Running Bear's February 2022 Coffee Shop

[IronBeltKen]

Good evening Shop Dwellers! As always, many thanks to those of you who either clicked the button or commented on my Saturday post with the shaky video of my coal dumper mechanism.

PMW - Welcome to our world!

Liberty ship print has begun with the stern segment.

View attachment 141398

and some test pieces, including a 5”gun mount which we modified on thingiverse to be a little more detailed, rework is on thingiverse.

Gary - I can't wait to see that Liberty ship as it comes together! I remember when I was in the Navy in the spring of 1976 and a friend and I were driving along Highway 12 on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, there was a mothballed Liberty ship washed up ~500ft off the beach, it was named Betelgeuse; apparently it had broken loose from being towed to a ship scrapyard further down the coast.

Tks, CURT - The breathing issue is a result of the signals from the heart saying that it is not getting O2 as needed - causing hyperventilation.
At this time the meds slowing down the heart seem to be working and the breathing is normal - PTL!

Sherrell - it's great to see you posting here regularly again, and [apparently?] on the road to recovery!

Steve - Your layout is coming along quite nicely. Bummer about your knee injury.

* * *
I'm still working on the coal dumper mechanism, spent most of Sunday afternoon clearing the space for installing it. Had to use a Sawzall to trim away some non-critical sections of the benchwork that weren't supporting any weight, then began the tedious process of getting the drive dowels mounted in exactly the right spot so the dumper track would be aligned both vertically and horizontally with the entry and exit tracks. Finally got it installed and confirmed that it works.

The tough part is over and it's all downhill from here - but it is a very long downhill slope! I need to figure out how I'm going to cover the space occupied by the motors, since they protrude upward too much to allow me to put back the original plank that was there. And this entire side of the trainroom looks like a war zone with tools and debris scattered everywhere, that's why I haven't bothered posting any photos. Those will come once all the mess has been cleaned up.

Good Night - and have a Pleasant Tomorrow!

 

[chessie_system3]

Well fellers. Another day in the books. Not much in the way of trains tonight. I did however make a video on the troublesome GP7. Figure seeing is more helpful than me trying to explain it. Hopefully y'all will have an idea. I've drawn a blank on it. I've went through everything I can think of. Maybe I'm missing something. The second locomotive in the video is my current workhorse. I had hoped my GP7 would have the same performance as my GP9 out of the box. Well it didn't pan out that way but perhaps there's a fix?

That's all I have for tonight. I'll stop by again when I get the chance.

 

[Bruette]

Louis: Well now, that's interesting, because the ranking I saw, showed NYC as the Worst, follower by Essex County, (Newark), Central Jersey , (Edison), and the rest of Jersey. Shows how easily data is manipulated to justify rate cases nationwide.

Greg: That reminds me I have a Rapido SW 1200 on the shelf waiting on a decoder, (which I also have).

While searching the shelves looking for something else, I found an assembled Walthers 75 Ft. TTX Flat, with a large expansion tank load, just waiting to be finished. Forgot I had it. The rail car needs to be weathered, the load itself painted, the bracing and dunnage needs to be stained. Today was warm enough to paint outside, but I wasn't far enough along. Meanwhile, I'm moving right along with the road bed for the final modules Spent a good part of the day, napping, although I do not feel sick...or show any unusual symptoms of anything.

View attachment 141446
PC 4881 passing through Woodside, Queens, NYC. 02/21/1970. Photo by Hal Smith

Boris you are absolutely right! Data can be very deceiving.
The rankings in the All State study was based on average number of years between accidents.
Baltimore drivers ranked the worst at an average of 4.19 years between accidents. In DC the average was 4.3
Pick the data that supports the desired conclusion.

Penn Central GG1, fantastic, thank you!

 

[CambriaArea51]

Justin-How long has it been running it may need run time to break in.

 

[CambriaArea51]

Good morning.....The calm before the storm 25 and sunny.
Coffee and a breakfast sandwich Flo.

 

[bnsf971]

Good morning. It's 50 and raining.

