Running Bear's May 2025 Coffee Shop

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Oh boy! Today I’m going to install conduit and electrical boxes under the layout. Using 3/4 inch pvc running 20 amp circuits. I’ll need to get six of those 12 awg wires in there. One set of three is a home run to the tv and Xbox, the other set will power the six outlets that will be powering the layout. Those six outlets wil be controlled by a switch. This way I can power up and power down all the boosters at the same time. I did not want to use extension cords or terminal strips. I want the power supplies plugged directly into the outlets.

The downside of using the 3/4 inch PVC is that the outlets boxes will need to be mounted sideways. For some reason, they don’t make boxes with holes on the sides to accept 3/4 pvc conduit, just top and bottom. Not what I wanted, but is what I have to do.
 


Even though the Tariffs are now on a pause (are we currently at +30% over first of year from China?)...

Around the layout podcast just dropped a good and informative podcast: Ray interviews Jason and Jordan from Rapido Trains about the manufacturing process and how it's been affecting their business. Political talk is next to nil. It's very much in the realm of what it means to their business.

NOTE: this was recorded a few days BEFORE the tariffs were reduced to the current state.

Worth the hour to listen to, which you can do directly at this link (scroll down on the page to find the player.

www.aroundthelayout.com

What’s Happening In Model Railroading - May 2025 - Jason Shron & Jordan Smith — Around The Layout Podcast

Unless you've been living completely off the grid over the last few months, you know that the business of model railroading is facing unprecedented challenges.
www.aroundthelayout.com www.aroundthelayout.com
 
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This will have to wait until later today. My wife got us ticket to see “The Goonies” at the theater today at 1pm. Only 4 bucks each. That be fun to watch again. Never saw it in a movie theater. Should be a lot of fun.
 
Good morning all!

Kind of a late check-in, though I was on earlier.

Much like TomO, we started the morning out very foggy but most has since burned off. Going to be a little warmer
than the last couple of days with highs reaching 85F. Pretty humid out there as well. A/C went on again this morning.

I finally broke down last night and ordered the Sculptamold to continue on with the rock blending. I tried on a couple
of castings using the Easyset 30 (hot mud) and wasnt thrilled with the results. Sculptamold is all I have used and I
guess I will stick to what I know. A box of 25 pounds was $80 shipped, but a 50 pound box was $119 shipped which
was the better deal. I will use that much I'm sure. I used a 25 pound box on my previous N scale layout and did not
have near the mountains as I will have now.

Not much else going on. I got most everything done this morning already.

have a safe day everyone!
 
My watch says it's 44F now -- 42F when I fell out of bed. But the sensor outside shows 47F or something. (Watch I think is temp at the SL Airport #2 about 4 miles away). Overcast but not as overcast. High level overcast with patchy low level clouds. I can see sun rays out of some windows.

House went from 72F to 70F over night. Low outside was probably around 40F (at least at the airport). Or low 40s F.

The controller is set for AUTO (heat and cool) but the thermostat only allows me to set HEAT or COOL right now. There may be a setting for it I have to find. The App does allow me to set a HEAT and a COOL point but I'm not sure it sticks. Still figuring things out.

Wife's day off today. She's at some sort of exercise thing. We have an appointment in a couple hours for a church thing.

One week from today we'll be at LAX right now waiting for our flight to Incheon (Seoul). It was supposed to be an A380 but got switched to a 747-8. I've only ever been on the older 747 planes but wanted to go on the A380 since I've never been on one. Oh well. Our layover at Incheon is only 70 minutes but they have international transfers that keep you in the secure section so it's just a 20 min walk or whatever to the new gate. Then an A330 to KIX (Kansai International Airport -- the one they built near Osaka on the artificial island that is slowly sinking and where the terminal building sits on jacks every 2 meters or something so that they can even it out if it sinks unevenly -- pretty cool to watch a documentary on how they built it and how they maintain it).

Flight gets to KIX at 9pm local time. It's an hour and a half or something from Incheon. Like flying Salt Lake City to LAX. Since we need to get to Kobe we have two choices -- Airport Limousine Bus or train. In this case the bus is faster and no transfers and probably cheaper. Train we'd have to switch. We get to Kobe Sannomiya. I think we should just take the subway to the stop near her sister's house and let them pick us up there. But they're worried since the subway is a short walk from the bus stop and there is construction nearby and as women, my wife and her sister fret and worry about such things, so I think the plan is for her sister to come pick us up at Sannomiya (Kobe). She'll have to rent a van to do that as their cars aren't big enough for us and luggage etc. If it were the local subway they could just put the luggage in and we could walk the 10 minutes or her husband (Doctor-dude I call him since he is an MD and I can never remember his name -- just his pet name). Oh well, I told them whatever they decide is fine. It's not a battle I want to fight (taking subway vs rental of van and picking us up).
 


