Running Bear's October 2025 Coffee Shop

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traiNscale said:
everything stands and falls with a good static gras applicator. i had "many", i did try the one from Woodland Scenics that was trash, then the NOch 2.0 also not happy. RTS Greenkeeper 35kV best i had so far. but i think its only available in europe.

in the workshop we will build trees like those:

View attachment 245722

and yes those are hand made by Marcel himself.

- spruce
- larch
- maybe birch trees too

will tell you when i was there hehehe ;)
Click to expand...
Instead of spending money on static grass applicator, i made one out of a fly zapper, $20.
 
KriegslokBR52 said:
Well, i've heard a few others refer to NS as Nazi Southern before.
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They were very authoritarian, petty, sticklers for rules compliance, especially minor rules. After being part of the Management Team that brought Conrail to investor heaven from the Wreck called Penn Central, to be told they were going to send us to Ray Road Skool in Atlanta to learn how to Ray Road. I went to Amtrak to avoid these pin heads. Most of the former Conrail managers who went over to the NS side left within a year or so...they couldn't stand the NS people/attitude..
 
So I had to make a doctor's appointment with a new doctor today. Lots of questions. A sign of the times. She tells me this is new and strange questions, but I have to ask you this. What gender are you? We're you born this gender. Are you still this gender? Do you still identify as this gender. Swal
 


Good Morning All. Mostly clear and 66°, humidity is 99% right now. We're under a wind advisory today and tomorrow with constant northwest winds in the 25+ mph range. Should start in about an hour and last until sunset tomorrow.

Busy day yesterday as I winterized the house. Cleaned the ashes out of the wood-burning heater and then swept the chimney. Removed that debris as well. More creosote than I thought, but maybe I didn't get a chance to sweep mid-season last winter. Then I went to PT, the Post Office and DG Market on the way home. Then time to remove the window a/c unit from the NW bedroom window. And every time that I came into the house, I carried an armful of firewood! Wife decided that she was going to make a Mexican Chicken casserole for supper, so I stepped aside. After I retired 10 years ago, I went from making supper twice a week, to making it almost every night. I enjoy cooking as every meal is a work of art to me; one that is to be enjoyed just briefly. We also had several sliced Tomatoes that I picked Sunday. Very delicious. I think that the lack of water in the soil led to a concentration of flavor in the Tomatoes.

Today, I will start to get back in to the routine here. I have a dead tree that I cut down before vacation that needs cutting up. I need to get some of that 4.5" of rain that fell last week off the swimming pool cover, and I need to start marking troublesome tree limbs for pruning this winter. Next PT session is tomorrow.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I made some progress on the GP9U. As I posted, the handrails and trick sideframes are black, a rather glaring error on a Santa Fe locomotive.
1761660412470.png

Sideframes came off easily and were duly painted.
1761660513757.jpeg

1761660540948.jpeg

Handrails weren't easily removed, so I started with the B-end one. It's hard to match the ATSF yellow. I have ATSF Yellow paint from 4 different companies, none of which match each other or any of the manufacturer's models! So I use Deco Art Cadmium Yellow, a craft acrylic, which most closely matches this model.
1761660791985.jpeg

I've started on one of the side handrails also, but it needs two coats to really cover the black. If I could have removed the handrails, I would have used the air brush instead. I am also looking for my stash of MU hoses to add to both ends. Those are detail parts that really make a difference.

Marco - Those bushes look terrific.
Tom O - All of your postings regarding AI and carloads, are beginning to pique my interest. I already do some of that the old fashioned way by calculating car capacity and needs, but it is time consuming and I never remember to document it fully. For example: I know how much grain is needed to make x amount of Ethanol and the capacity of my fermenting tanks, as well as the capacity of the tankers needed to haul it off. This gives me a basis for the number of cars of each I need to switch and when. I have the car thing written down, but not the basis.
Regarding Springsteen: Surely you remember "Born in the USA".
Mike - I actually don't remember ever seeing any model train advertisements on TV. Maybe it's because we weren't allowed to turn on the TV before 4:00 pm. And then only if our homework was done!
Patrick - Those mandatory ethics classes were always a real pain at our place. But they had to do them to placate the "injured party". They were never scheduled at a convenient time. Like after I left for the day.
Swal - Maybe just carry the 5-iron with you when you walk the trail!

