Running Bear's February 2025 Coffee Shop

[Boris]

Good evening: 29° and snowing. Looking at 3" to 6" if the forecast is right. Second storm, Wednesday night into Thursday will be rain...maybe ½" to ¾"; with more rain over the weekend. Jersey Shore Winter for ya. Hope the snow thrower works if we need it.

Been taking inventory of my rolling stock, grouped by brand. So far 45 Tangent, 42 freight cars, 3 Cabin Cars. That number surprised me, mostly PRR / PC Box cars and Gondolas along with tank cars. Next up, Bowser....which will include engines. Going to need a couple more storage boxes.

April 11 1917, Ammunition plant explosion aftermath, on the Baldwin Locomotive Works property in Eddystone, PA. Cause Unknown, but attributed to German Saboteurs. Chester Fire Department Truck #1, recently motorized with a Christie Tractor, is shown arriving, along with Military Cadets from Pennsylvania Military College. In the background, a Philadelphia Rapid Transit #37 Trolley waits in the clear.

 

[bnsf971]

Good morning. It's 63 and mostly clear.

 

[Bill Tidler Jr.]

Good morning! It's 27°F in Tipton

 

[kbkchooch]

Good morning gang!

28 degrees and snowing!

 

[Patrick]

Morning all,

19° and snowing, about 2.5" thus far. Schools have closed and surprisingly they haven't cleared the city hall parking lot yet. They have issued the emergency accident reporting plan, which means in a minor accident where no one is hurt and vehicles are operable, you exchange info with the other driver and file a report within 24 hours. Excludes state and Federal highways. Only 1 state highway through town. Normal 35 minute trip took just a bit over an hour.

Pretty quiet so far this morning...

 

[migalyto]

Good morning all!

Happy Hump Day!

Currently 20F with some light snow falling. Winter weather advisory kicks in around 10am. We are expecting 4-8" with windy conditions. I guess that depends on which news outlet you listen too. They all agree 4" is going to be the minimum. In a rare move, the schools all called off last night instead of the usual last miniute. We knew by 6PM. That hardly ever happens. Usually they leave parents scrambling.

Tonight's volleyball game has also been cancelled. Not much else going on yet.

Have a safe day everyone!

 

[TLOC]

Good morning from my section of Wisconsin about 100 miles north of MIGALYTO our snow event has just begun. The weather advisory kicks in at 9 CST. The weather weenies are guessing 6-8” which will be by far the biggest snow event of the season. Our local school district is operating today! But all operating sessions for today were cancelled, even though I had not signed up for any this week I was notified by email starting after supper last night

The temperature is currently +10f but feels like -2. High might get to 20!

Enjoy the day

 

[troyphoto]

Well, howdy there internet peeps and those awaiting winter's fury.

I see that we're renaming the just renamed Fort Liberty after a Silver Star recipient from WW2. If you model it modern era, get your whiplash brace out.

It's Troy again.

Got up at 3 am after not being able to fall asleep again. Did some leg stretches, hit the inversion table, then fell asleep in the recliner.

Just made an order with Yankee Dabbler. The checkout didn't want to take paypal, so I might have to spend more money. Probably wouldn't hurt to get a box of peco code 80 n scale track in. Now I have to find some.

OK... gotta go shower and see if I can word some words on the story today. BBL with weather updates.

 

[santafewillie]

Good Morning All. Cloudy and 36°. There's 0.7" in the rain gauge this morning that wasn't there last night. Yes, the rain that was removed from the forecast came anyway. It was all in a brief thunderstorm between 0230 and 0245 this morning.

Today is my wife's birthday so I'll be dealing with that all day. I won't tell you how old that she is, but it's more than me and less than the President.

Nothing special about yesterday other than I spent more time in the train shed than usual. I dealt with many small parts on the P2K covered hopper kit. The first ten went on the roof after installing the hatches and walkways.

Moved next to the brake air tank on theend.

Then came my second broken part when I removed that nub of plastic between the air lines.

This wasn't as easy to fix and there is actually a small gap in the line after unsuccessful assembly was done from both ends.
Next was the assembly of the end cages and their own details which included some but not all of the grab irons. The remainder were molded on.

Still left to do is install the roof to the body and add the couplers and wheelsets. The two sets of couplers included the usual (for the time of manufacture), horn-hook and a McHenry clone.

The set on the right has the McHenry type of closing spring made of metal with a metal shank; but the shank is designed like a Kadee #5 with the bronze centering springs. I am not familiar with this particular coupler, but being adventurous, I will try them out before passing judgement.

Todd - Nice spread.
Swal - Nice that the lift gate repair wasn't too time consuming.

Everyone have a wonderful Wednesday.

