Running Bear's Coffee Shop LVIII

[Trussrod]

< Continued

For a lot of people a time period is not a necessity. Don't forget, it's your railroad. I chose 1957 because the mid 50's was the time I was growing up and I had the most vivid memories of the real railroads. I was out there in the thick of things riding in the cabs of locomotives with my relatives. 1957 in particular because models of '57 chevys are easy to find.

In the model railroad club my friends in Missouri are members of, they have regular open houses and actually change time periods. One day they may have up to date modern locomotives and equipment on the layout and for the next day, newer buildings are replaced with older buildings where needed. Old buildings aill work fine in a modern setting, but newer ones not in the transition era. Vehicles, some bill boards and other time defining items are all on a list they have and it doesn't take them much time at all to go from modern day railroading to a period set in the transition era.
These guys have their poop in a group.

Say Chet: Choosing a time period, even loosely like mine, 1890 to 1915 helps me too set the era and how things should look.

Evening All,

Well the decoder did not come in today. The wonderful news here today is our washer finally died...what a pain. Went to a couple of stores but can't get delivery until the middle of next week because of the time of the year. We knew the people that we got the shelving from last weekend had a washer for $200, so at least temporarily that is what we are going to do. We pick it up around 6 PM tomorrow night.

I hope everyone has a good night.

As far as the washer goes one of the reasons folks usually by another one is that the washer stops spinning the clothes and if it's running alright otherwise it could be just a matter of simply tightening the drive belt so it makes better contact with the wheel that spins the drum to spin dry the clothes. I have a problem with mine but didn't tighten the belt tight enough or I may need a new drive wheel.

Say Curt: I'm very glad I stayed with HO as it seems to offer so many possibilities as previously mentioned and I like it as it's small enough that it's easy to create separations between towns without requiring a huge distance and the equipment is large enough to see even if we need to wear glasses. It's a great scale!

Morning all: 53 this morning at 7am. Supposed to start cooling down over the next few days. Temp only reached 83 yesterday, and looking for a high of 73 today. Forecasting some rain for tomorrow .. that will be a change, lol, I have forgot what it is.

Sherrel ... I have had good experience with Kadee metal wheel sets as long as they have same axle length as the trucks have.

Say Sherrel: That's quite a lot of good info from the Engineer!

The only problem I ever had with Kadee wheel sets were with an old Riverossi passenger car. The axle length was to long to fit in the truck. I have replaced wheels with old MDC cars, Athearn, Tichy, Silver Streak, Walthers and some others without any problems at all.

Say Chet: I found that the Kadee wheel sets will not work with a Bachmann Bobber caboose, the Kadee axels are too short. So sometimes it's just better to leave things as they are, especially the newer stuff as they most always have the upgraded RP25 contour wheels which makes for easy rolling.

Joe .... Thanks for sharing the story about the PC lift bridge. PC, of course, did not need that accident. .... I know a guy who is a barge tow captain, and he move large barge tows in the Mississippi River.
Yesterday, I completed building this road grader from a Woodland Scenics kit that has been in my unbuilt kit cabinet for many years.

Say Garry: Interesting looking Road Grader, nice job. Do the wheels roll?

Guess it's time to get ready for Friday night bowling league. Time to head to town and have dinner before bowling. I will be watching on TapTalk.

This is a picture of Mill Street looking over the hand built turntable that was given to me.

Say Chet: That's quite a turntable alright!

 

[Lynnb]

After getting the Station completed I changed gears and got the mainline back up and running again and did a bit of a video https://youtu.be/CkpJknzNnW0
Hopefully it works .Still have a bit of work to do at the trestle rail joints and scenery area. You will notice engine is running faster than I normally would run it but at this speed I was able to make a complete loop in less than 5 minutes.

 

[santafewillie]

Good Morning All. It's 69 degrees outside right now!!! It hit 78 here yesterday, but probably won't go higher than 75 today since the weathermen predict that it will start raining around noon. We'll see.