Everyone have a terrific Tuesday.
 
santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. Mostly clear and 66°, humidity is 99% right now. We're under a wind advisory today and tomorrow with constant northwest winds in the 25+ mph range. Should start in about an hour and last until sunset tomorrow.

Busy day yesterday as I winterized the house. Cleaned the ashes out of the wood-burning heater and then swept the chimney. Removed that debris as well. More creosote than I thought, but maybe I didn't get a chance to sweep mid-season last winter. Then I went to PT, the Post Office and DG Market on the way home. Then time to remove the window a/c unit from the NW bedroom window. And every time that I came into the house, I carried an armful of firewood! Wife decided that she was going to make a Mexican Chicken casserole for supper, so I stepped aside. After I retired 10 years ago, I went from making supper twice a week, to making it almost every night. I enjoy cooking as every meal is a work of art to me; one that is to be enjoyed just briefly. We also had several sliced Tomatoes that I picked Sunday. Very delicious. I think that the lack of water in the soil led to a concentration of flavor in the Tomatoes.

Today, I will start to get back in to the routine here. I have a dead tree that I cut down before vacation that needs cutting up. I need to get some of that 4.5" of rain that fell last week off the swimming pool cover, and I need to start marking troublesome tree limbs for pruning this winter. Next PT session is tomorrow.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I made some progress on the GP9U. As I posted, the handrails and trick sideframes are black, a rather glaring error on a Santa Fe locomotive.View attachment 245727
Sideframes came off easily and were duly painted.
View attachment 245728
View attachment 245729
Handrails weren't easily removed, so I started with the B-end one. It's hard to match the ATSF yellow. I have ATSF Yellow paint from 4 different companies, none of which match each other or any of the manufacturer's models! So I use Deco Art Cadmium Yellow, a craft acrylic, which most closely matches this model.
View attachment 245730
I've started on one of the side handrails also, but it needs two coats to really cover the black. If I could have removed the handrails, I would have used the air brush instead. I am also looking for my stash of MU hoses to add to both ends. Those are detail parts that really make a difference.

Marco - Those bushes look terrific.
Tom O - All of your postings regarding AI and carloads, are beginning to pique my interest. I already do some of that the old fashioned way by calculating car capacity and needs, but it is time consuming and I never remember to document it fully. For example: I know how much grain is needed to make x amount of Ethanol and the capacity of my fermenting tanks, as well as the capacity of the tankers needed to haul it off. This gives me a basis for the number of cars of each I need to switch and when. I have the car thing written down, but not the basis.
Regarding Springsteen: Surely you remember "Born in the USA".
Mike - I actually don't remember ever seeing any model train advertisements on TV. Maybe it's because we weren't allowed to turn on the TV before 4:00 pm. And then only if our homework was done!
Patrick - Those mandatory ethics classes were always a real pain at our place. But they had to do them to placate the "injured party". They were never scheduled at a convenient time. Like after I left for the day.
Swal - Maybe just carry the 5-iron with you when you walk the trail!

Everyone have a terrific Tuesday.
Click to expand...
That's just what I was thinking Willie carrying a golf club with me. I would like to do the 5 mile walk but the rail trail for the most part goes through the woods. All of the sudden there's a bear walking with you. Swal
 
Good Morning All! Been on vacation down south to visit family for a bit over a week. The drive from Milwaukee to Birmingham and back is brutal at my age, especially when I cannonball it. :) I won't be doing that again. Future trips will be flown. Anyway, it was a good trip. I got to see folks I haven't seen in a couple of years. I needed a decompression day after the drive. My back is still killing me. It would seem that that much time in the driver's seat is not a good idea if your lower back is full of arthritis. Go figure. Gettin' old ain't fer sissies! Anyhow, retirement is being nice to me so far. I'm back in the modeling mood and have several projects to do. They'll be over on my passenger car modeling thread. I've been going through the San Joaquin Daylight getting it ready for Trainfest. Mostly coupler work. They seem to have the ability to get out of adjustment while being stored in the box! 🤔 The train needs to be error free for open house running, and I did add several new cars to it since its last time out. If anyone is in the Milwaukee area or if any out of towners happen to go to Trainfest do attend our open house. It's Saturday from 4-8 PM. They guys will have their eye candy out and running. More information is here: https://www.napmltd.org/contact.htm...xgKf-ivoa3gvIPDC4w_aem_hlFehNQ6X2CJymDqUq_cmA
 
santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. Mostly clear and 66°, humidity is 99% right now. We're under a wind advisory today and tomorrow with constant northwest winds in the 25+ mph range. Should start in about an hour and last until sunset tomorrow.

