Running Bear's April 2023 Coffee Shop

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Good Morning All!

31F @76% and clear.

Had a scare early - Wife came out of the bedroom bout 0400 complaining of chest pain. She swallowed one of my nitro pills and off to ER we go. Nobody in the ER except worker bees; got right in. Chest xRay found nothing wrong with her heart ... BUT ... there apparently is some sort of blob at the top of her lungs that they are concerned about. So we waited for a CT scan and were told that it was a pulmonary nodule in the right lung. They are forwarding her to Pulmonology ( and our Doc ). She is still waiting for that stress test that was asked for after the 2nd chest pain a month or so ago; she neglected to tell anybody about the 1st one so the Doc and I did a pretty good job yelling at her. So who knows how long it is gonna take for the Pulmonology look see. VA is good, but definitely not fast. Back home after about 4 hours. She is in good spirits and slightly worried. Stress test needs to happen as this is the 3rd chest pain episode in 4 months; nothing found with the 1st two.

Later
 
TLOC said:
Good morning from a calm and beautiful looking day in the So. Central part of Wisconsin. It is 28f degrees now feels like 16 but heading into the mid 50’s.

Thank you to all who expressed concerns and offered well wishes here in the forum or direct text messages regarding our storm damage. Terry and I appreciate it. Again we are both fine, I was more shaken then her but OK again.The insurance people and the glass company guys that came out were great.

I just placed another order with SpringCreeks Models in Nebraska. I ordered more of the yellow TBOX box cars. I put 3 cars on Facebook around 8PM on 2 of the 8 sale sites I normally list at. A Canadian Pacific, a BNSF and a yellow TBOX car, all weathered. Before I could get the cars listed on the third site (I just copy/paste for the ad and then the pictures) I had 6 requests for the yellow TBOX. I replied to them in order that the car listed sold with pending payment, but I had other numbers. I had another 5 already weathered and showed them the numbers and they sold. Guy #6 understood I had no more weathered. But I told him I had a few more unweathered and if he could wait a few weeks I would sell at the listed current price. I gave him the 5 numbers available and he took them. He then asked if I had other numbers on the BNSF and he took that too. (he said he has the number I listed) That was fun last night as I got payment I packed each of the cars up and I will head to the post office by 10.

The 78 intermodal car weathering project has gone well with 1 exception. I didn’t note which wheels go into each truck on the articulated units of 3 for the 9 Kato sets. Looks like the wheels are 28” and 33”. Got it figured out though. The rest of the cars are either individual Walthers well cars, 6 Athearn sets of 5 or Bowser spline cars. He spent a lot of time changing out the car numbers as there are no duplicate numbers in the 78. When I texted him yesterday about the progress he mentioned adding containers and trailers to the train. I mentioned I have never done a container and don’t know what the pricing would be. So this morning after the post office I will head to the LHS with a list of possible containers to buy to work on.
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Does anyone know why BNSF buffer cars have patches of white paint on the roof?

Enjoy the day
Click to expand...
Probably not exactly the answer you were looking for but…..

from an NS conductor…
A7EA9B08-57BB-4BEE-B152-92B8353A744E.jpeg
 


TLOC said:
Does anyone know why BNSF buffer cars have patches of white paint on the roof?
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It actually has nothing to do with them being buffer cars. That particular car and others like it were originally 4566 cu ft airslide covered hoppers made by GATC These cars have a series of hatches along each side of the cars, instead of a continuous hatch in the center. GATC applied anti-slip gray paint on the panels around the hatches so workers wouldn't slip on the sloped roofs. Here's a picture of an accurately painted model from Tangent showing the pattern.
1680806714904.png

The car design had the latches at the outside edges which required getting off the roofwalk to open them. The cars are now filled with sand, so the paint is moot, but never was removed.
 
