restored until 11:00.
I'll have to check and readjust the pool chemicals today, after getting them perfect yesterday morning.:(
Stay tuned for another post, neighbor at the door again.
Everybody have a great day.
 
Good morning. ..... Coffee and a donut , please.

Terry ... Thanks for starting the June Coffee Shop.

Willie ..... I hope you have canoe.

Beady ..... These are my strikers I put on the layout a couple of years ago or so. At the time a strike at the Hostess Bakery Company was in the news .

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Good morning, Happy Sunday! 75° and sunny.

Garry, Beady and Chet: Only thing missing from your strike scenes is the large 20' tall rat that seems to appear at labour disputes around here. ;)

Willie: That was quite a cloudburst. Snuck up on everyone, no less.

Sherrel: Second son is presently in Oxnard while working on a project at NAS Point Mugu. He told us the fog, and clouds never lifted yesterday.

Boris
 
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Good Morning again. My 76 YO neighbor needed a little help with an electrical issue that we resolved quickly. Another neighbor who is a licensed electrician wasn't home this morning.
Time in the train shed was shortened by the power failure yesterday, but I did get a bit of progress on the Masonic Lodge. Here's a picture of the side and back walls with the cut-outs completed.
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I got all of the columns cut out as well. Not too well thought out, instead of having them side by side to make cutting easier, there was a 1/16" strip between each one. I guess that "Human Interface Engineers" weren't employed by CM.
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Then a rather tedious step, after gluing all of the columns to a brick sheet, the instructions call for drawing lines across the bricks in a 4-row, 2-row, 4-row etc pattern and cutting them apart before the next part of the step. After looking at this, I chose to just cut out two columns (the two for the back wall that didn't get the following treatment) and leaving the rest intact for now. One then has to cut out strips of the brick sheet into 4-row widths, not an easy task, and glue them to the columns separated by 2 rows.
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My eyes got crossed after the first eight rows, and I will resume today. The finished effect will be really neat, so it's worth the effort. Ten more courses to go.
Meanwhile on the peninsula project, I took a few pictures while I pause there for a day. First, a "Before" shot from April.
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And a current shot from the same angle taken yesterday.
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More to come soon.

Chet - Nice pictures.
David - Good to see your post. Don't be such a stranger.
Garry - Another great layout picture.
Terry - I know what you're going through with the weather.

Time to go again.
Everybody have a great day.
 
Good Morning from the West - Francine, How about a couple sunny up with bacon, hash browns, sourdough toast, OJ, and coffee? Looks like another nice day here - cloudy at this time, but if it follows yesterday it will be sunny around noon.
Temp today says 74 for a high - 86 a year ago - record 96 in 2016.

Darn It: I still forgot to call David -- I'll wait till 9 this morning!

WILLIE - You seem to get more rain than anywhere I know of? I grew up 250 miles almost due East from you, but I sure do not remember anywhere near that much water?
 
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