David - The reason there is so many people inside is because it is a bar, not a store. I thought that more of them would be visible than it turned out. There are beer mugs on the tables and a bar across the back wall. Good luck on the roof repairs. I was on my roof Thursday morning for chimney maintenance and spent the rest of the day recovering.
Chet - Even though turntables are well out of my era, I admire the craftsmanship in yours. Excellent shot of the structures in the background as well.

I'll be moving on now as the major first birthday bash for my granddaughter is today and I will be assigned a few tasks when I get there. Looks like a 60 mile drive to get there, two hours of set-up, three hour party, clean-up and probably supper in Dallas somewhere. All of that and the 60 mile return trip means that I won't get in much modeling today. She won't even remember it when she grows up! Still wouldn't miss it for anything.

Willie

 

[new guy]

Morning all, nice up here for a few days, Got a couple Alco's working the yard down the road up here, Adrienne and Blissfield is the road name on em, yellow and some kind of 'off green' are the colors. They had a sweet looking string of cars going out to somewhere last night one Loco on the front and 8-10 cars later, one on the back! They were going pretty slow across the road and then they picked up speed and TOOK OFF! I have not really seen acceleration like that in a real train too much! It was impressive.

 

[bnsf971]

Morning all, nice up here for a few days, Got a couple Alco's working the yard down the road up here, Adrienne and Blissfield is the road name on em, yellow and some kind of 'off green' are the colors. They had a sweet looking string of cars going out to somewhere last night one Loco on the front and 8-10 cars later, one on the back! They were going pretty slow across the road and then they picked up speed and TOOK OFF! I have not really seen acceleration like that in a real train too much! It was impressive.

I don't think A&B owns any Alcos. They have some SW900s and some GP7/9s. 3000hp worth of Geeps would get 500 or so tons moving in pretty short order.

 

[new guy]

It was dark and I'm no authority, sure looked a lot like the yellow one in the photo above it has #530 on it next to that AWESOME turntable!

I dunno from locos, a year ago I'da thought 2-10-2 was a locker combination! I can't tell what's what with diesel's at all yet.

I THINK there is a sweet old 'F' unit down there sinking into the rails on a siding, as soon as I get it together to go take a picture it will be gone.

 

[new guy]

It just takes time, I'm not bad with identifying rare WW2 vehicles, but trains, I need more time.

 

[kbkchooch]

Good morning guys!

Its supposed to be almost 60 degrees today (3 years ago we had 6 inches of sn*w) Christmas lights, gutter cleanings and fixing an annoying rattle in the 3rd door of the truck is the order of today, tomorrow, trains.
Just gonna refill my mug, & go!

 

[montanan]

Good morning all. 26 degrees to start the day off. There is a winter storm watch out until Monday morning. Don't see much on the weather radar right now, but the mountains do cut off a lot of the radar signals.

New Guy - Number 530 sitting by the turntable is one of my early attempts at custom painting and detailing. It's an old Athern unit that had modifications such as replacing the sintered iron wheels with nickel silver wheels. The motor was replaced with a can motor and constant lighting was also installed. The only problem with the old Athearn geeps is that the width of the hood was too wide. Shortly after doing a couple of these geeps, Atlas came out with their Also units and the rest is history.

Willie - I can take credit for building the turntable but I am happy to have it. It was given to me by another modeler who was adding onto his layout. He had a entire quanset hut filled with his layout and build an addition on to the quanset hut for the expansion. He had to remove a town and engine facility for the expansion. One afternoon he showed up and was wondering if I would be interested in it. Without a doubt I was and it was placed where it is. The modeler, the late Pete Ellis was a master when it came to model railroad. Vey little of the structures on his layout came from kits. Almost everything was scratch built. Back when he started his layout, in the late 40's, there was not much available compared to what we have today and if you wanted something, you built it yourself. He had also operated on John Allens Gorre & Daphatid layout and this inspired some scenes that were nothing but awesome. He had mountain scenes that went right to the floor, amazing trestles and you could find so many little mini scenes on the layout that were fantastic. Unfortunately he passed away around a dozen years ago, but they are trying to get his layout moved to a proposed railroad museum in Great Falls, MT. That is the quality of his layout. I do have video operating on the layout and photos. The photos are somewhere ?? Where I don't know. The video is 8 mm which I would love to have changed to a digital format so I could post it here on the forum. I'm sure everyone would enjoy it.

