Running Bear's Coffee Shop LX

[santafewillie]

Good Morning All. It's a chilly (for us) 20° and overcast. Light snow is predicted for this morning but probably won't happen. It is snowing in Oklahoma about 20 miles north of here. High today is only expected to reach 25°. Upper 60's to mid 70's is the forecast starting Monday, lasting for over a week.
Thanks again for all of the birthday wishes, belated or not. Funny that I'm not feeling any older.
Due to the crappy cold weather right now, I am forced to spend more time in the train shed than normal, darn! Yesterday I started re-laying out the newest staging yard with the #4 turnouts that I purchased earlier this week. I am gaining between 3" and 12" on the yard tracks. I decided that I will use the remaining 11" at the end to further extend them and just downsize my workbench from 18" x 48" to 18" x 37". Still a lot larger than I am using right now (more area to leave things out!).

Justin - Like your area, the weathermen on the Dallas/Ft Worth stations were flipping out because of the possibility of snow, which is currently staying about 100 miles north of them!
Chet -

The best you can do is to try to keep your distance so you can get a better view of them going off the road.

Funny but true. Lots of folks around here think that just because they drive a pickup truck, there won't be a problem. WRONG! There's no weight over those rear tires unless you put something in the bed. I have no problem with my small front-wheel drive Honda Civic, and I just wave at them as I go by.
Dave -

It is one of those years when everyone gets more snow than us, and we live "up north"

I guess that you just hate that.
Terry - Good luck with the sales manager...they can be pretty inflexible most of the time.
Hello Eric - Where are you? I hope all is still going as well as can be.

Everyone have a great Friday.

Willie

 

[Raincoat2]

Good morning, everyone. 8 degrees and clear here. Got a mocha in my hand already!! Snowed lightly all day yesterday, so we ended up with about 2 inches. It's funny to see all the school closings in this area, but this part of MO is all hills, and most of the small rural towns don't take any chances on school buses loaded with kids sliding off the roads, down hillsides, etc. So, better to be safe than sorry - but they sure end up with a lot of snow days. Will get up to 17 today, down to 2 tonight - time for a fire in the old fireplace - more for ambiance than warmth - might make for a romantic evening - ya never know!!

Curt and Tom - I don't have any experience with weathering yet (cars or structures) - too new to the hobby. I'll watch for more comments about Doc O'Brien's powder. There's a whole forum on this website devoted to weathering, so I'll have to start keeping up on it - for right now, I just want to get a train running even if the rolling stock look like they just came off the assembly line and the buildings look freshly painted

Terry - I echo everyone else's words - hope that sales manager sees the wisdom of your suggestion.

Gary P - looks like that unloading area will be a major project for you - keep you off the streets for a while, huh?

Over Christmas break my wife and I started a major home improvement project - taking up very old carpet and prepping to put down new vinyl flooring. One room's ready, adjacent room is next. Knew this was on our calendar, but we're into it now. Fortunately it's not interfering with train room work much. Juggling flooring, trains, and work will be fun.

More later.
Johnny

 

[sauced07]

Morning everyone. It's in the 40's here in upstate SC. Supposed to get some snow by tomorrow morning. Snowpocalypse!!! 3 inches, get the bread and milk at the storenow!!!!

 

[logandsawman]

Good morning, -10 F.

Raincoat, nice thing you have a fireplace. Nothing better than wood heat!

 

[Raincoat2]

Good morning, -10 F.

Raincoat, nice thing you have a fireplace. Nothing better than wood heat!

Dave - The guy we bought this house from a couple of years ago left 3-4 cords of seasoned oak for us!
By the way, I just watched several of your youtube videos - old time log loading operation, the layout tour, sawmill area, and ground cover tips - thanks for posting them. Some interesting ideas there, especially since we're incorporating a logging/sawmill operation into our layout. Being still a newbie to the hobby, I'm picking up all the tips and tricks I can from experienced operators like yourself. Again, thanks. Just call me Johnny.
Johnny (Raincoat2)

 

[new guy]

10 degrees and I was right to try to ignore the "news".