Busy day yesterday as I winterized the house. Cleaned the ashes out of the wood-burning heater and then swept the chimney. Removed that debris as well. More creosote than I thought, but maybe I didn't get a chance to sweep mid-season last winter. Then I went to PT, the Post Office and DG Market on the way home. Then time to remove the window a/c unit from the NW bedroom window. And every time that I came into the house, I carried an armful of firewood! Wife decided that she was going to make a Mexican Chicken casserole for supper, so I stepped aside. After I retired 10 years ago, I went from making supper twice a week, to making it almost every night. I enjoy cooking as every meal is a work of art to me; one that is to be enjoyed just briefly. We also had several sliced Tomatoes that I picked Sunday. Very delicious. I think that the lack of water in the soil led to a concentration of flavor in the Tomatoes.

Today, I will start to get back in to the routine here. I have a dead tree that I cut down before vacation that needs cutting up. I need to get some of that 4.5" of rain that fell last week off the swimming pool cover, and I need to start marking troublesome tree limbs for pruning this winter. Next PT session is tomorrow.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I made some progress on the GP9U. As I posted, the handrails and trick sideframes are black, a rather glaring error on a Santa Fe locomotive.View attachment 245727
Sideframes came off easily and were duly painted.
View attachment 245728
View attachment 245729
Handrails weren't easily removed, so I started with the B-end one. It's hard to match the ATSF yellow. I have ATSF Yellow paint from 4 different companies, none of which match each other or any of the manufacturer's models! So I use Deco Art Cadmium Yellow, a craft acrylic, which most closely matches this model.
View attachment 245730
I've started on one of the side handrails also, but it needs two coats to really cover the black. If I could have removed the handrails, I would have used the air brush instead. I am also looking for my stash of MU hoses to add to both ends. Those are detail parts that really make a difference.

Marco - Those bushes look terrific.
Tom O - All of your postings regarding AI and carloads, are beginning to pique my interest. I already do some of that the old fashioned way by calculating car capacity and needs, but it is time consuming and I never remember to document it fully. For example: I know how much grain is needed to make x amount of Ethanol and the capacity of my fermenting tanks, as well as the capacity of the tankers needed to haul it off. This gives me a basis for the number of cars of each I need to switch and when. I have the car thing written down, but not the basis.
Regarding Springsteen: Surely you remember "Born in the USA".
Mike - I actually don't remember ever seeing any model train advertisements on TV. Maybe it's because we weren't allowed to turn on the TV before 4:00 pm. And then only if our homework was done!
Patrick - Those mandatory ethics classes were always a real pain at our place. But they had to do them to placate the "injured party". They were never scheduled at a convenient time. Like after I left for the day.
Swal - Maybe just carry the 5-iron with you when you walk the trail!

Everyone have a terrific Tuesday.
Click to expand...
Yes I recall Born in the USA but I can’t tell you a song by him until a mention like this

I am using this week Chat GPT the free version. It can write and draw, the free version limits me to 15 images a day and I ask it tipo keep track for me

For the Papermill I designed for the friend I had previously done the research on the old fashioned way, search the internet, copy and paste it to my project binder. So I knew the Pacific Northwest Papermill I wanted to represent on the layout. I had some general ideas of production process and how to calculate production needs working from a goal to be produced.

After sone trial and error I decided, work backwards. I told the Ai the mills minimum finished product was 8 boxcars 1965 era 50’ long and maximum of 10 cars per day.

It calculated 8 cars x70 tons ( box car capitcy it found) and came up with 540 finished tons per day. Max for the day 700t. From there I asked how many pulp cars are need to produce 540t per daily. It found the info and did the math almost instantly. Once I had a number I wrote this

I am in the process of designing a HO scale model representing a 1965 era paper mill in the Pacific Northwest. This would be part of an operating model railroad layout but can be operated as a stand alone. The paper mill will have a dedicated mill diesel switcher with a small enginehouse on the complex. The area used would be 24” x 144” or 2’ by 12’.

A good example I want to use is the production data and physical facilities of the Crown Zellerbach paper mill in Everette Washington. Daily production of finished goods typically will be 500 tom700 tons per day on 3 shifts of 8 hours 24/7/365

I want to understand the production process from pulp logs being delivered by rail car to finished product being shipped by railroad box cars.