 

[GarryCBQ]

Good morning everybody ....

Chet .... Your turntable is magnificent...... I like the NP F9 photo. I have NP freight F-units operating on my layout.

MILW113 ... Evidently, your attendance at Alco Anonymous meetings are not taking effect.

David ... All of the pieces on the road grader are glued in place, and so the wheels don't roll. .... I wonder why you have a duplicate post.

Speaking of road graders, I still have a large toy road grader from when I was a kid. It is a Model Toys, Adams road grader, and it looks ver much like the 1/87 model I now have. My old toy now is a collectors item getting high bids on Ebay.

Terry (NC) ... You are correct, the A&B operated ex-GTW GP9's. One was painted to look like a Lionel GP9. The other was striped like a NYC unit but the color was olive drab. I recall seeing an Alco which was (I think) and RS3, and it was painted like NYC with black paint, but I was told it was not an A&B locomotive. It belonged to a private individual if I recall correctly. It has been about 15 years since I saw the A&B and my info is not current. The Alco may have been at another location and my memory is fooling me.

 

[Boris]

Good morning. 49°, and sunny. Going to maybe 67° today? Nice!

Thanks to all who expressed their kind thoughts concerning my MIL. Because of our "close interest", they are somewhat more "co-operative", and the level of care and concern has increased. What we have uncovered, "boarders" on Elder abuse, and attempted identity theft. That is not all, the MIL, allowed her "helpful" next door neighbors too much access to her personal and financial information. The potential leaks have been plugged, and access blocked. Further, all account numbers have been changed, and all mail is being forwarded to our address. Some other chinks in the armor still need to be closed, but the big stuff is secure. And... we are evaluating attorneys that practice this type of law.

This is putting a crimp on my railroad building, so...

 

[new guy]

To my utter shock, it works pretty good!
It's got the Fairbanks in a nice grip. It's the extra hand I need to do anything with the underside of these things. Now I gotta get one of those BIG lenses with the LIGHT around it! Sure, now it don't move but I can't SEE it!

 

[montanan]

Garry - Thanks for the mention of the NP F unit. This started off as an Undecorated Athearn kit. Remotored it and custom painted and detailed it. When I did this there were no correct NP freight units available. Athearn did have a F unit, but it was totally incorrect, painted in green. If I wanted one, I had to build it. I also have a geep that was custom built. A few years after these were done, manufactures finally come out with RTR Northern Pacific locomotives that were correctly painted. Should have waited. I should post a photo of the geep with the roof mounted air tanks.

 

[GarryCBQ]

Good morning. 49°, and sunny. Going to maybe 67° today? Nice!

Thanks to all who expressed their kind thoughts concerning my MIL. Because of our "close interest", they are somewhat more "co-operative", and the level of care and concern has increased. What we have uncovered, "boarders" on Elder abuse, and attempted identity theft. That is not all, the MIL, allowed her "helpful" next door neighbors too much access to her personal and financial information. The potential leaks have been plugged, and access blocked. Further, all account numbers have been changed, and all mail is being forwarded to our address. Some other chinks in the armor still need to be closed, but the big stuff is secure. And... we are evaluating attorneys that practice this type of law.

This is putting a crimp on my railroad building, so...

Joe ... Sorry to hear about your MIL. I is goos to get her away from that. ... My sisters and I went through an extremely difficult period pertaining to our mother in Alabama. We have evidence the amount taken from her is well into 6 digits.. We went to the police with our evidence. They were very sympathetic, but our mother was never legally incompetent, and therefore she could legally give away large sums of money. Nothing could be done to get back the money based on advice of my sisters lawyer. Next, we were able to get power of attorney. All of her remaining financial assets are now in a safe place. We moved Mom to a senior home which is called independent living. We got the state to take away her drivers license, and we sold her car. .... When we moved her, it was very emotional for her, and she was very upset at us. (Very hard on my sisters and me.) Remarkably, her attitude quickly changed. I phoned her about tow months after we moved her, and she said she "found a good place to live". That was about four years ago. Now she is 96 and happy with her life where she lives. She is 96 now.