 

[Patrick]

Morning all,

16° and light snow\light freezing drizzle. Roads weren't bad coming in this morning, and shouldn't be the remainder of the day. Expecting accumulation of snow at less than 1/2 inch.

Had a meeting with DHS and their Cyber security group yesterday. Interesting stuff and way more than I wanted to know. Something to be said about not having any external connections to the outside (old boss's preference), but not real world compatible. Got some stuff I'm waiting to try once we get a final agreement signed. New deputy city manager worked for a neighboring county that got a ransomware attack, so he's hyper vigilant about security. We have been ransomware attacked twice, both times limited and I had good backups. The last one was nearly 6 years ago.

Lost my 11 year old grandson overnight...He's 12 this morning. I was at the kids house last night and his dad said he was watching reruns of "America's Funniest Videos". When he came out of his room I asked him "Head, gut or groin?" He stopped a minute and then said, "how do you know what I'm watching" I told him his dad told me and then he thought a minute," yeah, that's what most of the videos are", and laughed adding "they're still funny." 12 year old boys...

 

[kbkchooch]

Good morning gang!

33° and overcast, possibility of frozen precip til just after lunch. The ear infection is easing a bit, the pressure is there but the pain is gone. Now if I can just shake this slight hiss I hear all the time I'd be happy.

Sherril, sounds like they have a handle on, prayers for quick recovery!

Justin, I think I hear a bind of some sort. I wish I could get my hands on it. Here's a thought, how does it run with the shell off??

IBKen, live loads a comin! Can't wait to see the dumper "in the flesh"! That will add more activity on the backside of the steel mill!

Louis. Baltimore and D.C. drivers are nuts! And if you really want to see them at their worst try driving around a retail center at the holidays! Never have I seen a more asinine group of drivers than trying to get to Towsontown Mall in December. Nobody has a clue how a roundabout works. And the Baltimore Beltway is the closest you will ever come to drafting in a pack short of the Daytona 500. Nuts!

BBL

 

[santafewillie]

Good Morning All. Cloudy and 19° to continue this weather crazy week. Monday it was 82° with hail-producing thunderstorms overnight that deposited over 2" of rain here. Tuesday it just got cold, Wednesday brought freezing rain and sleet and a high of only 27° - a 55° difference from Monday. Today the forecast is for 36° and some morning precipitation. No sunshine until tomorrow, limited though. Starting Monday it is headed back to the mid-60's and lower 70's! More gyrations than the stock market.

Looks like I will postpone the weekly grocery trek until tomorrow given the weather conditions right now. I have a month's supply of beer in the fridge and two months of meat in the freezer. I can survive. While I only have about a week's worth of fresh veggies, I have a few weeks worth of canned and frozen stuff from last spring's garden, although that might get boring.

Speaking of the stock market, I am close to my "get out" point right now. Probably happen today. World events do not look positive and my wife is going absolutely bonkers about the current losses. I normally ride it out but this time it looks like it might be extended. Sadly, my late brothers investments are tanking because of legalities that keep the executor from making any changes. That will shrink the inheritances.

Regarding the recent references to spell-check and auto-fill, I refuse to use either one. So any mistakes here are solely my own. Those nuns from grade school would be proud of me! They learned me well.

Thanks for all of the comments and positive reactions to my post yesterday; Tom O, Guy, Troy, Paul, Sherrel, James, Dave (PV), Steve J, Dave B, Hughie, Patrick, Smudge, Joe, IB Ken, Karl, Jaz, Curt, Gary, Louis, Rick, Tom, Justin.

I went to the train shed yesterday where it was only 48°, so no modeling. I cleaned up a bit more and ran a few trains. No switching since I don't reach into the layout with long sleeves on except by the staging yard where there is no scenery.
In keeping with the theme of development pictures, here are a few from the last major development done in May 2020. This is the town of Charlottesville along the upper level north wall. It is named after my granddaughter.
A couple of before shots, first looking south railroad-wise.

And then north.

And this is the best shot that I can find in the archives of what it looks like now.

And the only other decent shot in the archives, looking south.

