Running Bear's October 2025 Coffee Shop

ModelRailroadForums.com is a free Model Railroad Discussion Forum and photo gallery. We cover all scales and sizes of model railroads. Online since 2002, it's one of the oldest and largest model railroad forums on the web. Whether you're a master model railroader or just getting started, you'll find something of interest here.


Status
Not open for further replies.
I posted this thread a few years ago. In 1980 I was called to run a work train out of North White Plains to replace a water drainage pipe at White Plains station that ran under the tracks there. We had an engine, a flat car with a backhoe on it and a caboose for the MOW workers to ride in. I refused to take the train because the backhoe was not tided down in any way but was just sitting on the flatcar. They told me I was a troublemaker and White Plains station was only 2 miles away and the MOW foreman would take full responsibility for anything that may happen in the 2-mile trip down the tracks. As we were passing though North White Plains station the backhoe's outriggers hit the platform and fell off the flatcar and on to the platform where people were waiting for the next train. No one was hurt but the next day I was called for the same work train but this time they had about 10 tiedowns on the backhoe. I thought I would do a model of that day which you can see in the model below. Swal

RS_3_NWP_02.jpg
 


NYC_George said:
I posted this thread a few years ago. In 1980 I was called to run a work train out of North White Plains to replace a water drainage pipe at White Plains station that ran under the tracks there. We had an engine, a flat car with a backhoe on it and a caboose for the MOW workers to ride in. I refused to take the train because the backhoe was not tided down in any way but was just sitting on the flatcar. They told me I was a troublemaker and White Plains station was only 2 miles away and the MOW foreman would take full responsibility for anything that may happen in the 2-mile trip down the tracks. As we were passing though North White Plains station the backhoe's outriggers hit the platform and fell off the flatcar and on to the platform where people were waiting for the next train. No one was hurt but the next day I was called for the same work train but this time they had about 10 tiedowns on the backhoe. I thought I would do a model of that day which you can see in the model below. Swal

View attachment 244654
Click to expand...
What did you use to make the ratchet/chain binders?
 
NYC_George said:
I posted this thread a few years ago. In 1980 I was called to run a work train out of North White Plains to replace a water drainage pipe at White Plains station that ran under the tracks there. We had an engine, a flat car with a backhoe on it and a caboose for the MOW workers to ride in. I refused to take the train because the backhoe was not tided down in any way but was just sitting on the flatcar. They told me I was a troublemaker and White Plains station was only 2 miles away and the MOW foreman would take full responsibility for anything that may happen in the 2-mile trip down the tracks. As we were passing though North White Plains station the backhoe's outriggers hit the platform and fell off the flatcar and on to the platform where people were waiting for the next train. No one was hurt but the next day I was called for the same work train but this time they had about 10 tiedowns on the backhoe. I thought I would do a model of that day which you can see in the model below. Swal

View attachment 244654
Click to expand...
Do you remember about when did Penn Central stop using the former Cleveland Electric locomotives? I have a book by Don Ball Jr. "Americas Colorful Railroads" The Second Generation and there's a picture in early 70s of one of the P motors on Amtrak (?) train.
 
About 5 weeks ago, my 21 yro grandson had a motorcycle accident and broke his left wrist pretty badly. He had surgery on it and got the cast off Monday. The wrist bone was not matching with the arm bone, so more surgery; adding 4 more pins on Tuesday.
I have been baby sitting him during the day since Wed. reminding to take pills and making sandwiches does not fill my day.
about 2 years ago, one of the Chinese Amazon wannabes had a clearance sale on painted HO figures. I wound up with 300 figures and the paint jobs were not up to my low standards.
I have spent the last 3 days examining figures for items that do not require some repainting. Less than 2% were usable for my layout.
These samples show no contrasting shoe colors and incomplete flesh, hair or clothing paint. As you can see, the manufacture got a good price on gray and purple paint.
before.jpg

About 40% of the figures have some shade of purple.
I tried to minimize the additional painting, but the figures do look different after working on them.
after.jpg

These will be mostly background figures, so I was not very careful with my repainting.
On my next set of figures, I will use several different colors. I will end up with a unique set of figures.
As a cheapskate, I am willing to repaint $5.00 worth of Chinese figures versus paying over $29.00 for 100 German unpainted figures.
 
KriegslokBR52 said:
Do you remember about when did Penn Central stop using the former Cleveland Electric locomotives? I have a book by Don Ball Jr. "Americas Colorful Railroads" The Second Generation and there's a picture in early 70s of one of the P motors on Amtrak (?) train.
Click to expand...
That's a tough one KriegslokBR52. That was a long time ago. I do remember using one to switch with at the North White Plains passenger yard I think that was at least in 1975. I remember it well because it was in the winter and the electric fans, I guess to cool the motors drew in all the cold outside air freezing my ears with the window open. The yard was usually switched out using an RS-3. The FL9 diesel / eclectic took over their job on the Harlem and Hudson lines. That's the last time I remember running one. Swal
 
NYC_George said:
That's a tough one KriegslokBR52. That was a long time ago. I do remember using one to switch with at the North White Plains passenger yard I think that was at least in 1975. I remember it well because it was in the winter and the electric fans, I guess to cool the motors drew in all the cold outside air freezing my ears with the window open. The yard was usually switched out using an RS-3. The FL9 diesel / eclectic took over their job on the Harlem and Hudson lines. That's the last time I remember running one. Swal
Click to expand...
Appreciated.
 


