Running Bear's October 2019 Coffee Shop


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Morning all,

Supposed to be near 90 again today as the "cold" front won't come through until sometime tomorrow.

I had a few minutes of train time and was able to test my "old" switch motors. 2 have screws that won't come loose, but they all work as they should. I actually had to take 1 apart as the switch pin fell out. They are relatively simple designs.

Not to go read the last of the September shop.
 
Good morning everyone. 71 and clear out there. Going to be another hot one today, upper 80's. Even so, I'm not looking forward to snow like they're getting in western Montana. We are due for a cool-down next week, though.

Flip, Patrick, TrucTrain55, Willie, Louis, Garry, Cambria, Boris, Wheeler, CCoffran, and anyone I may have missed - thanks, everyone, for the likes and comments on my "Progress Post" yesterday. The area is coming along nicely, I think.
Chet - You escaping the snow so far? I think you posted yesterday that you got an inch or so, but the heavy snows have not hit your area yet.

Speaking of snow, I remember 40 years ago my wife and I had visited her grandparents in Red Lodge, Montana (not too far from where Chet lives), and we took a quick vacation on the way home, heading over Beartooth Pass and into Yellowstone National Park. We didn't have a reservation, but went to the lodge to see what was available. The guy at the desk said, "Nothing available." We were about to turn away when he looked up and said, "Wait, we just had a cancellation on a cabin. Want it?" "YES," we yelled. So we stayed that night in Yellowstone and woke up the next day to a couple of inches of snow - It was September 1!!

So here are photos of the Lumber Company area progress. I did some ballasting and added figures and a fork lift to the building. Still need to do more landscaping and ballasting, and change the backdrop picture. But it's coming along faster than I thought it would.

Before:
Lumber1.jpg


Progress So Far:
Lumber3_9_30_19.jpg


And a closeup of the folks working at the company:
Lumber1-9-30-19.jpg


That's it for now. Time for coffee. Have a good day everyone.
 
Good Morning Everyone. 75° and mostly clear, still hitting the low 90's every day. Spent about an hour mowing yesterday, catching up on the eight days that I missed for vacation. It looked like we got over 1" of rain while I was gone so the grass hasn't stopped growing yet.
Hello Flo. How about some poached eggs and ham this morning to go with that large glass of OJ.

Thanks for all of the likes and comments regarding both posts yesterday; Chad, Clint, Jerome, Patrick, Lee, Phil, Curt, Chet, Joe, Tom, Garry, Louis, Justin.
Regarding the Scaletrains engines. I get the product line called "Rivet Counter". The detailing is excellent. I had previously purchased four SD40-2's, and they are excellent as well. They run as well as or better than my Kato or Genesis locomotives. Quality is excellent, that step falling off is the only issue that I have had with any of them. I would buy a lot more from them, but they came into the modeling realm too late for me, as I already had more engines and freight cars than I can reasonably fit on the layout. I still have unbuilt freight car kits (and a few RTR) on the shelf to keep me busy in the future.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I mostly ran my new engines. I did spend some time at the workbench assembling that Accurail freight car,
09-30-19 009.JPG

Here it is after I re-numbered it.
09-30-19 010.JPG

This one is going to get some graffiti and weathering before it hits the rails. While I am not a big fan of graffiti, I accept it. It is what it is and it provides more realism to the era and locale that I model.

Lee - Thanks, and yes I like kits. These Accurail ones are easier than their PS-2 covered hoppers. One thing about the Accurail ones, is they have four numbers available for most models. For $4, they will send a decal sheet with 12 additional numbers that match perfectly, thus allowing 16 individually numbered cars. If you cut and paste the decal sheets, the combinations are endless. Since ATSF bought 1000 of this particular car model (they didn't buy just one of anything!), this really helps build the fleet to realistic proportions.
Chet - Hard to believe that you're thinning the collection by eight! I hope that you take some pictures to show us what's departing.
Greg -
Willie: Excellent Santa Fe locomotives. I should order a locomotive or two from Scale Trains. The detail is unbelievable...brass like quality. I'll check their website tomorrow for Milwaukee or SOor even CNW. Willie, how much was that Scale Trains' ball point pen???

Are those operating ditch lights on the Santa Fe unit?
The pen actually cost me $560, while the candy was only $350. Ditch lights come on, but since I run DC, they don't alternately flash when appropriate.
Tom - For the era that I model, those engines are brand new. Besides, I have 60 others in line ahead of them for weathering! While I seem to have somewhat mastered the art of weathering freight cars, I haven't gotten real good at engines yet.

I didn't have time to sort through any more museum pictures yesterday, but there are more that I will get to soon. After the eight day vacation, I missed the train shed and I hope to spend a bit more time there this week to make up for the lost time; if I can get the mowing out of the way.
Where was Sherrel yesterday?

Everybody have a great day.
 
Good morning. 31degrees with an inch or so of overnight snow.

Johnny - Like the photos. The area is coming along nicely.

Louis - All that good stuff on the grill made me hungry. Like the B&O steamer.

Willie -
The grain car come out nice.

Just got a call from the driver and gave him directions in. Gotta go

Later
 
Where was Sherrel yesterday?