 

[chessie_system3]

Good morning fellers. 18° for my start today. Weatherman said the snow was going to be gone last night. Yeah it's still putting it down. Found out yesterday my push button 4wd doesn't work anymore. Perfect timing on that! Typical Ford issues. At any rate I received some goodies in the mail that will get my weekend going. Received my air tanks for the GP9.

Ofcourse I'll need to paint them but it's a start. It was the only thing missing off of this locomotive. But for $25 I can't complain. And ofcourse I received my replacement motor for 7614 that burned up. This will be an upgrade as the one I burned up was a grey can motor.

This one is a brand new motor so hopefully I can get back on track. Watched some good videos on how to get my oldies to run better. One is the wheel cleaning tips. Also adding pickup wipers to the trucks. However the wiper idea seems to work only for four axle units. No idea how to make it work for my SD40. That's all I have for now. I'll catch up to y'all later.

Sent from my LGLS675 using Tapatalk

 

[montanan]

Good morning. The temp this morning isn't as bad as expected. 3 above.

Yesterday my wife had an incident the wasn't very comforting. She had gone to town to make a deposit at the bank for our bowling league and the window regulator for the drivers door crapped out. She had the choice of taking the interstate back to work with a speed limit of 75 mph or taking another road where she could go 45. Just as she was returning to work she passed a bank that was showing -7. Some of the guys at work were able to get the window back into the up position so she could get home. She said that she really could only laugh at the situation and that she had some nice rosey cheeks when she finally got back to work. A new window regulator has been ordered.

sauced07 - I did see on th news that up to 8" of snow was possible down your way. I think a good plan would be to stay home. Those folks down there don't have much of a clue about winter driving. Be careful.

Johnny - Enjoy the fire. We used to heat mainly with wood years back but now had a natural gas stove that looks like a wood burner. I do miss the real fire but not the work and mess that come with it.

Justin - Good luck with the motor transplant. I have done many of them on the old Athearn locomotives of the late 70's and it makes a world of difference. I don't think much of those push button 4x4's. I have a 2012 Silverado with that but prefer my old '72 Chevy with the lock out hubs and a real transfer case.

Terry - I do agree with you about not moving those RV's in the snow. One of out trucks had an incident with one in Illinois a couple of weeks ago. A brand new one was being delivered to a dealership but the tow vehicle hit icy roads and started spinning with it. Out truck had no place to go and took it out. Not much left of it at all. Repairs on out truck is close to $10,000 and will hopefully be done next week. Icy road and towing trailers do NOT go together well. Rotsa ruck.

Ken - I really like you Polish engineering job on that gear. Nice job.

Gary P - Nice to see the work progressing on the layout. Looking good.

Curt - Nice photo. That's about the normal size of passenger trains on my layout. Usually a combune and a coach is all that's needed. I'll have to pull out the old MDC passenger cars over the weekend and take a photo of them. Like I mentioned, I forgot that I even had them.

Tom - You should post more photos of your equipment and layout. You do some outstanding work.

Willie - A front wheel drive car is really all you need in the winter for normal driving, even in the snow. My daily driver is a Buick LeSabre and I do put winter tires on it. I have no problem at all driving in the snow or even on icy roads. I used to go to work earlier in the morning and many times beat the snow plows on some roads and had no problem busting trail in 6 to even 10 inches of snow. Most pickups here are four wheel drive and many drivers get over confident with them and thay along with 4x4 SUV's are usually the first ones in the ditch.

Guess I should get some coffee going. Later.

 

[chessie_system3]

Good morning. The temp this morning isn't as bad as expected. 3 above.