Work/vacations/cell phones. When I still worked, I had 30 days a year of vacation/sick leave; eventually relabeled PTO. I took my vacation one day at a time almost every Friday. That combined with 10 holidays and a ten day Christmas shutdown allowed me to have a three day weekend almost every week. As a manager I hired my own employees and I only hired and kept employees that could not only do their jobs when I wasn't there, but who could also fill in for me when I wasn't there. I did occasionally take several days at a time. So there was never any problem for me to resolve when I returned. Technically I had 600 employees but just 7 on my actual working staff who directed other managers and supervisors who were also responsible employees. It was interesting though, when I convinced upper management that it was time to think about bringing in younger blood to replace me. They did but it eventually took them four different employees to do my jobs, but in all fairness two of them had additional duties that I was not responsible for.
Cell phones. I never had one when I was working, by choice. As a result, I never got that late night or Friday call to come in and fix anything or answer questions. Many other managers at our operation got them, especially the Maintenance Manager. It just never connected to them that I had a land line and the # was the same one on my employment application! (Still have it 43 years later). In 2013, the corporation merged another nearby plant into ours and brought along 18 people with company issued cell phones. Our CFO was appalled at the cost, and made several failed attempts to eliminate that expense. So one day he had each of those users bring their phones in to the IT department for "upgrading"; a ruse to actually audit the call logs. He then showed corporate management that over 90% of the calls on those 18 phones were personal in nature, including many many hours of roaming charges incurred. Cheap phone plan! Phones were eliminated in our location and four others shortly after.
 
Afternoon All,

Started out with a walk at 71F and supposed to get to 90F. Continued the chores around the house today. MOH is supposed to be back home tomorrow some time. I have been thinking of a project in the train room, but nothing has gelled yet.

Willie- I'm glad Arlene is doing better.

TomO- Nice start on the tree.

Joe- I'm glad you and your estate escaped damage.

David- Nice photos. The Lisbon photo almost looks like a model and not a 1:1 photo.

Tom- Happy Birthday.

Willie- Nice scene.

Guy- Nice looking dog that's apparently smart also. :)

Mike- It sounds like your wife is doing well.

Todd- I'm very sorry to hear about your wife and I wish you both the best.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Sirfoldalot said:
JOE - Close one! Aren't tornados fairly rare around where you are?
Glad there was no major damage to your home.
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Sherrel: The more trees they take down for development, the weirder our weather gets. Not a political statement, but an observation...I don't understand why, but it's happening. We had a lesser event about 5 years ago along Hwy 9, about 5 miles North of me. Tornado activity is still very rare, but I've been here 37 years now, and we never had one the first thirty years.

Curt: Me too. Beside the primary relief...no one hurt...some of those who had property damage, are now gettingthe runaround from their Insurance Carriers/Adjusters/Agents. HO insurance isn't cheap around here to begin with, and most people carry high deductibles, even so the Insurance carriers want to minimize their exposure.
 
Boris said:
The more trees they take down for development, the weirder our weather gets.
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That coincides with part of my thinking ...
1. The more people, the more increase in body temperatures all adding to global warming scenario.
2. The more paved streets and rooftops collecting rays of the Sun add to global warming.
Eventually, there will be too many people, no trees for O2, no firewood, and shrinking food supplies.

Just my take - your mileage may vary!
 


Sirfoldalot said:
That coincides with part of my thinking ...
1. The more people, the more increase in body temperatures all adding to global warming scenario.
2. The more paved streets and rooftops collecting rays of the Sun add to global warming.
Eventually, there will be too many people, no trees for O2, no firewood, and shrinking food supplies.

Just my take - your mileage may vary!
Click to expand...
 
Sirfoldalot said:
That coincides with part of my thinking ...
1. The more people, the more increase in body temperatures all adding to global warming scenario.
2. The more paved streets and rooftops collecting rays of the Sun add to global warming.
Eventually, there will be too many people, no trees for O2, no firewood, and shrinking food supplies.

Just my take - your mileage may vary!
Click to expand...
Clean Air Act. Cleaner air, more sun penetration warmer temps.
 
I'm getting annoyed with a marketing salesperson who isn't doing their homework, and messaging me via one of my pen name author FB pages... I'm trying to be polite, but I've been through enough sales training to see him nibbling around the edges trying to get a pain point to latch on to in order to offer his marketing services.

I keep reminding him that I have two Journalism degrees (marketing and journalism are parallel tracks for a lot of college curriculums.)

He's not annoying outright, just enough that he's trying to play interest fanboy, and it's obvious he doesn't read the genre. He's not asking questions readers would ask. Nor is he doing his homework. If you come in via my FB page which is FULL of links to my books, and ask me where to find my books...

In other news:

pie chart.jpg
 
Good evening y'all
The terrible storms predicted for this evening never materialized. We did get a little rain, but nothing to write home about.

Todd, sorry to hear of the wife's problem. Hope she's ok.
speaking of other halves,
Willie how's Arlene feeling?

Tom, Happy birthday. We won't tease you about how many candles were on the cake, we'll just keep an extinguisher handy.

More steamers!
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photo roster 021.jpg
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Nite all!!
 


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