Running Bear's December 2025 Coffee Shop

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Good morning, Everyone!

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Do you remember what color Snoopy's Dog House was in A Charlie Brown Christmas? No fair looking it up
I'm guessing red.

Enjoy your day Everyone!
 
Hanging pre-formed catenary isn't bad at all. Hanging scratch-built catenary wire is a whole other hobby that I don't much care for.

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I know a little about doing scratch build catenary. I was building it in the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania:
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Can't wait to start on my own layout though, but scenery has to be mostly done first.
 


'Tis the season. Though it's only happened this time once, rather than repeatedly.
I purchased an engine through Fleabay, and the seller shipped USPS, as they normally do. It made it all the way to my local post office, then it went on a tour of the area. It went to three local Post Offices, then to the distribution center in Tampa, then the regional center in Ybor City, then back to Tampa. That is its current location.
 
Wife has been busy already tonight. A batch of chocolate peanuts and raisins, and a pan of praline strips.

I was on dish duty.

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Mike no need to be 'on duty'. Walk in like you own the place, grab the wife and back her into that counter while doing a little funny business. When she focuses on you ( she will ), reach around her back and grab a handful. And if you are really good at it, move a few around to cover the holes in the rank and file you just created..... You might get away with doing it twice, just wait a bit before doing so. Besides, you will just see her grin when she realizes you are the thief and she has just been had. Sometimes payback is not a medivac....

L8r
 


'Tis the season. Though it's only happened this time once, rather than repeatedly.
I purchased an engine through Fleabay, and the seller shipped USPS, as they normally do. It made it all the way to my local post office, then it went on a tour of the area. It went to three local Post Offices, then to the distribution center in Tampa, then the regional center in Ybor City, then back to Tampa. That is its current location.
Bar Mills has been trying since early November to ship me missing parts. The first try vanished in USPS system. The second try was sent suppossedly with tracking, but it's been almost 3 weeks.

I'm guessing that since it's traveling from the far most East Coast city to the far most West Coast city that USPS can't figure it out.
 
Morning folks. 33°F this cloudy morning. Waiting for the snow that is never going to happen today. It's all north of us, and the band is rather narrow. I don't expect to see even one flake except for the Talking Heads ranting and raving about it all day.

Cold is where it's at! Single digit cold tonight, and not much warmer tomorrow. I think they said 9° or 10° with W/C factor well below zero.

Stay warm and carry on!

Servus!
 
I know a little about doing scratch build catenary. I was building it in the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania:
Can't wait to start on my own layout though, but scenery has to be mostly done first.

I still have a stretch of catenary to hang on the second level, and all of it on the first level. I'm debating the first level though. It's very difficult to clean track under this stuff; not so much on the outside track, but three tracks in and it becomes a real chore.

But, I hate seeing electric locomotives running with pans up and no wire. Especially mine!

On a related note, I see so many, many You Tube videos of layouts with full, nicely done catenary and all of the locomotives run around on the track with the pans securely locked down. Why would anyone go to the work and trouble to hang an entire huge layout of catenary and then run with all of the pans down? That makes absolutely no sense at all to me.

If they are worried about getting hung up on a registration arm, they need to proof the catenary before letting locomotives loose, but PROOF IT! What a waste of money and suspension of belief with all of the pans locked down.

Mine run up even if there is no wire. You just have to imagine it's there until I get a roundtuit. Euro modeler's rant over.
 
Morning all,

Currently 27 and partly to mostly cloudy with a high of 36°. Going for a predicted low of 12° and high of 30° tomorrow.

Ended up doing a bunch of errands yesterday, culminating on starting to get the fixtures for the rest of the master bath redo. As we were expecting an $1100 sleep study bill, that was only about $250, we bought the toilet. About twice what we paid for the other bathrooms 3 years ago already. We have the flooring already, still sitting in the boxes in the basement and we're trying to figure out whether we want a new vanity or just replace the faux marble top sink.

Willie: Glad to hear your procedure went well. And thanks for asking about the knee. It is doing a lot better. Having issues with what kneeling i end up doing, but not supposed to be kneeling anyway. The stairs are a ton easier to do. I know I extended our ability to stay here because of it (basement laundry, etc.)

Try to BBL , but she's wanting to venture out to look at vanities and sinks.
 
Good morning all!