Smudge -

It's difficult to get the gauge right without the right tools

A ruler will work. Back to back for HO wheel flanges is .566" or in metric, 14.4mm. Cut a piece of cardstock or styrene to that measurement and use it. OO is a bit too wide.
Nice haul from the hobby shop.
Sherrel - Great that the meds seem to be working. Prayers and best wishes continue. While I absolutely hate having to take medications to live a normal life, I have gotten used to it finally, and I do not resist the doctors advice any more.
Tom O - By April,, they'll be using the A/C in Austin.
Continued good luck with your health. I still check my glucose daily even though I seem to have it under relatively good control. Losing weight helped a lot along with watching those carbs. I haven't been above 120 in over four months, including Christmas and Thanksgiving. It's usually below 110, thankfully.
Dave B - Really nice progress. Great that you could use some of the old layout.
Greg -

Lots of single sentences.

Troy would be proud of you.
Louis/Joe - I think that the difference in your worst driver ratings is that Louis's is based solely on Allstate statistics of their customers.
Hughie - Gas here finally went over $3/gal about two weeks ago. I suspect that it will rise more rapidly soon.

Not much going on today. Another palindromic day, 2-24-22, not as significant as Tuesday. Forget it, I am just a numbers maniac.
Everybody have a great day. Stay safe.

 

[Smudge617]

Yesterday I bought a Broadway Address Changer, and why didn't I get one earlier, I have to admit, definitely a game changer for me.
I've always had to disconnect my Controller from the track to connect it to my isolation track (it's kept on my workbench), also it's on the other side of the room, so it was a pain to keep getting up and down connecting and disconnecting plugs to change CV's then re connect the main track up to test etc. you get the idea.
Set three loco addresses in less than two minutes, put them on the main, worked first time, except one which decided to work, but in reverse, put on programming track push two buttons and sorted, Happy day's.

 

[logandsawman]

Good morning all,

-28 F on the way in this morning. At least the roads are mostly ice and snow free. I guess we are some of the few ones that have huge snowbanks everywhere.

Now it is only -20. We like to talk about the weather in Minnesota.

Since I have a time consuming commute, that really cuts into my modelling. While living in St. Paul, I walked to work in about 15 minutes or less. Now I drive for over an hour. The biggest difference is I see very few people on my way now.

Since so little happens all week on the layout, I will post some old progress photos, I doubt if these have been posted:

My Wyoming (Minnesota) module project has been going on for several years, here is a brief recap:

Here is my sketch for the module:

Note the sketch, I wasn't able to fit everything in. Maybe should have been N scale ?

Here is what it turned out like initially:

I built this while we lived in an apartment. It was supposed to be (and is) the beginning of a new layout. That is what I call planning ahead.

Here is at the train show, at the State Fair Grounds in Falcon Heights:

It is me and the boss (above)

Here is what the real depot looked like. Check out the Tracks and Ballast:

Note : The depot was not yet finished at the show. Old photo from Ron Nixon collection


More later - Dave LASM

 

[Smudge617]

Good Morning All. Cloudy and 19° to continue this weather crazy week. Monday it was 82° with hail-producing thunderstorms overnight that deposited over 2" of rain here. Tuesday it just got cold, Wednesday brought freezing rain and sleet and a high of only 27° - a 55° difference from Monday. Today the forecast is for 36° and some morning precipitation. No sunshine until tomorrow, limited though. Starting Monday it is headed back to the mid-60's and lower 70's! More gyrations than the stock market.

Looks like I will postpone the weekly grocery trek until tomorrow given the weather conditions right now. I have a month's supply of beer in the fridge and two months of meat in the freezer. I can survive. While I only have about a week's worth of fresh veggies, I have a few weeks worth of canned and frozen stuff from last spring's garden, although that might get boring.

Speaking of the stock market, I am close to my "get out" point right now. Probably happen today. World events do not look positive and my wife is going absolutely bonkers about the current losses. I normally ride it out but this time it looks like it might be extended. Sadly, my late brothers investments are tanking because of legalities that keep the executor from making any changes. That will shrink the inheritances.

Regarding the recent references to spell-check and auto-fill, I refuse to use either one. So any mistakes here are solely my own. Those nuns from grade school would be proud of me! They learned me well.

