Running Bear's August 2025 Coffee Shop

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Wednesday I ordered a shelf to hold my internet modem from Wally World, with delivery yesterday. I noticed that, even though it had arrived at the local distribution location at 7 AM yesterday, it's still there, with no movement or updates since. This isn't the first time this has happened, in fact, it's happened more often than not. If they continue true to form, it'll sit there without any updates until I call and cancel, and they'll tell me it wasn't really in stock, and backordered--even though tracking clearly shows it moving from a warehouse to somewhere local to me.
 
Good afternoon all. A cloudy day.
A large coffee please, Flo.
A few household jobs to attend to.
Train room later.

'River Mite' at Irton Road on the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway, Cumbria, U.K.

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chadbag said:
Some decoders have CVs to set the frequency of the signal so it behaves better with coreless motors. I know D&H published an article on what to set with their decoders when running coreless.

Worth asking your decoder supplier about getting their CV list.
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Yep, got the list, which is in their OM. TOM has only two frequencies for their PWM signal - 32 and 16 Khz. I tried both. Tramfabriek's (where I bought the decoders) site states to change CV61 to 10 for coreless. In my Dapol Hawthorne Leslie, another coreless motor, I turned something else off (can't remember right now), that seemed to be unrelated, but it reduced the rattling. I have an el-cheapo Hornby Smokey Joe that I changed to a coreless motor and it does not have any issues with the TOM decoder. This is vewwwyyy stwwwwange!

Doomos!!
 


Good Morning All. Mostly clear and 71° around here. Still getting into the mid-90's for a high in the afternoon. Forecast is still the same, cool front on Tuesday but the day that the NWS says it will rain, has changed 3 or 4 times now. Instead of Tuesday or Wednesday, now it's Friday! I think that they are just trying to get our hopes up!

Started the day outside yesterday, using the small push mower to mow around the house where I water the grass as a grass-fire deterrent. Then I split and stacked more firewood. After lunch/nap, I did laundry and generally straightened up the kitchen before my wife returned home from Dallas with two full sacks of groceries from Trader Joe's.
Cool morning today means that I will be able to get more accomplished outside. Same stuff still, just more of it. I may not catch up completely until October after some of the days off that I had to take this summer!

Out in the train shed yesterday, I played with two projects. The first was to replace the missing grabirons on the P2K SD40 locomotive. I started to look at the track ROW to see if they had fallen out somewhere along the way, but then changed my mind. I remembered purchasing and using that particular engine (and another different numbered one) in the old train room 20+ years ago, and they probably came off out there. I'll be using some metal ones from my old stash of Detail Associates parts.
I also started to do some additional detailing on a DPM structure called Laube's Linen Mill; which I re-purposed as a local small town fertilizer distributor. Forgot what I call it now and I left the camera out there last night. So no pictures of either project until tomorrow if I remember to bring the camera in. I'd get it now, but will surely get distracted by something else either going or coming back and might not get back to the computer for several hours.

Tom O - It's been interesting to read your posts regarding your observations of Seattle, from an outsiders viewpoint. It does seem like an expensive place to live, seemingly because of some social-political policies. Of course the excessive money from much of the tech industry also allows this to happen. I'll leave it at that before I run afoul of the politics policy here.
I agree with your assessment regarding the glass around exhibits at museums. I think that it sucks. Not so much that they do it, but that they have to do it to protect their exhibits from wandering hands.
Didn't your son intern at Electric Lady Studios? Or was it someone else on this forum?
Have a safe and fun trip on Amtrak.
Troy - The ground beef stew looked good.
Steve - Hope that you're feeling well enough to go to the train show.
Terry - I also remember having to drink the sodas in the store to avoid the 2¢ deposit!
David - Sure would be nice to hear from Jaz again. I miss her perspective, both from a woman's and a Brit's point of view.

Everyone have a safe and great Saturday.
 
Good morning all!

Happy Saturday

Going to be a bit warmer today than the past few. Currently 71F heading up to a high of 83F. Going to be pretty humid as well.
No rain in the forecast. We ended up turning the A/C back on last night as the house was starting to get a little warm. Looks
like tomorrow we will be able to open back up again as it will cool down.

Have a few things to get done today. Weekly grocery trip, mowing, trimming, and pool clean-up.

Hope to get to the train room later today.

Have a safe day everyone!
 
TLOC said:
Good evening fellow model railroaders, travelers, gasoline price inspectors and tippers! We are in the room about 90 minutes earlier than what we normally would be. All packed for leaving in the morning. LA via Amtrak’s the Coast Daylight.

