Running Bear's Coffee Sbop LXIX

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Some of you may find this an interesting read. We have a town with a port called Churchill located in northern Manitoba that is serviced by a single rail line. A company called Omnitrax has a contract with the Canadian government to run and maintain the line. This spring there was flooding in the north and some of the track was damaged. Omnitrax is saying there was too much damage to make it viable to repair and continue to run. The whole thing is a cluster. The town will slowly die without the rail line.

In the meantime a VIA passenger train has been stuck up there all summer and is finally being removed by ship from the port.

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/a-very-fixable-problem-451348973.html
 
Good morning everyone. 47 and very dark outside, but will be sunny and 75 later today. Gorgeous fall/summery day on tap! I'll take a big cup of coffee, a little cream, no sugar - I'll get my sugar in the doughnuts I'm going to dunk in the coffee, thank you!!

Greg - Sounds good to have a cabin to go to. A friend of mine has a family hunting cabin in the UP and goes there two to three times a year, more to relax than to hunt, although he occasionally comes back with some venison.
MD Ken (that's Maryland, not Medical Doctor, I guess :) - Nice prototype photo of that station
David, Chet, others - Thanks for the consolations on having multiple things pulling at my attention on the layout. It's okay, I'll get on with life!!

I moved several industries around to different spots, and figured I would put in three new sidings to service them in those new locations. I think it will work better. So now I'm glad I hadn't glued roads in place or put much scenery down yet. It's going to turn out for the better.

My SIL has a Go-Pro he wants to mount to the locomotives and do a run-through of the layout. Are they hard to set up on a loco? Any tips?

Have a good day everyone.
 
Good morning, y'all. 40° and clear.

Ken - MD: Sykesville never looked so good.:rolleyes:

FWIW: Movable bridges are designated in the Timetable Special Instructions, or the Station Pages depending on the classification of the track. Some bridges originally designed as movable bridges, are no longer movable. Such as the Chester Creek Movable Bridge which is the centerpiece of my attempt at modeling the Chester & Delaware River RR. When this bridge moved, there were bridge tender(s) on duty from 0530 to 2130 daily. There were pipe connected devices similar to the Conley Locks, which raised the miter rails above the fixed rail, set the derails on either end of the bridge approach, and set the signals, from proceed to stop. The device to raise the bridge rails, would indicate a swing bridge rather than a lift bridge. (So would the absence of counterweights or lifting mechanism).
 


Johnny, I mounted n iPhone to a flatcar, and ran it around our club layout. It was intersting, and a challenge to get it blanced ao it wouldn't flop over on the super-duper elevated curves. Yes, the people the built the layout believed if a little superelevation was good, more was better. Some of the curves reminded me of turn 3 at Daytona.
 
bnsf971 said:
Johnny, I mounted n iPhone to a flatcar, and ran it around our club layout. It was intersting, and a challenge to get it blanced ao it wouldn't flop over on the super-duper elevated curves. Yes, the people the built the layout believed if a little superelevation was good, more was better. Some of the curves reminded me of turn 3 at Daytona.
Click to expand...

Ya gotta put a little wedge in it!:rolleyes:
 
Good morning everybody.

Gary P .... Very interesting about the Via Rail train stranded in Churchill .Thanks for sharing the link.

Johnny .... Chet has videos of his layout, and I suggest you ask him how he did that.

Terry .... I tried super-elevated curves on my layout. I gave up on them because of derailments and leveled the track.

Toot ... The bridge has ample height to clear barges and tow boats. We see barge traffic going under a bridge about 2 miles from our house, and bridges are high enough. One notable exception was when a river cargo ship (not a barge tow) went under the wrong span of a bridge 15 miles from here. The ship knocked the span into the water.

Photo of bridge accident January 2012
37064447734_b1c91ff391_z.jpg


The bridge carries highway US 68 / KY 80. My neighbor was on the bridge at the time of the accident on a span just before the one that fell.
 
