Running Bear's August 2025 Coffee Shop

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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.
well thank you sir I have now been edgamacated
 


Well, howdy there internet peeps and those who are spiffing up in anticipation of Jaz returning (y'all need to shower and smell good in case she does make an appearance.)

It's Troy again.

Spent the morning trimming doors. I was going to work on swapping out our last two 1970s style flat panel interior doors, with two 6 pannel ones we've had for over a year. Finally thought it was cool enough to tackle trimming them down and getting ready for paint. These are NOT pre-hungs, so I have to route the hinges, drill the latch holes etc.

Got everything except the latch holes done when I called it good enough. Latch holes can wait until after they're painted (wife is doing that now). Monday and Tues look to be nice cool days.

Today, well, it was cool, but muggy. I worked up a sweat just trimming the doors down (back in the 70s, they sure trimmed a lot of stuff to make it fit... none of the doors are standard height. And one was planed later on as the house settled. I had to do that to the one I hung last year in the wife's office.

Finally cleaned up, and went to lunch. Wife decided she didn't want to go to her fav italian place, so we went out to Applebees. Got a free burger and fries with the coupon. Since wife didn't want Italian, she got the Chicken Parm.... :rolleyes:. Still trying to figure that one out.

After lunch, tried to set her up to paint the doors with our Interior Satin Ultra White paint.... and the can had rusted around the rim in the last year, and dropped nasties into the last inch of paint in the can. Oh, well, we'd need another can to finish these two doors and do touch ups on the others. So I headed to the big box store and got another gallon of door paint.
 
Good afternoon. It's still raining and 82.
I went to my LHS, and sold off some of my Problem Children engines. These are engines that don't behave well on my home layout, generally because they don't like the curvature. An AC6000 and SD70ACE both exited the property, and were replaced by a pair of Kato RSC2s. They are pretty much the smallest 6 axle locomotives I know of that are available in N scale. I installed a decoder in one, and repaired the decoder that was installed in the second. Both are currently tooling around the layout pulling a pair of track cleaning cars and a caboose. It's a lot less stressful and frustrating to have things just work, rather than having to stand over everything waiting for a derailment or short. Or both at the same time.
Do I miss the sounds of the others? Yes and no. When the air conditioners are running, it's almost impossible to hear them anyway, and when the air conditioners aren't running, the noise can be a bit much in the small area the layout resides within.

BTW, my Wally World purchase is still sitting at the local facility, with no further updates.
 
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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
It does affect it of course because you don’t have to ship oil if you produce it. Except that most Is refineries are set up for a different grade of oil than we produce so we end up importing oil anyway to match the refineries. And then a much higher impact on gasoline prices is the refining cost and most US refineries are old , meaning more expensive to run as the maintenance needs go up. Some areas have not permitted new refineries in decades and put limits on upgrades and expansions. And also the different grades of gasoline. California (and maybe OR and WA clung to CA in this) has much stricter requirements for the gasoline so they don’t get the benefit of quantity. The gasoline refined from the rest of the country can’t be shipped to California to make up shortages and the smaller quantity made in California make it more expensive.

It’s more than just the oil.
 
Indiana actually charges Sales Tax on gasoline... so the tax rate is always changing baed on that alone. Fed tax + IN Road Tax + IN Sales tax... the higher the base price per gallon, the more we pay...
I will say that even then when I would go to Indiana for work the gasoline was always cheaper than in Utah. Now, I’ve not been there for several years but I did go several times in my tenure and have rental cars so I did have to gas up.
 
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.

Is it possible that the tech industry wealth and isolation has contributed to making the problems worse rather than better? Groups of relatively wealthy people tend to believe all problems can be solved with healthy infusions of cash without regard to other consequences? Not for nothing, Problems like homelessness were not caused by political policy, per say, but were always present in the background, and for a multitude of reasons. Wealth implies that solutions can be bought, even with the absence of treatment.

I grew up, two blocks from a skid row neighborhood, populated by WW2 Veterans who were amputees. The mechanism set up to help these men failed them, and they spent their time drowning their sorrows with cheap wine cut with Sterno. They weren't homeless, per say, they had rooms in skid row hotels, but congregated under railroad bridges because it was cooler there in the summer. Note: Calling them "Stew Bums" didn't solve their problems any more than calling them "Homeless" does today. But no one thinks treatment....The town fathers are more content looking at them as victims, while the homeless see themselves as survivors. (That's what keeps them going). Most still fade away into the background, while the aggressive panhandle.
 


Marlin39!

