Running Bear's October 2025 Coffee Shop

[santafewillie]

Here is the first in a series of vacation photos that I took this year at the various model railroad museums that I visited.
The first is in Gulfport Mississippi and is now called TrainTastic. This museum is partly funded by the city and many private donations.

This is their new place, the old location about 5 blocks away was called The Mississippi Gulf Coast Model Railroad Museum. One of their members owned the Domino's Pizza in Gulfport, and he donated a large custom-made Lionel 2-rail layout to the museum, which necessitated the new building.

This layout has many animated structures and scenes. Of course there's a Domino's and the pizza chefs actually lift and spin the crusts in the air. I couldn't get an overall shot of the layout because of the light coming through the front door, and the one that I took with the door behind me is out of focus.

There's a Domino's pizza college in a different scene.

Another animated scene is alligators snapping at flies?

I was also unable to get a good picture of any of the trains themselves because they were all moving at Lionel warp speed.
Almost all of the figures in this gym are animated.

All of the following scenes are also animated. The water park.

The bandstand.

Horseback riders.

Of course, the museum itself.

Thomas is not out front in the real world.
More soon.

 

[chadbag]

Finally a relevant ad here on the forum. I've been getting a ton of eBay ads -- all for pics or portraits of actresses and stuff or questionable censored resin figures from Japan and other things, for weeks now.

But today I got this:

Now, it's not exactly relevant fr me since I don't do the US trains that much and not H0, but it is relevant to the forum.

 

[Texas Hobo]

About ten years ago, I got a credit card for a big box home improvement store. About three years after that, I closed the account and canceled the credit card, since I never used it. A couple of months ago, I opened a new account with that same big box home improvement company and credit card. Unfortunately, I can't make any purchases with the card, since the big box company has my old address embedded in my account, and can't change it. Surprise, surprise, every purchase I attempt to make gets declined because the addresses don't match. My calls are routed to a call center offshore.

Ah, technology!

 

[Texas Hobo]

 

[migalyto]

Finally a relevant ad here on the forum.

Your not using an add blocker?

I don't see any of that stuff.

 

[Boris]

So Earnest yard is not used anymore?

Don't know. Left Conrail in 1998, Left the Philly Division in 1983. Amtrak's another world, rather than a railroad. Last I heard there is little activity on the Trenton Branch, what ever they call it now. The train that handled the racks runs Via Selkirk Ramps are in Ridgefield Park, Doremus Ave both North Jersey, and Twin Oaks in PA below Chester. I don't know where NS unloads autos. Still don't much care for NS. Maybe Uncle Pete will put some manners on them.
(More than you expected, eh?).

 

[Boris]

Well good evening. Hope your Sunday was as good as mine. I did mt at home workout on Saturday, so today I was stiff and a might sore. Tomorrow I go another round then PT on Tuesday.
Filled the bird feeder, and spent time in the basement running trains. I reprogrammed my Atlas RS32's decoder so it would run slower, and worked on a structure kit bash, but the big news is I finished drilling The Port and Scott Paper, first time since July. also brought the calendar up to date. (June to October).
We had traditional Sunday Dinner, Macaroni, Meatballs and Sauce. The larger traditional version would provide meals for at least a full week.
Did follow the Colorado at Jersey Devils game on Radio. (No cable, no TV, National telecast). Devils won in OT 4-3 for their 8th straight win. Another "Frost Advisory" tonight, but so far not cold enough.

Enjoy the week and stay safe!

 

[chadbag]

Your not using an add blocker?

I don't see any of that stuff.

No. Not worth the effort.

 

[Kusojiji]

You're not the only one. I have an 8 1/2" x 11" project book with 6 pages of need to eventually do projects. And it's not complete either!

I started a list and am too lazy to update it! haha

 

[NorthBrit]

THOUGHT FOR TODAY
Some times the most obvious solution is nevertheless not most visible.

 

[troyphoto]

Decided to get up, since I was awake and not drifting back off.

Tweaked my back a little yesterday. Ice and a coupe of advil made it better, until about midnight. From then on it didn't get better. So now it's some quality time with the heating pad in the recliner.

Had a fun game with a female friend at the game store yesterday. She brought a buddy along, and he bought into the game. Unfortunately, my current army of the "Dwarven" analogs didn't fare well in their last upgrade. I love the models, but the scale is too large for other games in that genre. Now I'm debating selling them off.

Also, that means the other faction I've got will also get the complication hammer applied to their rules. Bah! A year ago, this was a decent game. Now, it's charging pell-mell into something that requires rules synergizing with special abilities....

You know what doesn't change radically overnight? Trains. Model trains.

 

[bnsf971]

Good morning. It's mostly clear and 71. Silly me, I thought it was Autumn...

 

[Bill Tidler Jr.]

Good morning! It's Monday, 43°F and partly cloudy.

Have a good day!

 

[NorthBrit]

Good morning all. Gee, it is cold. Forget about Autumn, Winter is fast approaching.