Yesterday my wife had an incident the wasn't very comforting. She had gone to town to make a deposit at the bank for our bowling league and the window regulator for the drivers door crapped out. She had the choice of taking the interstate back to work with a speed limit of 75 mph or taking another road where she could go 45. Just as she was returning to work she passed a bank that was showing -7. Some of the guys at work were able to get the window back into the up position so she could get home. She said that she really could only laugh at the situation and that she had some nice rosey cheeks when she finally got back to work. A new window regulator has been ordered.

sauced07 - I did see on th news that up to 8" of snow was possible down your way. I think a good plan would be to stay home. Those folks down there don't have much of a clue about winter driving. Be careful.

Johnny - Enjoy the fire. We used to heat mainly with wood years back but now had a natural gas stove that looks like a wood burner. I do miss the real fire but not the work and mess that come with it.

Justin - Good luck with the motor transplant. I have done many of them on the old Athearn locomotives of the late 70's and it makes a world of difference. I don't think much of those push button 4x4's. I have a 2012 Silverado with that but prefer my old '72 Chevy with the lock out hubs and a real transfer case.

Terry - I do agree with you about not moving those RV's in the snow. One of out trucks had an incident with one in Illinois a couple of weeks ago. A brand new one was being delivered to a dealership but the tow vehicle hit icy roads and started spinning with it. Out truck had no place to go and took it out. Not much left of it at all. Repairs on out truck is close to $10,000 and will hopefully be done next week. Icy road and towing trailers do NOT go together well. Rotsa ruck.

Ken - I really like you Polish engineering job on that gear. Nice job.

Gary P - Nice to see the work progressing on the layout. Looking good.

Curt - Nice photo. That's about the normal size of passenger trains on my layout. Usually a combune and a coach is all that's needed. I'll have to pull out the old MDC passenger cars over the weekend and take a photo of them. Like I mentioned, I forgot that I even had them.

Tom - You should post more photos of your equipment and layout. You do some outstanding work.

Willie - A front wheel drive car is really all you need in the winter for normal driving, even in the snow. My daily driver is a Buick LeSabre and I do put winter tires on it. I have no problem at all driving in the snow or even on icy roads. I used to go to work earlier in the morning and many times beat the snow plows on some roads and had no problem busting trail in 6 to even 10 inches of snow. Most pickups here are four wheel drive and many drivers get over confident with them and thay along with 4x4 SUV's are usually the first ones in the ditch.

Guess I should get some coffee going. Later.

I'm on the lookout for a parts donor. Bet I'll put a manual transfer case in. I'm a manual lockout guy too myself. I don't mind manually locking my hubs that's for sure. On days like yesterday and today. I'd just lock my hubs and if I need 4wd I'll just shift the transfer case.

Sent from my LGLS675 using Tapatalk

 

[sauced07]

Montanan- That's the plan, coffee and sweatpants day. Might try tackling some of the basement this weekend while I'm indoors

 

[D&J RailRoad]

It's weekend eve. Some good playoff games this weekend and a college game on Monday.
Placed an order for over $800 worth of plastic materiel to build my version of the Diablo Canyon Bridge. Should have it all piled up in the kitchen by next weekend. There's a whole lot of prep work to do before I actually start any bridge assembly, i.e. jigs, component assembly, assembly procedure and sequence, test methods, etc.

 

[montanan]

Montanan- That's the plan, coffee and sweatpants day. Might try tackling some of the basement this weekend while I'm indoors

We think alike. As soon as I get home, on go the sweat pants. Now that the holidays are over, I'm hoping to get to spend more time down in the train room.

Ken in VA - I am really forward to see the bridge build. It's going to be quite the project, but when it's finished, it will be one heck of a detail on the layout.

 

[GarryCBQ]

Good morning.

Ken in MD ... You nailed it. LOL .... That is an ingenious way to repair a broken gear.

Dustin ... Looks like you are doing well with your Geep project. I used the Athearn Geeps a lot in the beginning stages of my layout. I was not yet on DCC, and the Geeps were my workhorses.

Chet .... That sounds like a costly accident as you described to Terry.