Dinner tonight was at 5 Points Diner and Bar. Much more to our liking. A dive bar rated #1 in Seattle with very good food and lots of reasonable priced selections. Ubered over, walked 3 blocks to the Space Needle and hopped on the Monorail again. My WeatherChannel app says the high was 85 and with a calm wind and clean skies it was hot. It’s Friday night and downtown is wall to wall people. We did see one guy running after someone running off with a purse. Yelling stop thief the sidewalks seemed to part like Moses at the Red Sea.

As we rode down from Vancouver on Amtrak we had a few station stops with gas stations nearby. I never bothered checking the price conversion to USD while in Canada. But we crossed the border and it was easy to see the prices that ranged from $5.04 per gallon to $4.77. Yesterday on the tour around Seattle most station prices were around $4.90. When we left Wisconsin it was $2.94 per gallon. People forget that the USA produces the most oil in the world. But we’ve closed so many refineries to convert that oil!

Tipping. Basically you give decent service 20% of the final bill plus I round off to the nearest dollar or the next $5. Poor service is 15% and I don’t believe I have ever tipped less. You give me great service and there is more available! Both my wife and sister were waitresses. My sister at a golf course in Summer time during college. Terry worked waitress jobs from high school till the week before she started teaching. I earned tips working as a caddy from 8th grade till I was a junior in high school. From then in the summer I worked as the bag room attendant at the same golf course I caddied at. My tips financed my education and paid for my 1st car when I graduated college. Tipping in the American culture is inbred for me. What I did learn in Seattle is to really review the bill. No 18% service charge on tonight’s bill. They did post 3% because I only use a debit or credit card. They explained the credit card company charges them 3%. They only pass the 3% on, I’m ok with that! I used to give cash as the tip but I once was told by a restaurant owner they would guess the tips for tax purposes for those servers. Unfair to me but I switched to mainly debit cards and just add the tip to the card. Because we are traveling we use the credit card because we earn cash back which I think Terry uses to buy even more shoes.

Amtrak’s Coast Daylight train does not have Internet service per the advertisements. The IPhone is hard to use but easier with the stylus Terry let me use coming down on the Amtrak Cascade. I may or not be online the next couple days

Be well
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Enjoy the trip! When you get on the central ca coast, Paso Robles to the gaviota trestle, it’s all my old stomping grounds. I could be a tour guide for the area. Vandenberg area you might see SLC4 and 6 where they were going to launch the shuttle if they haven’t tore it down.
 
Anyone see that ScaleTrains is now hosting a magazine archive.

From their newsletter last night:

We’ve got exciting news! With our purchase of ExactRail, we’ve brought back six classic model railroad and railroading magazines — now available for you to read online:
• 1001 Model Railroading Ideas
• Model Builder
• Model Railroading
• Pacific News/Pacific Railnews/Railnews
• Prototype Modeler
• Railmodel Journal
Plus, our advanced search makes it easy to find articles, photos, and topics across all of these publications.
We’re proud to preserve this rich railroading history — and share it with you.
Start exploring today: https://magazines.scaletrains.com/
 
Good morning, all! A mostly cloudy day at present with rain changes about 50% later this afternoon. I spent almost all day yesterday buying and setting up a new modem/router. About 3 AM Friday morning we had a severe thunderstorm. Knocked out the lights. 3:45 AM the lights attempted to restore when a loud POP and the light died again. The transformer was hit by lightning and had to be replaced. When power was restored we found no internet. The modem was dark. No lights, no power, no hum nada. All the other device plugged into the surge protector were lit and working. Modem was old s replacing it would have been on the to-do list sooner or later. I will be trying to get smart switches, Ring and Blink cameras connected today. No trains were injured or harmed by this event.

STAY SAFE
LATER
 


boogietrain94 said:
o ok I thought because a lot of it Is produced here in the states that it ment that the price would go down. I must be mistaken
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It really depends on where you are located. While proximity to refiners has some bearing due to transportation costs, state gasoline taxes mean a lot as well. For example, here in Texas, where a lot of refineries are located in the state, and we have a low tax of 20¢/gal (44th in US); I paid just $2.49 last week. Your state of Indiana is the 5th highest in the country at 51.7¢/gal. #1 in the nation is California at 68¢/gal. The top 5 include Illinois (#2 at 66.5¢), Pennsylvania (#3 at 58.7¢) and Washington (#4 at 52.8¢). Note that these are 2024 taxes because 2025 rates are not all in effect across the country. Refineries are shutting down in some states like California because of excessive regulation, which coupled with their high tax rate, means higher prices. Hmmmh! Simple Economics 101.
 
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