Thanks for all of the comments and positive reactions to my post yesterday; Tom O, Guy, Troy, Paul, Sherrel, James, Dave (PV), Steve J, Dave B, Hughie, Patrick, Smudge, Joe, IB Ken, Karl, Jaz, Curt, Gary, Louis, Rick, Tom, Justin.

I went to the train shed yesterday where it was only 48°, so no modeling. I cleaned up a bit more and ran a few trains. No switching since I don't reach into the layout with long sleeves on except by the staging yard where there is no scenery.
In keeping with the theme of development pictures, here are a few from the last major development done in May 2020. This is the town of Charlottesville along the upper level north wall. It is named after my granddaughter.
A couple of before shots, first looking south railroad-wise. View attachment 141492
And then north.
View attachment 141493
And this is the best shot that I can find in the archives of what it looks like now.
View attachment 141494
And the only other decent shot in the archives, looking south.
View attachment 141495

Smudge -

A ruler will work. Back to back for HO wheel flanges is .566" or in metric, 14.4mm. Cut a piece of cardstock or styrene to that measurement and use it. OO is a bit too wide.
Nice haul from the hobby shop.
Sherrel - Great that the meds seem to be working. Prayers and best wishes continue. While I absolutely hate having to take medications to live a normal life, I have gotten used to it finally, and I do not resist the doctors advice any more.
Tom O - By April,, they'll be using the A/C in Austin.
Continued good luck with your health. I still check my glucose daily even though I seem to have it under relatively good control. Losing weight helped a lot along with watching those carbs. I haven't been above 120 in over four months, including Christmas and Thanksgiving. It's usually below 110, thankfully.
Dave B - Really nice progress. Great that you could use some of the old layout.
Greg -

Troy would be proud of you.
Louis/Joe - I think that the difference in your worst driver ratings is that Louis's is based solely on Allstate statistics of their customers.
Hughie - Gas here finally went over $3/gal about two weeks ago. I suspect that it will rise more rapidly soon.

Not much going on today. Another palindromic day, 2-24-22, not as significant as Tuesday. Forget it, I am just a numbers maniac.
Everybody have a great day. Stay safe.

Hi Willie, great photo's, always love to see a master at work.
I'm aware of the measurements etc. but the point I was trying to make is getting the correct distance from the center of the axle to the wheel, not from wheel to wheel, which is all the B2B's actually measure.

I use a OO scale B2B as I'm still primarily OO scale UK Steam, and now seem to have transitioned to HO but the layout is still OO and I'm not yet prepared to rip it all up and start again in HO.

 

[McLeod]

Good morning! From a place that we've had a 33F temperature swing to the good, in 24 hrs. Compared to the stock market, at least the temperature is going in the right direction.

I've been dry-walling and patching the layout room. Soon, that room will get new paint. I'm trying to get that done before I build to many layout tables.
Since I was patching, the wife made me do areas in the rest of the house that required patching as well. This included the stair-well and a few spots in the kitchen that seemed to get damaged over time. Now, I've got a whole lot of painting to do. - Did I ever mention that I hate painting! I far prefer that rustic, natural wood look, where you don't have to do anything to it. I only like painting if someone else does it.

Patrick - Very sad to hear you lost the 11yr old child. It's always worse when it happens to children.

Willie - The wonderful archival photos have told me to install my Caboose switch throws before I add scenery. Thanks.

Dave - Wonderful photos this morning! Train shows are on my wish list of things that will never happen around here.

My wife is asking me if there's no end to the spending in this fairly new hobby of mine. I told her that I'm not sure; perhaps on the other side of it all.

Here is today's photo. The Rochfort Bridge, about 1/2hr drive from where I live. Not my photo, and I don't know who took it.
I have tried to photograph that bridge, and I know it's hard to get the whole bridge in a single photo. This 1980's photo is leaving out at least 1/3rd of the bridge.

Hope you all have a great day!

 

[chessie_system3]

Justin, I think I hear a bind of some sort. I wish I could get my hands on it. Here's a thought, how does it run with the shell off??