 

[NorthBrit]

Good afternoon all. Weather warnings all morning of Flood Alerts. I shall see if they are correct when I collect grandson from school. We get fake weather warnings to put fear into people.
Flo. I'll have an early Afternoon Tea please. Don't skimp on the jam for the scones. Those little sachet things have very little jam in.

Consett, County Durham, U.K. in 1946

 

[NorthBrit]

Arrived home with grandson safe and sound. As for the flood alerts? "Kiddies keep out of the puddles."
Oh by the way. A few days ago today is the day we should be knee deep in snow?????
Who is telling who to scaremonger people? It is relentless.

Flo, I need a Scotch or something strong. Got to take grandson home later, so no alcohol. I'll have another cup of tea please.


I am sure I have posted this Peckett B2 loco before
I love it.

 

[TLOC]

Well, howdy there internet peeps and those awaiting winter's fury.

I see that we're renaming the just renamed Fort Liberty after a Silver Star recipient from WW2. If you model it modern era, get your whiplash brace out.

View attachment 211753

It's Troy again.

Got up at 3 am after not being able to fall asleep again. Did some leg stretches, hit the inversion table, then fell asleep in the recliner.

Just made an order with Yankee Dabbler. The checkout didn't want to take paypal, so I might have to spend more money. Probably wouldn't hurt to get a box of peco code 80 n scale track in. Now I have to find some.

View attachment 211752


OK... gotta go shower and see if I can word some words on the story today. BBL with weather updates.

I always used PayPal at YD. Did that recently change? If so I won’t buy from them any longer

 

[troyphoto]

I always used PayPal at YD. Did that recently change? If so I won’t buy from them any longer

Perhaps it's something in my shopify settings? I didn't feel like digging into it.

 

[troyphoto]

Welp... the wife finally did it.

Seems our French door Samsung fridge has a crappy ice maker. It's located in the fridge part, and isn't sealed well, so it's always icing over. That's a known issue, and Samsung can't come up with a fix. So we've opted to go with a tub of ice in the freezer drawer -totally not connected to the ice maker above (there is no way to connect them in this incarnation of the fridge model).

Note the Ice Maker Off icon!


The tub in the freezer drawer:

Since I normally babysit the countertop icemaker (dump the little bin into the big freezer bin every 45 minutes), I kept a stray plastic food storage tub that was just wider than the big tub in the freezer. I could use it as a separator between old and new ice. It fit snugly, and wouldn't move when I dumped in the new ice. I'd remove it once the bin was full. Always draw ice from the left side of the tub. Newer ice to the right.

I kept that plastic container it in a cupboard away from the other tubs.... it had a few cracks, but worked well for the past three years.

Wife went looking for an odd sized food storage bin for something. Found that in my hiding place she's seen me pull it from... realized it was cracked, and none of the lids fit it. So she tossed it. Last week. It's gone. We don't have another food bin that size. This is something that melts in our drinks, so just using any old piece of cardboard as a new divider isn't feasible.

So, instead of writing, I spent my morning arguing with TinkerCad. I'm sure there is a way to create a polygon with tapering sides : 8.25 inch at the bottom, 6 inch tall, and 8.75 at the top. But I couldn't figure it out. So I'm printing it rectangular at 8.25 x 6 inch.

 

[traiNscale]

howdi peeps!

Vacation day 3. did some more work on my N Scale Station Building. Added some doors and also Windwos. The windows i have to redo. my laser does not like the to tiny bits, so he burnt them away ahahaha.

But iam happy with my progress.
Some tweaks here and there and soon it will be done.
still thinking about adding some holes, to maybe add some lights.

happy day ya all

cheers
Jay

 

[NorthBrit]

Looking good, Jay

 

[bnsf971]

Not that anybody asked me, but I think changing the name back to Fort Bragg makes more sense than changing the name to Gulf of America.

 

[troyphoto]

Not that anybody asked me, but I think changing the name back to Fort Bragg makes more sense than changing the name to Gulf of America.

And nice to see them recognize Pfc Roland Bragg who saved a bunch of buddies during the Battle of the Bulge.

In other news, tolerances were way too loose in my first 3D print. Finally figured out the easy way to make a polygon in TinkerCad is make a rectangle like I did, then add a triangle to one side. Copy the triangle, add it to the other side, overlapping both triangles into the rectangle. Group the three. Export.
Printing the revised version now.

 

[migalyto]

Here's a really cool short video of a working model of the Walschaerts valve gear.

Amazing the engineering marvel of the time.

 

[Bruette]

Wife went looking for an odd sized food storage bin for something. Found that in my hiding place she's seen me pull it from... realized it was cracked, and none of the lids fit it. So she tossed it. Last week. It's gone. We don't have another food bin that size.