Mikey - My granddaughter gave me a set of those painted Chinese figures for Christmas a few years ago. Every one had black hair, black shoes and a sprue attachment point on the top of their heads. At first sight I thought that it was just an Oriental bun on their heads, until I put my reading glasses on and realized what it really was. Yes, purple paint was prevalent, followed by pink and yellow on my set. Appropriate maybe for West Coast figures, but not heartland America that I model. All got a new set of blue jeans by the time that I got done; the heads got trimmed and brown and blond hair started appearing. On mine, the paint job on 95% was quite sloppy, especially the hair and shoes
 
chadbag said:
I saw this on an SUV today at the daughter’s doctor appt. I thought of Tom @TLOC

View attachment 244644
Click to expand...
Speaking of the Packers, they were named after the Indian Packing company who gave Curly Lambeau, the seed money to start the team. Curly was a shipping clerk at the Indian Packing Company.

Two years later, the Acme Packing Company acquired Indian Packing. For a brief time, the team was referred to as the Acme Packers, and their uniforms even bore that name.

Not too different from the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
 
santafewillie said:
Every one had black hair, black shoes and a sprue attachment point on the top of their heads.
Click to expand...
Well, they are Chinese. Most Asians naturally have black hair...

KATO, Tomix, and the Germans all make N scale figures, but I don't have any yet. I'm sure you can get inexpensive Chinese ones too. Luckily I'm not so much into reality creation as into emotion creation with the trains and layouts (which is why I don't weather etc). Maybe I can get by without lots of figures. We'll see

It's 46F at 9:30pm. Been dark for almost 2 1/2 hours. Today I don't think it got above high 50s but this coming week supposed to be mid 60s to as high as 70 one day. The heat pump shows 1 hour of cycle time today. Not a lot of heating to do with it not being that cold outside.

I have an online technical test tomorrow at 4pm. 90 min. Most of the technologies they said to study for aren't my high points. They're newer and I've done some work with them but not a lot and with not working for over half a year, except for my side project I haven't gotten much work on, which uses two of the technologies, and a self-paced course I'm doing, I've not gotten a lot of software engineering type stuff done (been trying to but have had house and job search priorities). I've been trying to work on my side project (the DCC throttle) as a way of getting some refresher on the tech as well as doing some tutorials.

A neighbor across the street is moving and we're going to help load their truck in the morning. Otherwise I'll just be doing that sort of thing all day until the time for the test...

Had a last minute doctor's appointment (with the nurse practitioner) for my daughter today so that ate up some time. And I had some errands this afternoon. So did not get a lot done so far today :(. My daughter is fine. We were reminded that she needed an updated HS sports physical exam on file for swim season, on Wednesday night. I called yesterday and as long as we were happy with a NP, we could go in today. Since it was just for the physical and we were in need of getting it turned in asap I said sure (instead of waiting for her normal doctor). But it took time.

One thing that frustrated me is I went to the big Asian supermarket called H-Mart. They have them around the country -- at least in the West. I needed the finely minced or crushed garlic like the Koreans sell (and H-Mart is Korean owned even if they have stuff from all Asian countries). We have another Chinese run supermarket a couple miles down the road and they sell all sorts of sizes of it in nice plastic jars with screw lids. H-Mart is a lot bigger and you'd think they'd have it but all they had was a few types of coarsely minced (similar to the stuff at Walmart) and crushed in those plastic tubs with teh simple push on lids. I think they make it themselves. I decided to skip it and we'll go to Ocean Mart, the Chinese one down the road. Theirs is real imported from Korean and is finely minced or crushed (I can't really tell the difference). We use a lot of it and I use it every day when I fry my egg.

Big pat of butter in the pan, big teaspoon of garlic, spread it around and let it cook a minute or so, and dump an egg on it, break the yolk, coarse ground pepper and then some sort of other spice, like the chili lime, or Sriracha powder spice (not the liquid) or hot pepper flakes I got at the 100 yen store in Japan. Let it cook enough that you can flip it over and then liberally put the Costco Mexican blend shredded cheese on it, turn the heat down, and put a lid on it and let the cheese melt until its good and cooked. Put on plate, cut in half, and eat each half on a slice of Wasa crisp bread with butter. That's breakfast (along with a low carb yogurt, and apple slices, and sometimes a little other fruit like berries if the wife leaves it). Also some days I have my home made cocoa that uses raw cacao powder, allulose and stevia and monk fruit, creamer, butter, cocoa butter, and MCT Oil. (And sugar free coffee syrups like vanilla, raspberry, Carmel, etc -- like Torani but a different brand they sell at the Costco super business center downtown). Yummy. and another a lot of useless simple carbs.