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Good Morning Guys. 50° and clear here in North Central Texas. Temperatures move back up into the 80's today. Like Sherrel, not much chance of a frost yet, maybe around Thanksgiving. Spent a little time yesterday mowing and then cutting firewood. While a couple of the last few nights have been chilly outside, it wasn't enough to start a fire inside.
Nothing significant going on out it the train shed. Added little people to some existing scenes, Added interior lights to two structures but haven't run the lighting buss that far yet. Continued some other detail work. Ran some trains. Sound familiar Johnny?

Justin - Good to hear that the job change went smoothly. Sounds like a better situation.
Ken in MD - I forgot to welcome you back to the Coffee Shop. Welcome. Good to hear from you again. Good luck with the cleanup, my cleanups are never ending. Nice photo as well.
Chet/Garry - Unfortunately those are the only three photos of the diorama that I have. It is really impressive and I intend to return sometime. The diorama is 250 sq. ft. Seems quite large in person. The museum is going to undergo a remodeling this winter according to the director and they are going to move many exhibits to the second floor, they have many boat, airplane and other models in storage. His intent is to use the entire first floor depot waiting room for trains. There is a part of a former Illinois Central rail line that runs alongside outside and they have two cabooses on one of the seven exhibition tracks there. I think that either KCS or VSOR owns the line now. They're planning to add additional railcars in the future.
Toot - Both bridges actually have the same clearance above the channel, 116'. The picture that you posted shows really well the grandness of this bridge. The various spans and a length of about 1.5 miles are really impressive. The new highway bridge is pretty significant as well.
Gary P - Looks like corporate greed wins out over the public's welfare in the article that you posted.
Today's pictures are also from the Old Depot Museum in Vicksburg. The first two show the two cabooses parked outside, they aren't really on display yet, and the next two show parts of the HO layout.
10-12-17c 001.JPG10-12-17c 026.JPG
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This layout at the present is more for displaying the director's trains and models. They had automated trains running, but they were only locomotives with no freight cars attached. It is unfinished right now, awaiting the expected expansion soon.

Everybody have a great day.

Willie
 
Edit ... I posted the same message twice to Ken thinking the first one failed to post.
 
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Good Morning:

Up early this morning to print a boarding pass for the Mrs. whose is going to AZ and on to Cal for a four day trip to see Disney Land. Been to Disney World several times, but not Disney Land. Short time for a long distance trip.

Truck recall at 11:00 AM and then to a LHS who sometimes has deals on estate and other HO rolling stock. Once purchased eight Milwaukee Road coal cars that had metal wheels, KD couplers, coal loads and were weathered for $8 at piece including tax. Nice cars!

Hopefully down to the train room in the afternoon.

Garry: Listened to a Great Lakes Boat Captain once who explained about the care needed to dock a large vessel. The weight and momentum can do a lot of damage at ever slow speeds if not under control. Can't imagine a vessel that size hitting a bridge at cruising speeds.

That's all for now.

Greg

No Track pictures today.
 


God morning model railroaders, Flo and Francine. A sweet roll with the coffee please.

41 degrees to start off the day with another expected high in the upper 60's.

Gary P - That was an interesting article. Went on Google Earth and followed the rail line. I can see where the town of Churchill would be so dependent on the rail service. Sure is a lot of nothing between it and the southern parts of the country. I am assuming that a lot of the northern sections are over tundra which would not be very good for a roadbed. Thanks for the post.

Garry - Nice photo. Wrong span?? Hope thay had a good insurance policy.

Willie - Enjoyed your photos.

Joe - Again I enjoy your input having been working for the railroad. There are so many interesting railroads in the north eastern US many with a lot of history. Small scenes wit bridges like you plan on modeling sure can be interesting features. I have always had interest in that part of the country and have read a lot about the railroads there but just didn't know enough about it when I started my layout. Had to deal with what I knew.

Ken in MD - Like the station photo. Also looks a bit like the Walthers station. Thanks for the photo.