 

[GarryCBQ]

Garry - Thanks for the mention of the NP F unit. This started off as an Undecorated Athearn kit. Remotored it and custom painted and detailed it. When I did this there were no correct NP freight units available. Athearn did have a F unit, but it was totally incorrect, painted in green. If I wanted one, I had to build it. I also have a geep that was custom built. A few years after these were done, manufactures finally come out with RTR Northern Pacific locomotives that were correctly painted. Should have waited. I should post a photo of the geep with the roof mounted air tanks.

Chet .... Now I will embarrass the daylights out of myself..... I was commenting on the NP F9 AA pair in MN. MILW 113 posted the photo. ... Oops !... Of course, I would like seeing a photo of the NP Geep

MILW113 ... I like the photo of NP F9's.

 

[Milwaukee Road 113]

MILW113 ... Evidently, your attendance at Alco Anonymous meetings are not taking effect.

Actually, all the talk about Alco's is only making things, well....worse! lol

MILW113 ... I like the photo of NP F9's.

Yip, best NP colours....! Everything should be '69 again, a bl**dy good year if you ask me, not that I'm biased or anything, not at all! lol

 

[montanan]

Chet .... Now I will embarrass the daylights out of myself..... I was commenting on the NP F9 AA pair in MN. MILW 113 posted the photo. ... Oops !... Of course, I would like seeing a photo of the NP Geep

We'll just chalk that up to old timers disease Garry. Here is the Northern Pacific geep. It is an Athearn. The dynamic brakes were removed and the fuel tank was lengthened where the air tanks came from the factory under the frame by the fuel tank. Air tanks were mounted on the roof along with lift rings, spark arrestors and other details were added on the pilots. The motor of course was replaced with a can motor and constant directional lighting was installed. My only problem with it is the extra wide hoods Athearn had a the time to allow for the motor. One nice thins about it is that with the can motor, it runs at almost the exact speed as my Atlas Alcos.

What was a real pain in the a** was the red striping on the hoods. The stripes along with any lettering are Micro Scale decals. Nobody made any Northern Pacific geep at the time either. Sometime you just do what you have to to to get what you want. It is still a fantastic running locomotive and around 25 years old. Seems just about everything I have is old, just like me.

 

[kbkchooch]

Hi gang ,chores are done, but now we're off to SWMBO's office Christmas party. I doubt I'll be back before tomorrow, but rest assured, (in my best Schwarzenegger voice) I'll be back!

 

[BigE]

Well.... I've had an infuriating day - train wise.
I decided to do some proper wiring diagramming and straightening up the wires.
It all started off just fine.

I got a phone call from another train buddy (who is not on here) while I was under my table. I called him back when I took a break. He got the impression "my train website" was just my youtube channel stuff.
So I sent him a link to it. While I was at it, I decided to see where I left off with my edits since I know I haven't done it in a while.
Someone please tell me I'm not just seeing things and all my pics and details and narrative regarding my mountain work are in fact gone. I know for a fact I built an entire page just for the mountain and now I don't see it anywhere.
This is just sickening.

After becoming rather upset about that, I set about to continue with my wiring cleanup and documentation and just forget about the website crap for now. First thing I did upon returning was to kick over my glass of beer on my wiring notes and all over. I just shut everything down. F... it.

Might as well add insult to injury. Earlier today I visited the neighbors whose tree ate my quad-copter to ask if they've seen it since the leaves are pretty much gone. They haven't seen it and God help me if I could find it in the tree. it's solid white so it should stand out. Not like it's camo'ed up in mossy-oak or anything.

Oh it gets better. I almost forgot. I got a bill for my visit to the ER last month. Any guessers? I was only there a few hours and mostly just sat around waiting on them.

I kind of want to go do something with the trains but fear something else may go amiss.
Maybe I'll just grab a beer and go sit and look at it and not even power up anything - except lights.

I've certainly had better days - and worse.
E.

 

[tootnkumin]

Getting 4 instead of the usual 3, does that count as a bonus?