Good late morning all, 81 here and cloudy supposed to hit 88 today. Enjoying my first coffee in 2 days, the spot where the tooth was seems to be healing well. Gonna run in a bit to get a couple of rifles bore sighted and pick up some paint for some structures for the HO module. Church tonight. Y'all be good.
 
chadbag said:
Isn't 6x 12ga Romex a little tight for 3/4"?
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Ya, agree. Romex is ~5/16 x 3/16 x length. Pulling 2 through is gonna be nothing but pain. Even if the romex is straight/flat ( stretched ). - then you have sweeps - boy you are in for fun! Guess you could pull the individual wires out of the romex which would make it a little better although you would be down to which wire is which.

Which brings up another question: 14Ga romex is smaller and should be a tad easier. Don't think you need to terminate @ 20 amps for the XBox and TV so 15A would be okiedokie. What is the necessary power to run the layout? Are you plugging in wall-worts for accessory power in addition to what ever DCC boxes you would need? Even if you have 4 or 5 PC power supplies for the low voltage stuff, you might be at 8A tops. Now if you are planning on using PC supplies and capitalizing on the 30A@5V and 5A@12V taps, 10 - 12 Amps depending.

Why the conduit in the 1st place?

L8r
 
santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 73°. The one day heat wave is supposed to happen today with a high of 101° predicted. Doesn't usually hit triple digits here until mid-June, and if it happens, it will be only the fifth time since I started keeping gardening records here in 1981. One of those times was iffy on May 30 in 1985, before I got a digital thermometer. I looked it up for Dallas, and historically it has hit 100° in March twice in the last 125 years, 1911 & 1916. And prior to June, it happened only 10 times in the same period. I'm 75 miles north of their official weather station, so it probably didn't match in all of those years though.

Thanks for the coffee offer Bill, but I don't indulge. Can I just get a Sugar Free A&W Root Beer instead?

Doctor's visit yesterday was a mixed bag. It was the annual physical with the EKG, dumb questions about depression and falling, and a load of blood samples. I've had a wheezing problem for the last few weeks, and he (and the NP) decided that it was bronchitis. Got an antibiotic injection and prescription and he prescribed a stronger inhaler than the one that I already occasionally use "as needed".
I made a bunch of stops on the way home since my wife went to Dallas in the other car. First was Home Depot to pick up some additional lights for under the upper level of the layout, a new garden water sprinkler to replace the one tossed out into the field by last years tornado, and some tubes of Gorilla super glue and gel. Gassed up the car, then a stop at the pharmacy to pick up the new prescriptions, then the post office, and a rare for me stop at the fried chicken place to pick up lunch, another stop at the water company to pay the bill and finally got gas in the cans for the mower. Didn't get it earlier since I didn't want to carry it around in the back of the SUV while doing all of the other errands.
After getting home, I was just as busy, the damn dishwasher again, stacking a load of firewood that I picked up Monday, setting up the new sprinkler in the garden and watering before today's heat hit. I tested out the train shed A/C and two of the house window units. All OK. Still need to reinstall a third house one in the bedroom window, but not now.

I have no particular task list for today but I'll find something to do before the heat wave hits!

Out in the nice cool train shed yesterday, I was busy as well, just not as physical. While at Home Depot, I picked up some more paint sample cards to use as window treatments in model railroad structures.
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For the first time since I started using it, I recently had an issue with Gorilla Super Glue. Some had apparently leaked into the cap, I store them upside down, and the spout broke off when I had to use the pliers to open it.
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After a few weeks of using a toothpick dipped into the bottle, I did finally replace it yesterday. Or should I really say that I finally remembered to buy a new bottle!
Did a little more painting on figures, still have one left to do the arms which I will use the newest super glue.
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Still have some touch up and finishing to do on many of this batch.

Patrick - I might need to turn off my Ad Blocker if that's what viewing this forum brings up! Obviously someone on your network has been shopping while at work!
I have found that annuities are to the benefit of only the insurance company issuing them
Troy -

My point really was that the president or his party really makes no difference to the stock market. Some of his actions may sway things temporarily, but overall, they have little actual influence in the long run.
Tom O - I am also a "buy and hold" person when it comes to stocks. Of course that's what got me into a hole in 2009, which eventually delayed my retirement by 3 years. I still managed to retire at 63 though, and have done considerably better after I dropped the financial advisor and started self-managing the portfolio.
Regarding couplers hanging up on crossings. While I don't really have an issue there since no car goes on the layout without checking the coupler height, I do get some that sag over time and the trip pins get caught. If the coupler is still close enough in tolerance or if adjustment may be difficult, I just bend the trip pin a little. I have read about folks cutting them, (or completely removing them), but I use magnetic uncoupling all of the time. Do you have any issues with that when you trim them? I am also not happy with any shelf coupler regardless of the manufacturer.
Hughie - It won't get as warm down south where you are, but I bet your humidity makes up for it! We're looking at 20% at best this afternoon.