I agree with the bind. Especially given the body actually moves to one side. However I haven't the first idea why it is binding up. The trucks free spun outside the frame after I cleaned them and lubed them back up. Its performance is the same with or with out the shell. I have went as far as to switch motors and drive lines with no change. The other one I ended up swapping out trucks. It helped it some. They are both basket cases. Just the one in the video is the most jacked up of the two.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Still workin on the Honda Goldwing motorcycle, prepping it for another summer of meandering the highways of N. America. I don't travel into Canada or Mexico because their laws are kinda wackie. I started out with the objective of just changing the air filter but then decided to flush the cooling system as well. I forgot to pick up a couple of crush washers for the coolant drain plugs so will do that today. Looking at the recommended maintenance tasks, I should do a tappet check as well. I don't know if any of them need replacement shims, so I'll wrap up the coolant flush and filter change then pull the head covers to do the tappets this weekend.
While doing some prep work for the up coming op session on the empire, I realized I don't have any SD45-2s in my loco roster. I've got plenty of SD45s and SDP45s. I went on ebay and found a NS SD45-2 with sound. It should be here this coming Saturday.

 

[MilwRoader_Steve]

Greetings all,

Was really tired yesterday so got some work done, but was not very efficient. A curious thing yesterday. I met my SIL in the city for lunch and then was actually driving to my LHS when I saw the site of this group:

Friends of the 261 |

261.com

Yesterday was quite cold and I did not have time to drive around for a good spot to photograph from, but saw several of the vintage cars out in the sun and the shed where the locos are probably parked. I will have to look into this group further.

Other than that, glued down two curved TOs and did some research on the Peco unifrog double-slip, I think I now understand the British-ese of the backing and can wire it up correctly.

Awoke in the night and could not fall back asleep so sot up to read for a bit downstairs where the layout is. Blasted cat was being too "in your face" friendly so shooshed him off the chair. He has been eyeing the trains used for testing the new track. So he prowled around the table legs a bit, then jumped up onto the piano next to the LO - - - and then jumped onto the tabletop! I immediately shooshed him off. Argh - blasted felines. No doubt the greatest bane of model railroads.

Dinner party tonight with the dau and SIL at a Greek student do - - - not much train work, I fear.

Unbelievable the events unfolding in Ukraine. Have I mentioned that my daughter-in-law is from Kiev (Kyiv)? Her parents are here now, but she still of course has friends and family still in Ukraine. Much on our thoughts just now.

 

[bigfoot13]

Here's my morning contribution. HO scale folding chair

 

[Boris]

Nobody has a clue how a roundabout works.

I think that the difference in your worst driver ratings is that Louis's is based solely on Allstate statistics of their customers.

Karl: I think that's because they are really circles for which there are no rules. Jersey has been eliminating them for years. They put up new Yield signs at the Wall Circle, which created massive confusion after decades of no rules. Allstate's spokesperson is Mr. Mayhem . Not exactly trustworthy.

Argh - blasted felines. No doubt the greatest bane of model railroads.

Molly the Cat must be the exception, she has little interest in my layout, although she does visit the train room. Yesterday, she was checking out an open box of Midwest Roadbed which was open on the floor.

HO scale folding chair

Absolutely cool.!

PC 4914 departing Harrisburg with an Eastward Passenger Train - 1970 Jon Bentz photo

 

[Texas Hobo]

Good morning all. Cloudy and cold. Must be a rather thin cloud layer since it seems somewhat bright. Predictions are to remain cold a few more days then warm up to more seasonal temps.
Flo, biscuits and gravy with a side of scrambled eggs. Oh and coffee.

I've got a few chores that need to be done today before I can start the AC Brown kit. Willie, I'm not looking forward the N scale stairs. I have done a couple of kits with stairs, and they are tedious. Figuring out how to hold them while assembling is the challenge.

My contribution to Before and After

12/6/2020

2/24/22

STAY SAFE
LATER

 

[chadbag]

My wife is asking me if there's no end to the spending in this fairly new hobby of mine. I told her that I'm not sure; perhaps on the other side of it all.

just answer her: Correct