Running Bear's August 2026 Coffee Shop

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Good morning from my little part of Wisconsin. 66f degrees now heading to 85 with a small possibility of very needed rain. Yesterday’s rain event in the afternoon barely dampened the concrete. The media guessers were rejoicing we were going to get a needed rainfall. Our area didn’t get enough to even consider a trace in the rain gauge.

Spent yesterday morning with friends at the local work session. The 2 layouts we alternate working on Fridays are 2 contrasts in organization and authority. One is a bit chaotic and the other overly organized both reflecting the way their owners live their life’s. Neither is bad just different.

This afternoon we (the grandson) are heading to a hastily organized local Ops Session. I was looking at the notes this week we helped build this layout in a remodeled dairy barn in September of 2023. From a basic blank slate to full operation in 10 weeks. An Ops session for the crews who helped build it in January of 2024 and until last month, nothing! He just didn’t work on it and when we asked why no progress he always said, no interest. Last month he stopped by my new workshop and he asked me to come over and see what we needed to do to get it running again. Turned out to be basically nothing other than track and locomotive wheel cleaning. 5 of us that day cleaned track and wheels and ran for a few hours. He has 5 of those heavy brass track cleaning cars and I have set of 3 Blunami DCC equipped battery on board diesels that don’t need electricity so the first train was the one I ran. One lap and the cleaning pads on the 2 cars I was pulling needed changing. 2 of the other guys also have the Power on Board and followed my train. We ran 3 trains back to back with cleaning cars. The spurs were done by hand. The other 2 guys cleaned wheels on his diesels and we finished that afternoon testing the electrical. Minor annoying things but he has been running he said yesterday daily since. He has had a couple of the guys who are the “experts” come over and check his operating system and today we will try it out. Full CTC to get around the layout. We were told yesterday we could bring a guest and the grandson said at dinner last night he’ll come. I almost fell over when I said the 2 guys I asked couldn’t make it and he volunteered!

Enjoy the day
 
Good Morning All!
53F @ 70% smoke is gone, so partly.

Reposition tracks: Back in the BN days ... err ... maybe early BNSF days: 2 mains coming out of Yardly/Parkwater heading east. Argonne Road in Spo Valley became a very sticky situation. Tracks were apart ~100ft, each with crossing gates and such. You could sit there for more than 30 minutes waiting for trains to pass, sometime in-between the tracks. I loved it, but others ... Anyway, somebody died in an Ambulance while waiting to get through and the family ended up suing the Railroad for wrongful death. Railroad lost. For the next 3 or 4 years, Argonne became a real PITA as they decided to dig down and go under the railroad. Railroad also move the 2 tracks closer together just for this but only changed the alignment a couple of feet higher.
Argonne.jpg

Maps apparently does not know that the rails are not there where they have the 'track id thingies'; least it shows where the 'old' alignment that has been gone for years was. Anyway, getting it done was a boon to traffic except: When it rained hard, or snow melted fast, the part of Argonne going under the tracks would become a pond; sometimes multiple feet deep. Ton's of vehicles got stuck ( flooded ) many times. So, go in and dig again and set up stuff to git rid of the water. Argonne was screwed up again for close to 1 1/2 years. No idea where it was pumped; the river is 1/2 mile North and ~2 miles East. Ya still have to wait at 2MT at Park and University roads. Pines road is 1MT but sometimes gets pretty busy. That is supposed to be double track once they get the 2nd bridge over the river done. No clue if the same thing is gonna happen at Pines as Argonne as it also gets pretty busy.

Everybody/thing is doing OkieDokie around here. Maria is getting really bored as she still has until Sunday to not do anything. So, she is building HoneyDu list. Great.

L8r
 


Good morning all!

Another cloudy dreary day to start. Currently its 71F and the high will be around 80F. There is a slight chance of some more rain later
this afternoon. One way or another I have to get out and mow. It has totally gotten away from me due to all the rain this week.

Today is usual grocery run, fill up cars, laundry, etc......

Tonight we are meeting a few relatives on my wife's side for dinner. Its fairly close by us so it wont be too late of a night.

Not much else going on at the moment.

Have a safe day everyone!
 
82°F/77°F this morning. The talking Heads claim we will only have to put up with this for two more days. Monday is supposed to be 87°F, but we will still be in the low 90°s for a few more days after that. The 20th is when it will finally cool off temporarily to 80°. I guess I'll fire up the mower that day and knock the grass down again.

35 more days until Autumn. 2/3rds of the way through this mess called 'summer'.

Back to the train room for more maintenance this afternoon. If I don't get tied up running them, I might get two locomotives done today.