I missed this one on Monday, but it was Steve Winwood's 77th birthday. He was just 16 years old when he wrote and sang the enduring Spencer Davis hit Gimme Some Lovin'. He was later with Traffic, Blind Faith and solo in his career.
Everyone have a wonderful Wednesday and stay cool and hydrated if the warm spell is going to affect you.
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I stopped using the Kadee magnetic years ago for uncoupling. I started a couple years ago cutting off the trip pins and adding the magnectic air hoses. When these 148’s were installed on the cars I wasn’t cutting trip pins but I was using the Kadee height gauges. Everything was fine. But these cars have been on my car storage shelf and I needed them in a train. Live and learn. When we return in late June or early July I will start tuning the fleet again. I have no desire to do that over the next week. We leave on the 21st.

Shelf couplers: I think the Scaletrains shelf couplers look the best but are plastic, they get replaced immediately. Kadee’s are ok, operate in trains fine but are such a PITA to uncouple that I’m not sure if I should even use a shelf coupler. My tanks cars do need to be uncoupled to get shuffled around the industries including the 4 spot ethanol load out. If I just ran them in unit trains I would be fine but I actually use the cars.
 
TLOC said:
I stopped using the Kadee magnetic years ago for uncoupling. I started a couple years ago cutting off the trip pins and adding the magnectic air hoses. When these 148’s were installed on the cars I wasn’t cutting trip pins but I was using the Kadee height gauges. Everything was fine. But these cars have been on my car storage shelf and I needed them in a train. Live and learn. When we return in late June or early July I will start tuning the fleet again. I have no desire to do that over the next week. We leave on the 21st.

Shelf couplers: I think the Scaletrains shelf couplers look the best but are plastic, they get replaced immediately. Kadee’s are ok, operate in trains fine but are such a PITA to uncouple that I’m not sure if I should even use a shelf coupler. My tanks cars do need to be uncoupled to get shuffled around the industries including the 4 spot ethanol load out. If I just ran them in unit trains I would be fine but I actually use the cars.
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The single shelf couplers are easier to uncouple using a skewer than the double shelf. It looks like what is supposed to be on a tank car, but doesn't have the upper shelf to interfere with uncoupling.
 
bnsf971 said:
The single shelf couplers are easier to uncouple using a skewer than the double shelf. It looks like what is supposed to be on a tank car, but doesn't have the upper shelf to interfere with uncoupling.
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Ok guess I’m old fashion and I’m still using #5 kadees that I installed on my cars 30-40 years ago. They still work and years back I was using a magnet under the track to uncouple now with the switching layout I’ve been uncoupling with a skewer. Works but not all the time.

Explain these single and double shelf couplers. I may have seen them and never knew what they were called but how are they easier to uncouple with a skewer or other means.
 
Good day to all..............

I haven't posted in about a week as I have had a couple of unexpected drafting jobs fall in my lap. Finished yesterday so hope to get caught up with everything this week.

I did take a few hours last Saturday to download a sound file from the ESU website. I have 2 Consolidations to add decoders to so the same sound file should work for both locos. These are BLI locos with Paragon 3 sound units installed.

A side note here is the tender shells have been marred from the seller installing a doghouse to each tender. I removed the dog houses but plenty of glue residue was left behind. So, for me, the shells will not be usable. I knew this when I bought the 2 locos but I talked the seller down on his prices and got a great deal. I substituted an Athearn Genesis USRA tender from their steam loco that was released many years ago. I have some Bachmann USRA tenders (long and short) but realized there was a lot less room inside the Bachmann tender as opposed to the Athearn units. I am using the ESU adapter board in my install so I just transferred everything from the BLI tender over to the Athearn tender. I had to drill a couple of holes in the tender floor so I could run wires from the axle wipers to the decoder. And I added a Bowser dual sugar cube speaker box up under the coal load area. Got the adapter board mounted and the tender is now ready for the 21 pin decoder.