Another cold Northern Illinois day again. Currently 7F with an expected high of only 10F. looking at the radar it says it should be snowing
but nothing is coming down as of yet. 1-4' expected but my feeling is, we wont see near that much.

Will make the usual Saturday grocery run later and a couple loads of laundry are on the agenda for this morning.

Wife will continue baking today and I will man the dishes.

Have a safe day everyone!
 
Good morning Crew. It is +1f degrees but the wind chill, last year it was known as the “real feel” is -15f degrees. That means it’s not nice outside. I read the NWS was ordered to return to using the term “wind chill”. But I’ll stop my comment on that right there as I’ve been good lately. The high later today should be +6f.

I will get back today to my power plant build. Yesterday I stayed away from it for most of the day but last night I played with it. This morning I will check out the touch ups and clear coat I applied to some weathering commissions and bill them out.


Be well
 
Good Morning All. Hazy and 35°, only expecting 63° today after hitting 70° yesterday. Cold front tonight and tomorrow's high just 40°. Back into the upper-60's by Tuesday. They're even predicting 78° on Saturday!
That will be nice since next Saturday is our large family (my side) Christmas get-together. We'll be able to spill over outside my brother's home. It will be a bigger affair than the recent Thanksgiving celebration. We're expecting 8-first generation, 23-second generation and 20-third generation; for a total of 51, all descended from my parents. Since I am the oldest descendant, male or female, I am considered the patriarch of the family. My wife and one BIL are actually older but they married in. There's 15 others who won't be making it including my son and his family. Buffet only since it is too unwieldy for a sit-down dinner, although that brother has a large heated tent that we used last Thanksgiving for the sit-down dinner when it was colder.

Surgery recovery seems to be going OK, bandages came off yesterday and nothing unusual was noted other than a very large bruise on the inner thigh of both legs. Not sure if that is normal or not. Wife says it is. OK, I just googled it and AI says it is normal for 1-2 weeks. I'm doing more walking to keep the blood flowing, but still no lifting more than 10#, about the weight of a gallon of milk. Slept well last night, so I am back into the rhythm.

Today is still a recovery day, but I do have the dishwasher on the to-do list. That and some light firewood retrieval will keep me active.

I made it out to the train shed yesterday for a couple of hours. The steps up were a bit tentative but I don't think that I strained anything inside. My main concern is the incision points, the heart is supposedly not effected. I mainly did some more figure painting, making some progress on the sprue that I posted last week, and a few others that were already in progress.
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Haven't yet removed all of them from the sprue.
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Those are 7 backpacks in the upper right that are intended for the school children, but at best I will only use 1-2 of them. That particular row of the sprue was also in a different set of figures that I did years ago and I still have all of those backpacks in the detail box.
I'll most likely run a few trains today as therapy to keep moving a bit.

Todd - Scary times in Libby with the rain and flooding. How much rain actually fell? We have gotten 10"+ several times that caused creek flooding in my neighborhood, but it is usually over with in a couple of hours. The Corps of Engineers flood control lake across the road from me is downhill, so it just catches whatever falls on my property and the higher ground behind me. I've seen it go from 26 acres to over 400 acres in just a matter of hours!
Louis -
Until a pretty young lady told me I looked like a porn star,
Hmmmh! How would she know?
While I personally have never hit one, possums are easy on the car. Deer and wild hogs in my neighborhood can inflict a lot of damage. Don't ask how I know.
Michael - The Rhätische Bahn cab ride video looked real interesting, but I just skimmed parts of it as I didn't want to spend 1 1/4 hours viewing the whole thing. I believe that I will go back and start over and just pause so I can see all of it. I was impressed with it on my 23" monitor. While I could put it on the 55" TV, my wife probably wouldn't tolerate it.
Chet - Glad that you are OK as well. And yes, I do recognize several of the structures. They live on on the "as yet unnamed" RR.
David (Marlin) - I like that Blair Line structure, it occupies a prime spot on my layout.
Troy - If you haven't already done so, listen to some of Vince Guaraldi's other stuff. He's excellent.

Some diverse birthdays today. Rocker Ted Nugent is 77, not sure if he still has Cat Scratch Fever or not. On the other end of the spectrum is someone that I don't listen to, Taylor Swift is 36 today. And still hanging in there, Dick Van Dyke turns 100 today.

Everyone have a great Saturday.
 


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