Sherrel was busy trying to make room in the garage fridge for all the food in the house fridge!
Damn thing decided to quit working yesterday and the freezer was starting to thaw; I managed to contact a repairman who will show up here this afternoon and give us the damage report. The Spousal Unit and I spent the evening searching the "net" for a replacement- it really needs to be a counter-depth model as it is in a wall of cabinets - regular refrigerators just won't look right - they stick out an additional 5-6 inches, and of course that adds 25-30% to the cost.
This comes on top of a water leak from the water filters that I replaced a while back = I thought that I had been too luckly with replacing all those filters!

We set a record low temp this morning of 47* - the old record was 51*; the high is expected to be 75* today with 105* in 2012 being the record. The clouds have all gone into hiding again! The total rainfall for this season (July through June) this year currently stands at ZERO!

Like the WarBonnets there, Willie!

Frisco's only SW-1 working the ferry at Mobile.
car ferry.jpg
 
After several posts about using carbon arrow shaft tubing for pipe loads, it is time for me to put up or shut up!
I need to make 75 to 100 cuts so the manual pipe cutter would take too long.
I finally found my 4-1/2 inch angle grinder (Harbor Freight) in it;s box on a top shelf and the 1/16 inch thick grinding wheels.
I cable tied the grinder to a piece of 2" x 10" (with a wood strip nailed to the bottom to fit one groove on my table saw).
This keeps the grinder straight and gives a 90 degree cut. I notched a piece of 1 x 2 block to hold the carbon shaft, marked 10, 15, 20 and 30 HO foot distances and put it on a piece of 2 x 2 to raise the cut height to the middle of the disk. I can cut a piece of shaft in the wood block at a desired length.

Orient the disk rotation downward. DO NOT BREATH THE CARBON DUST, especially if you have breathing problems. This warning is from an arrow technician.

The guide slides the shaft into the disk at the end of the block and gives a quick, clean cut at uniform lengths. I was able to make 13 cuts in under 4 minutes. I can move the cutting setup into position to make cuts in a couple minutes whenever I need to make different length pipes.
 

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Afternoon All,

Got the wife's tire replaced today and did a quick shop at Wally World. Tomorrow we are taking off to Patrick AFB first thing because son who's going with us has to work at 5 PM.

Willie- Very nice looking Santa Fe locos (whatever they are). The hoppers look nice also.

Johnny- Nice progress.

Sherrel- I hope you remain unscathed from the repairman.

Mikey- Nice job on the pipe loads.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Good Afternoon Everyone.....overcast and heavy rain tonight on top of the several inches we received this morning. We could receive in excess of four more inches tonight and tomorrow morning!!!

After seeing Willie's Santa Fe locomotives I made a comment about purchasing a Scale Trains locomotive or two and my wife just gave me a blank stare. Those locomotives sure are detailed and of the highest quality. Maybe Ebay has a Scale Trains Milwaukee locomotive.

If I buy more locos, I may have to take up residence in Willie's train building.

I have a CNW SW1200 that is a basket case and in the past I rewired the trucks and can't get it to run under DC. I wish I could get the chassis from down stairs to try to find the problem. Its a Proto 2k so it may be the square pickups for the axles on the trucks that are the problem.

I plan on taking pictures of many of my electrical main centers of interest that are under the layout and then use MS Paint to add descriptions on the photos of where the wires originate and terminate. The Paint program will allow me to add notes where necessary.

Sherrel: That's a clean looking SW-1 in the photo you posted. How's the refrigerator situation coming along.

Louis:
That grill looks like summer in Wisconsin and a typical Sunday afternoon with a couple of beers to boot. I forgot to grill over an open grill since we have Webers and one Brinkman smoker. I prefer the taste of food cooked over a open grill as opposed to the covered Weber strange as it may seem I think there's a difference in the taste in the finished grilled food.

With the World Series approaching I remember musky fishing in the early 80's when the Brewers were in the World sSeries. We were in upper northern wisconsin and had 18 inches of snow one October evening and we were snow bound in the cabin for two days. The cabin sits 4.5 miles off the main road so the secondary back roads aren't plowed under normal conditions. There were many trees across the road and we had to chain saw our way out only to find the main road unplowed.

Two days later we made it to a local tavern and the original gas lights in the cabin from the early 1900's still worked. We watched the World Series game with a generator running to operate the sole TV.

That's all for now....

Greg

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Hiya gang! Happy Tuesday afternoon!
Nothing really going on here, just working on the house, getting ready for new wife and possible sale.
Willie and Johnnie, you make me hunger for modeling, like Louis's pics make me hunger for something on the grill!
But hey, I'll be back at it soon!
L8ter gang!
 
BAMB -- And just like that A new business was formed!
Look out E-Bay - Here he comes!

How much are you going to ask for 6-8-10 pieces + postage?

I had not really thought about selling the pipe loads. I have 15 or 16 more flatcars to load up.
With the .300" outside diameter carbon tubing, it takes 9 or 10 pieces to make a HO stack of pipe. I want 10', 15' 20' and 30' pipe length loads to make the flatcars look right.
If I shipped just the pieces of pipe and let you assemble a stack, both the pipe price and postage would be more reasonable.
HUUMM! Let me think about it after I get my loads finished.

Thanks for all the positive comments!
 
Hiya gang! Happy Tuesday afternoon!
Nothing really going on here, just working on the house, getting ready for new wife and possible sale.
Willie and Johnnie, you make me hunger for modeling, like Louis's pics make me hunger for something on the grill!
But hey, I'll be back at it soon!
L8ter gang!

Karl- are you saying you might sell the new wife?
 
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