Curt .... I like the short passenger train with the FP7.

Some of you were recently talking about backdrops being close to the tracks on our layouts. This picture is an example. The track to the left of the 2-10-2 is only about 2" from the back drop. It continues out of view to the left for about 8'. This is one of my favorites of the layout photos I have taken.

Here is a shot in the same corner of the layout with the camera angle moved to the left.

 

[Raincoat2]

Good morning.

Ken in MD ... You nailed it. LOL .... That is an ingenious way to repair a broken gear.

Dustin ... Looks like you are doing well with your Geep project. I used the Athearn Geeps a lot in the beginning stages of my layout. I was not yet on DCC, and the Geeps were my workhorses.

Chet .... That sounds like a costly accident as you described to Terry.

Curt .... I like the short passenger train with the FP7.

Some of you were recently talking about backdrops being close to the tracks on our layouts. This picture is an example. The track to the left of the 2-10-2 is only about 2" from the back drop. It continues out of view to the left for about 8'. This is one of my favorites of the layout photos I have taken.

Here is a shot in the same corner of the layout with the camera angle moved to the left.

Garry - I'm one of the guys who were talking about backdrops and distance from track. Your photos are helpful - at just 2 inches between track and wall/backdrop, it still looks realistic. That helps me as I start laying track on our layout.
Johnny

 

[PRR Modeler]

Afternoon All,

No MRR'ing today. Earlier MOH had me cut a large circle out of a modeling mat and then glue it onto a wooden lazy-susan for her sewing room. Don't ask my why. I got all my hair cut. After that I had to run MOH to Jo-Ann's and Wally World. Tomorrow is the train club if the rain isn't too bad.

Ken- Makes sense with the pictures. Very ingenious of you.

Tom- Sorry I haven't. If I need white I use acrylic white and powders over that.

Gary- I look forward to seeing your progress.

Johnny- Weathering is kind of scary when you first start, especially on the $200-300 locomotives, but it gets easier. One piece of advice to remember is it is easy to over do it. Weather lightly, let it dry, and if needed lightly weather again and so on. I really overdid coal hoppers when I started weathering.

Justin- Good luck with the re-motor project.

Chet- Everything breaks when it is a inconvenient time.

Garry- Nice shots. It's amazing how deep the scene looks compared to reality.

VA Ken- I had to make my ME 210' scale plate girder bridge on my dining room table. Of course yours will be longer and a much more complex build. It took me a week but I could see yours taking months building. That said MOH was not happy about taking over the table.

I hope everyone has a good night.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Curt,

I can understand the issues with the wife, but I'm single (widowed X2) and the whole house is my mancave. Heck, I have more Harley parts in the kitchen pantry than cooking stuff. I can even leave the toilet seat up all the time and never hear a word about it.

 

[montanan]

Bowling league tonight so I am getting out of here.

Garry - Really like the photos of your layout. Keep them coming.

Ken - A couple of years ago I did take over the dining room table because I had quite a few kits under construction at the same time for the last town on my layout. The building progressed rather rapidly because of the noise coming out of the kitchen. I had my regular workbench covered with kit also and there was no other practical place to do the work. Guess I could have done them one at a time, but they were all in various stages of construction and painting, so she just had to put up with it.

Later, gotta go.

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Curt,

I can understand the issues with the wife, but I'm single (widowed X2) and the whole house is my mancave. Heck, I have more Harley parts in the kitchen pantry than cooking stuff. I can even leave the toilet seat up all the time and never hear a word about it.

KEN - Now, that is funny! Maybe you can rustle up an 'Indian' or two for dinner?

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Not sure what ya mean by Indian, unless you're referring to the motorcycle, but then I don't know what ya mean by "for dinner". ????

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Not sure what ya mean by Indian, unless you're referring to the motorcycle, but then I don't know what ya mean by "for dinner". ????

Thought maybe you could assemble one for me? I know - very stupid post from me.