Sorry for the distraction.
 
Bruette said:
Speaking of the Packers, they were named after the Indian Packing company who gave Curly Lambeau, the seed money to start the team. Curly was a shipping clerk at the Indian Packing Company.

Two years later, the Acme Packing Company acquired Indian Packing. For a brief time, the team was referred to as the Acme Packers, and their uniforms even bore that name.

Not too different from the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
Click to expand...
That's interesting. The standard now is for US sports teams at the pro levels to mostly be named after their city or sometime state or region they come from. In Japan, all the pro level baseball teams have corporate owners and are named such.

Hanshin Tigers. (named after the Hanshin railway company which is now part of a larger Hankyu Hanshin Holdings company -- Hankyu being another railroad company that was at one point a competitor -- you can tell where the railroads originally went too by the name Hanshin is from the first character of the name Kobe and the second character of the name Osaka -- the characters have "Chinese" and "Japanese" readings and I think using the "Chinese" readings is how they get the Hanshin. Anyway Hanshin railway originally connected Osaka and Kobe and the baseball teams home stadium is in Nishinomiya, which is between Kobe and Osaka, so I guess it's appropriate.

Hankyu is similar. Per Wikipedia -- "
The name Hankyu is an abbreviation of Keihanshin Kyūkō (京阪神急行).

Keihanshin (京阪神) refers to the area served by Hankyu trains, comprising the cities of Kyoto (京都), Osaka (大阪) and Kobe (神戸), along with the suburbs that connect them to each other.

Kyūkō (急行) means "express train(s)".
"
So the Han refers to Osaka and the Kyu refers to "Express Trains". When we're there we ride a lot of Hankyu trains. They're very pretty and are all a maroon color. With more comfortable seats than the JR commuter trains. Interestingly Hanshin and Hankyu both run standard gauge tracks, Non Shinkansen JR lines and a lot of the other private railways in Japan are all cape gage (1067mm). Enough railway distraction. Back to baseball.

Orix Buffaloes -- A merger of Kobe's Orix Blue Wave and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes of Osaka back in 2004. Orix is a financial services company in Osaka. Kintetsu, the owner of the other team that merged with the Orix team (Blue Waves -- I think that is where Ichiro Suzuki player) is another private railway. A lot of railways own or owned baseball teams.

Yomiuri Giants -- It's in Tokyo and is owned by the Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, Japan's largest media conglomerate.

Tokyo Yakult Swallows -- Tokyo's other team. Owned by a multinational company that makes Yakult probiotic drink. You've probably seen it in the grocery store in little bottles packaged together. It used to be owner by the Japan National Railway (before that got broken up). More baseball train connections.

Chiba Lotte Marines -- Lotte is a large food company that makes a ton of stuff including candy. I think it was formed by a Japanese Korean (descendent of Koreans who went or were taken to Japan back in the Colonial times). Lotte is also a huge company in Korea. Chiba is the area just east of Tokyo.

Yokohama DeNA BayStars -- based in Yokohama, the current owner is DeNA -- a software company.

We already talked about about the Nippon-Ham Fighters.

There are a bunch more. There are two main pro leagues in Japan -- similar to the American and National leagues in the US.

These are all teams in either of the two top Japan pro leagues (equivalent to their MLB). All proudly named after their corporate owners.
 


Bruette said:
These are the kinds of distractions I come here for.

My wife makes scrambled eggs with onions. The first time she made it for me I thought "that is crazy!" You can imagine what I thought of your breakfast.

Now I love scrambled eggs with onions. You never know until you try it.
Click to expand...
I just like garlic. And cheese. And eggs. And spices. So naturally I put them all together :)

If the wife has boiled a bunch of eggs, then I'll eat a boiled egg rolled in the Sriracha powder or the chili lime powder and the coarse ground pepper, and eat the crisp bread with butter, some sriracha or chili lime sprinkled on it, and some provolone. And usually the cocoa and apple slices as well.

Recently I've not been too ambitious in being creative. Trying to avoid simple carbs, and trying to not spend extra money right now.

I'm easy to please food wise. As long as it's spicy or piquant or not bland, and preferably with cheese. I love a bagel cut sliced into two, then buttered, and then a ton of cream cheese on it. Especially the onion everything bagels or the cheese (parmesan) bagels. But any will do. But that's more simple carbs than I want now...

This is making me hungry. But I already ate way more than I should have today and am into my overnight fast (I do the 16 hour intermittent fast every day from dinner to breakfast).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.




Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a commision from some of the links and ads shown on this website (Learn More Here)

Back
Top