Now back to downloading sound files and such. I have not used my ESU Lokprogrammer in several years so I downloaded the latest software from the ESU downloads page. I also downloaded the sound file I wanted. When using the adapter boards, the decoder needs to have sound files downloaded to the decoder via ESU decoder tester or by using a "donor" loco that does NOT use the adapter board. After this, the decoder can be programmed on a test/programming track with JMRI or the ESU programmer.
All this downloading and updating was done on my new laptop running Windows 11. Trying to manipulate new software and getting use to Win 11 and using the decoder tester for the first time, it was just a bit too much for me. After about three hours I had to shut things down. Maybe I'll get out and try loading the sound file to the decoder again later this evening.

Let me say, I am NO fan of Windows 11. While trying to use the ESU programmer, Windows would send an errant message about something. Those interruptions just make life a little more miserable than necessary, interrupt my train of thought and made my programming job a bit more difficult.

Well, I'm sure most all of you are tired of my ranting if you're still with me here, so I'll sign off..........John
 
westtexjohn said:
Good day to all..............

I haven't posted in about a week as I have had a couple of unexpected drafting jobs fall in my lap. Finished yesterday so hope to get caught up with everything this week.

I did take a few hours last Saturday to download a sound file from the ESU website. I have 2 Consolidations to add decoders to so the same sound file should work for both locos. These are BLI locos with Paragon 3 sound units installed.

A side note here is the tender shells have been marred from the seller installing a doghouse to each tender. I removed the dog houses but plenty of glue residue was left behind. So, for me, the shells will not be usable. I knew this when I bought the 2 locos but I talked the seller down on his prices and got a great deal. I substituted an Athearn Genesis USRA tender from their steam loco that was released many years ago. I have some Bachmann USRA tenders (long and short) but realized there was a lot less room inside the Bachmann tender as opposed to the Athearn units. I am using the ESU adapter board in my install so I just transferred everything from the BLI tender over to the Athearn tender. I had to drill a couple of holes in the tender floor so I could run wires from the axle wipers to the decoder. And I added a Bowser dual sugar cube speaker box up under the coal load area. Got the adapter board mounted and the tender is now ready for the 21 pin decoder.

Now back to downloading sound files and such. I have not used my ESU Lokprogrammer in several years so I downloaded the latest software from the ESU downloads page. I also downloaded the sound file I wanted. When using the adapter boards, the decoder needs to have sound files downloaded to the decoder via ESU decoder tester or by using a "donor" loco that does NOT use the adapter board. After this, the decoder can be programmed on a test/programming track with JMRI or the ESU programmer.
All this downloading and updating was done on my new laptop running Windows 11. Trying to manipulate new software and getting use to Win 11 and using the decoder tester for the first time, it was just a bit too much for me. After about three hours I had to shut things down. Maybe I'll get out and try loading the sound file to the decoder again later this evening.

Let me say, I am NO fan of Windows 11. While trying to use the ESU programmer, Windows would send an errant message about something. Those interruptions just make life a little more miserable than necessary, interrupt my train of thought and made my programming job a bit more difficult.

Well, I'm sure most all of you are tired of my ranting if you're still with me here, so I'll sign off..........John
Click to expand...
Download and install Startallback on the Windows 11 computer, select either Windows 10 or Windows 7 as your preferred UI, and enjoy the new computer with about 80% less drama.
 
TLOC said:
Kadee’s are ok, operate in trains fine but are such a PITA to uncouple that I’m not sure if I should even use a shelf coupler. My tanks cars do need to be uncoupled to get shuffled around the industries including the 4 spot ethanol load out. If I just ran them in unit trains I would be fine but I actually use the cars.
Click to expand...
Not for nothing, Shelf couplers are prototypically correct post 1973, but for model purposes they are not practical. I bought a bulk pack and was going to do my tank cars, but the three or four I converted are a PIA. Conclusion....not worth my time.
 
Boris said:
Not for nothing, Shelf couplers are prototypically correct post 1973, but for model purposes they are not practical. I bought a bulk pack and was going to do my tank cars, but the three or four I converted are a PIA. Conclusion....not worth my time.
Click to expand...
They are more worth it for rolling stock with extended drawbars or cars that are susceptible to uncoupling from vertical curves. Full-length passenger cars and 89' flats of most flavors are examples.
 


There is a guy here in town with a storefront that is housing an HO scale layout under construction. I have been watching for him to be there and today as I was driving past, the lights were on, so I stopped. He was super nice, he has an HVAC business there in the back half of the store and decided to put the unused space in front to use for building a large Pennsy layout. Most of his benchwork is done and he has started laying track. He is also looking for folks to help with construction and eventually operating the layout. Guess who is now a volunteer!
 
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