Terry - Super elevation is not good when trying to record a cab ride video. I had similar problems with super elevated track. I used a camcorder on top of a fat car. All of my flats seem to have been equipped with sprung trucks and the camera was heavy enough that if it wasn't perfectly balances, it would end up rolling over and mow down a herd of 1/87 cattle.

Camera.jpg

Curt - Nice photos. One problem, your work bench is too flippin' clean. Guess I just have too many projects going on at one time. My Tru-Color paint did arrive yesterday. The caboose is somewhere on the table, maybe, or down on the layout.

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Here's the rail picture for the day.

Lotus_Illinois_railroad_tracks.jpg

Later
 
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Afternoon All,

It's been overcast and breezy all day with some rain. Today I scored! I remembered we had a long skinny table buried in Webb's Dump (the garage) so I dug it out, cleaned it up and now it sits on the left side of my work table and has the vast majority of items that previously were on my modeling table giving me about an additional 16"x16" work area.

The video camera I use is the Polaroid Cube ($50 Ebay). It is 1" square so no size issues. It has a magnet on the bottom so it sticks nicely on a flat car (weight underneath) and you can choose 2 different format sizes for video (largest is 1080p). You provide it but it takes a Micro SD card and records to that. It does come with an adapter for the SD card so it can be used with a computer. If you have seen any of my YouTube videos they are made with the cube.

Greg- Back when I cut the grass with a gas push mower, grass cutting was my job, when we got a riding lawnmower it suddenly became my wife's job. Go figure.

Ken- I list you as Ken and Ken that lives in VA as VA Ken. My last job had 2 Kevin's so we called them K1 and K2.

Gary- Sounds like big business and government at their worst.

Garry- See my comments above about a video camera that I really like.

The roof is actually a blacker color than the photo shows

20171018_125239.jpg

20171018_134715.jpg

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Curt - Workbench is much too clean. I don't understand how you can get any work done there. Chet's workbench on the other hand resembles mine. Here's a few more pictures of the Old Depot Museum in Vicksburg MS.
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10-12-17c 008.jpg10-12-17c 010.jpg
This is still the HO layout.

I'm now headed out to the train shed.

Willie
 
Curt: I agree with Willie, you can't possibly get anything done on such a clean, brightly lit surface...:rolleyes:

Chet: Just like home :rolleyes:, except you have more light.
 
Good evening Shop Dwellers!

First, thanks so much for the kind words about my depot photo: Louis, Terry, Sherrell, David, Johnny, Joe, Garry, Willie, and Chet. (Sorry if I missed anybody..?) I shot that on my previous layout, my current one isn’t going to look anything like that for probably another year or two.

Terry – the depot is a Life-Like replica of the Sykesville, MD station on the B&O Old Main Line [as Joe correctly identified]. I tried to lookup what RR went thru Warsaw PA on my North American Railroad Map v3.1, but it looks like that line was abandoned several decades ago. Was it part of the B&O [which later became the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh]?

Curt – I can certainly relate about the color ‘washout’ problem on mrr photos. I haven’t heard of any consumer-grade cameras with light sensors as discerning as the human eye. But your roundhouse roof still looks pretty dang good!

Just returned from a memorial dinner for a regional mrr ‘legend’ named Larry Elliot. (Karl knows who I’m talking about!) It was an awesome event and the place was packed! He built brass steam locos from scratch that ran like Swiss watches, had a layout with such perfect trackwork that nobody could remember ever hearing of a derailment on it during its 30-year existence. This guy impacted [in a positive way] the lives of many people, myself included.

Getting late, 5:00am comes awfully early…g’nite!
 


Sirfoldalot said:
Love that horn!
Why is it blowing for a crossing when there is none there? At time 1:30
Click to expand...

You can't see the crossing? It certainly is there, in my imagination. 8-)

Did you hear the cattle complaining at the very end of the video? That's one of the BLI cattle cars. It's the second from the very last car in the train.
 
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