David it’s 2:20 pacific time just about to leave the Portland station

I will be waving your way in a few minutes

Decent ride, good lunch, roomette is fine, landscape so far is a touch overrated but mountains and green are always good

Internet if in a station is good

cell service gets me online most everywhere else but using phone is tough but having a stylus really helps
 
Good afternoon folks, 91 here and sunny today. Made for a nice drive to the Conway AR train show today. Met some folks from three different local clubs and was warmly welcomed by all. Will try to get set up to build/run modules with them. The show itself was really nice and well attended. One of the Lego Train groups had a mat of indoor/outdoor carpeting laid out for the smaller kids where they could play with Legos. Plenty of vendors with a nice balance of vintage and new stuff in all scales, in addition to the candlemakers, etc. I had made up a list of things to look for and was overall successful, actually very pleased with finding several items on my list, PLUS finding a Devil's Gulch & Helengon boxcar.
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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/
Thanks for the info on the magazines. Didn't know they existed.
 
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/
Looking at them right now. It's good to see somebody got them back up after Trainlife went down. From a nostalgia point of view it's fun looking at the January 1990 issue of Railmodel Journal because that was the first model train magazine I ever got it was shortly after I got a trainset for Christmas of 1989 when I was 10 years old. I wish RMJ was still around. Unlike MR and MRH these days, it seems like it was geared toward modelers actually looking to grow their skills instead of collectors looking to buy more stuff.
 
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Thanks for the info on the magazines. Didn't know they existed.
This is going to be a valuable resource. I'm so glad there being preserved and available.

I'm assuming more will be added in the future.

After I posted this, I thought it should probably be posted in the regular forum somewhere so it can be available to more members. I will let someone else do that if they feel inclined. I doubt many go back and re-read these coffee shop threads after there closed at the end of the month and some don't visit this thread and may not see this resource.
 
Looking at them right now. It's good to see somebody got them back up after Trainlife went down. From a nostalgia point of view it's fun looking at the January 1990 issue of Railmodel Journal because that was the first model train magazine I ever got it was shortly after I got a trainset for Christmas of 1989 when I was 10 years old. I wish RMJ was still around. Unlike MR and MRH these days, it seems like it was geared toward modelers actually looking to grow their skills instead of collectors looking to buy more stuff.
I got lost looking through some of the material last night.

Kind of cool to see the products that came out and were considered new releases at the time.

The prices of some of these items were interesting to see as well.
 
Evenin', folks. It's 94F and 46% on the patio today, and I'm enjoying it.

I went to the train show...

I had a lot of fun...

My wallet... did not!

Seriously? These events are flat out dangerous, and I'm glad I found out about it far enough in advance to budget for it. I might have gotten just a tad carried away, even so. I'll post the haul on the "what I bought this month" thread...

It was a good time, though, other than general people overload. I was already partway overloaded by the time I got to the show (Austin traffic plus scads of pedestrians? No thanks!), and then the place was far more populated than I was expecting. I wouldn't be surprised to learn there were 500 or so show goers in the vendor area when I arrived. Plus the crowd from some other thing going on at the venue that one had to wade through to get into the place.

Seriously, I did not need a "how to be an activist" flyer from the people in front of the other thing that was going on... But I digress.

I only went to one clinic, which was so-so. They were doing it in an unsegregated area in a hallway, which was... not ideal. It was often hard to hear, let alone to focus. The content was okay, but not what I was hoping for; leaned more toward a layout showcase, rather than "here's how you use the techniques that went into it".

I assume it was a volunteer thing, though, so can't really complain about the content. Besides, it takes guts to get up there and present!

Unfortunately I didn't really get to connect with anyone in any meaningful way; there was way too much overload going on. In other words, par for the course for me.

I'm considering going back tomorrow, if only to look closer at the layouts and get some good pics (the latter of which I mostly failed to do today), but we'll see. I know my tendencies, and I don't know if my bank account can withstand another visit...

@TLOC: On vendors, there were maybe two dozen or so? Some very good ones, and a few that seemed more "half ass hobbyist" types. Only one actual manufacturer type vendor that I'm aware of; I think it was Scale Trains. Just a basic booth, and I didn't get the impression they were actually selling stuff there, just showing it off. Could be wrong though; I didn't really talk to them.

There were a few hobby shops (Harris Hobbies, Brad's Trains, a couple of others), and those seemed to be the place to be -- well, that and two a few other guys who were selling used merchandise, one of which was an estate sale type.

There was a surprisingly good amount of N scale stuff, but it felt like HO was better represented (which will surprise approximately nobody). There was also a fair bit of O, and even some Lego. Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing much in the way of G, though I might have missed it amongst the O; I'm not as naturally familiar with the sizes in the larger scales.

Almost no Z scale products that I saw, though there was one Z layout there.

All in all, it was a worthy shopping experience. I felt like the pricing on new gear was kinda... normal, where I (probably unrealistically) expected it to be at least a little discounted. Not sure what the norm is for shows like that. Used stuff was well represented though, and if you hunted, there were some really good bargains.

Hope that satisfies your desire for knowledge on that score. :)

In any event, I'm going to go post in that other thread, and then... figure out what I'm going to do with all this new stuff!

Hope y'all are having a nice Saturday. :)
 


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/
Took a look at the 1001 Ideas and ran across this ad:

1973 FREON AD.jpg
 
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