Stay safe out there.

Servus!
 
Kusojiji said:
That is so cool! I am thinking of venturing into the O-scale stuff for that reason, but that would mean an outside track for me.
Click to expand...
HO scale, 3 F45’s consisted together. 2 operating and the center diesel is a dummy holding the batteries. We ran pulling the 2 heavy cleaning cars and 5 heavy boxcars with various dry cleaning pads for just under 2 hours. With the Blunami board, batteries and wiring I have about $175 extra into each of the 2 motored F45’s over a NON DCC equipped unit. But that was from early 2023, Blunami had only been out maybe 6 months. Does not include the chargers for the lithium batteries. I run them maybe 2-3 times at one of the ops sessions having the rare bring what you want sessions. I run them using the “smart” phone app
 


A little PS from my rant on losing power. Our dog was a nervous wreck during the whole experience. It threw her whole existence out of whack. She is getting back to normal now; with her bowl of crushed ice for wetting her throat, and she need a lap all morning, which is out of sorts, cause she isn't overly friendly (She's a Papillon) and we drove from IN to GA to get her and those first few weeks of her birth means everything when it comes to socialization. So if any one else has lost power in this latest storm (still over 10,000 homes without power here); treat your pets extra special when things do get back to normal. Our little dog paced the house all day long while we had no power. She is all we have for family here and we are doing our best to make her feel normal again
 
PNKFLOYD said:
Several weeks ago, I found a kit to add to the new club layout. Grusom Casket Company has been around for years. This is an AHM branded kit, but the base is marked as POLA.
I spent a couple weeks painting parts and applying an alcohol/ink stain to parts. Only when I started to lay out the walls to start assembly did I realize the the walls for the one story building were missing. Other doors and windows were missing also.
After a complete inventory of parts, I decided a kit bash was needed.
View attachment 272077

Here is the Frankenstein industry I put together.
View attachment 272078
I still have a little more weathering to do, but it is time to find a location on the layout to plant this building.View attachment 272079
Click to expand...
Nice save.........
 
Kusojiji said:
Watching more of the motor oil geek, in this video, the 10 minute mark was the most interesting to me and gives a vote towards using synthetic oil, especially for the direct injection engines. My engine is a port fuel injection engine, but the way it does the PCV is that it pipes the vapors all the way to the air cleaner box after the filter and gets sucked into the throttle body. My old car had a lot of oil there that I had to clean out once in a while.

Click to expand...
I recently watched another video on gas brands and their additives. Obviously, Wal Mart and other discount sellers rated low on the list.
They listed Sunoco and Shell as "OK" but not top tier...... I was a bit surprised.
The overall winner was Chevron with Techron.......rated best with test results to back it up.
Chevron offers an additive/fuel treatment/cleaner that is supposed to work well, but the video only addressed retail service station gas.
Each to their own......your mileage may vary. :p

John
 
Good evening all!

Turned into a not half bad day today once the cloudy skies cleared for a brief time late morning into early evening. Currently clouds
have moved back in and light rain is falling again with a few rumbles of thunder. Still 80F out there.

Got the grocery run done, wife worked on laundry while I filled the cars up and mowed. I didn't realize how far the lawn had gotten
out of control till I made the first couple of passed. I ended up running over it all twice to disperse the massive amount of clippings. I
was able to make it look at least presentable again, I will run over it again mid week to get rid of more of the clippings.

Dinner out with the wife's relatives was good. We went to a a place that specializes in fried chicken and it was good. We had 16 people
and we ended up getting 6 orders of deep fried mushrooms as an appetizer and I was half stuffed before my 1/2 fried chicken and fries
got served. I ended up bringing home a leg and thigh and a lot of the fries for lunch in the air fryer tomorrow.

Time to veg in the recliner and watch some YT. Should work in the basement but that's not happening.

Enjoy the rest of your Saturday!
 


Good evening folks, hit 105 today with a HI of 117. Decent day at work, good to get back, great place and even better folks there. Sadly found out one of our regulars passed away. He was 89 and a fine Gentleman, and I use that in the old fashioned sense of the word. Church tomorrow and then my Missus is heading over to Jonesboro to see our G'niece Emma as she just got settled into college. She'll be back Monday, so I will work on straightening up the train area while she is gone.
My Cardinals brought up a new player from Triple A and he turned out to be everything that they hoped for. He set a Major League first by hitting 3 homeruns in his first three at bats! Baez and his family and teammates were all going nuts! And doing against the Cubs made it even sweeter.
Anyway it is supposed to hit 107 tomorrow...eek and egads!
God bless!
 
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