Took number 2 grandson to the basketball arena this morning. Apparently the owners (Newcastle Eagles) are looking to move some young players up to a higher age group. Grandson is one they are looking at.

No school this week, so younger granddaughter is visiting today. As older granddaughter is already here, I will be surrounded by girls.

Morning Deliveries

 

[kbkchooch]

Good morning gang!

37° under partly cloudy skies with a high predicted of 59°. Pretty much a repeat of yesterday.

Slept like a baby last night. Our new mattress arrived yesterday in a box about 14 in.² in that 3 1/2 feet long. Unboxed it and laid it on the bed frame and started on rolling the plastic. It was wrapped in at a certain point, it kind of popped open like a container of dinner rolls. Next thing you know, we had a queen size mattress on the bed! Our old mattress of a more conventional type had gotten too stiff to sleep on. I was constantly waking up with back pain. Woke up this morning feeling great!
On one of our trips to North Carolina to see the daughter and the grandkids we both noticed how well we slept on the guest bedroom bed. We asked the daughter where she got the bed and believe it or not it was from walmart.com.
BBL

 

[KriegslokBR52]

Don't know. Left Conrail in 1998, Left the Philly Division in 1983. Amtrak's another world, rather than a railroad. Last I heard there is little activity on the Trenton Branch, what ever they call it now. The train that handled the racks runs Via Selkirk Ramps are in Ridgefield Park, Doremus Ave both North Jersey, and Twin Oaks in PA below Chester. I don't know where NS unloads autos. Still don't much care for NS. Maybe Uncle Pete will put some manners on them.
(More than you expected, eh?).

Well, i've heard a few others refer to NS as Nazi Southern before.

 

[migalyto]

Good morning all!

Monday, Monday.....

Should be another pleasant day today. Currently 40F with a high temp of 62F under mostly sunny skies.

Monday household chores today, Some weekend laundry, dishwasher and general house pick-up.

Other than that, pretty quiet here. Nothing on the agenda tonight so I will try to het some train running in tonight.

Have a safe day everyone!

 

[traiNscale]

@chadbag censored mini figures from japan? wtf ahahahaha. (can you send me a link for research )
I only see Ads for hearing aids or other stuff for old people ahahaha.

Good morning everyone.
Rain outside, temperature drop to 8 celcius. yesterday the clock went 1hour back so now its dark when i get up to work and when i come back from work its dark again..

i will show you a picture from my bush crafting yesterday.
and they are now ready to sell in my shop. lets see if someone will buy them.
you never know till you try it

wish you all a great start for the week!

cheers
Marco

 

[Patrick]

Morning all,

Rain over the weekend kept me indoors, and decided I just needed a rest break. So I did run errands and shopping on Friday, but did little else besides meals and laundry and church all weekend.

I did get to watching "Young Frankenstein" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" for the upcoming Halloween. Wife asked me what the heck was this transvestite show. She didn't remember seeing the people dressed up for the mid-night showing when we went to a mid-movie (not RH) when we were dating. A theater in Wichita had shown it at midnight every Friday and Saturday. Talk about tearing a theater up...people did do the props and the Time Warp. IYKYK of which I speak.

Felt good to not do a whole lot for a change..

BBL

 

[RhB Michael]

51°F and light rain this morning. The rain should continue until late morning.

Great operating session yesterday. I had to clean one of my favorite locomotives to even get it to move more than a couple of inches. It is a Jägerndorfer ÖBB Rh 2070 shunting and light road locomotive. It has a wonderful sound file and runs great when it's clean. I mean, almost sterile clean.

Jägerndorfer in their Teutonic engineering, designed two narrow small copper tabs with 45° angles on the extreme top end. The tabs are for the motor pickups and come into contact with two metal pads on the bottom of the light board when it's screwed down to the chassis. There are two of these tiny tabs for each bogie on either side.

They are not spring loaded and the copper it too thin to exert any kind of pressure on the tiny metal pads under the light board when assembled. In addition to that, the tiny tabs have a very tiny point on each 45° end, almost like a tiny dot of solder to make this electrical contact.

Poorest pickup contact design I have ever seen. If there is but one micron of oxide or other contaminant on these contacts, the locomotive runs like crap, if at all. Yesterday before cleaning, it would run an inch or two and stop. I'd push lightly over one or the other bogie and it would run another one or two inches. I might add, that the bogie contacts (the two tiny tabs with the 45° angle) swivel with the bogie on curves and you would think since the tabs actually move on the metal pads on the bottom of the light board, they would be kept cleaner rather than something stationary. Not so.

I would very much like to use some 32 or 34 gauge magnet wire soldered to these tabs and then soldered to the pads on the bottom of the light board to eliminate this problem, but my eyesight is not good enough any longer to do this sort of detailed work with a soldering iron any more. This would almost be like trying to work with SMT components, but not quite that bad. It may as well be though for as well as I can see it.

I'm still thinking of a solution to this problem.

This is one of the nicest locomotives I have with outstanding detail and sound. It also runs extremely well when clean. I just don't want to have to clean this thing every operating session.

Have a great day everyone! Servus!