Compression is a given due to the space limitations. I am not sure at this time what specific process and facilities to highlite so for now we need to understand the production process and what the railroad does to make this happen. I am not going to be concerned about in or outbound truck traffic. I am concentrating in railroad car movement within the paper mill campus

Are there questions you can ask me to have me then ask better questions of you while we work through this project representation of a large business

Willie, In less than 5 minutes we had a plan and later help in designing each building in the complex
 
TLOC said:
Yes I recall Born in the USA but I can’t tell you a song by him until a mention like this

I am using this week Chat GPT the free version. It can write and draw, the free version limits me to 15 images a day and I ask it tipo keep track for me

For the Papermill I designed for the friend I had previously done the research on the old fashioned way, search the internet, copy and paste it to my project binder. So I knew the Pacific Northwest Papermill I wanted to represent on the layout. I had some general ideas of production process and how to calculate production needs working from a goal to be produced.

After sone trial and error I decided, work backwards. I told the Ai the mills minimum finished product was 8 boxcars 1965 era 50’ long and maximum of 10 cars per day.

It calculated 8 cars x70 tons ( box car capitcy it found) and came up with 540 finished tons per day. Max for the day 700t. From there I asked how many pulp cars are need to produce 540t per daily. It found the info and did the math almost instantly. Once I had a number I wrote this

I am in the process of designing a HO scale model representing a 1965 era paper mill in the Pacific Northwest. This would be part of an operating model railroad layout but can be operated as a stand alone. The paper mill will have a dedicated mill diesel switcher with a small enginehouse on the complex. The area used would be 24” x 144” or 2’ by 12’.

A good example I want to use is the production data and physical facilities of the Crown Zellerbach paper mill in Everette Washington. Daily production of finished goods typically will be 500 tom700 tons per day on 3 shifts of 8 hours 24/7/365

I want to understand the production process from pulp logs being delivered by rail car to finished product being shipped by railroad box cars.

Compression is a given due to the space limitations. I am not sure at this time what specific process and facilities to highlite so for now we need to understand the production process and what the railroad does to make this happen. I am not going to be concerned about in or outbound truck traffic. I am concentrating in railroad car movement within the paper mill campus

Are there questions you can ask me to have me then ask better questions of you while we work through this project representation of a large business

Willie, In less than 5 minutes we had a plan and later help in designing each building in the complex
Click to expand...
Boy, CZ Everett looks like a great thing to model. Now days it looks like:
Crown.jpg

Pretty easy to model...right? TeeHee

Maria used to work there and I don't remember just now if in production or part of the management team. Will ask what she knows when her eyeballs are open and her hair is not wet.

Anyway, I think that I have some chemical pix of the area taken from West Marine View Drive if you are interested. I will be in the Train Cave later and when my back starts screaming dealing with Pex/Romax, will find the big box of pix and sift through them. Yes, will have knee pads on.

L8r
 


RhB Michael said:
I found that Greenskeeper at both Modellbahn Union and Modellbahn Shop-Lippe. €199+tariffs & shipping.
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Lippe may be cheaper since they take of the VAT for outside of Europe shipments.

Modelbahn Union is the non N scale arm of DM-Toys. They don’t take the VAT off for outside Europe but they had less expensive shipping in my experience. If you’re buying one thing you need to see which way is cheaper. If you’re buying several items then Lippe is almost always cheaper because of the VAT removal and spreading the shipping cost across a lot of items. Their shipping was never outrageous.

Tariffs anyway you go.
 
NYC_George said:
So I had to make a doctor's appointment with a new doctor today. Lots of questions. A sign of the times. She tells me this is new and strange questions, but I have to ask you this. What gender are you? We're you born this gender. Are you still this gender? Do you still identify as this gender. Swal
Click to expand...
It was similar for Dawn. Some hospital box ticker was asking her regarding her medical issues. Most of the questions were ridiculous.
"Why do you want to know?" Dawn asked about the questions.
"I have to have an answer in the box." said the box ticker.
So Dawn gave silly answers.
"What weight are you?"
"I do not know," replied Dawn.
"What weight can you remember?"
"Six pound three ounces."
Box ticker put that in the box.
 
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NYC_George said:
She tells me this is new and strange questions, but I have to ask you this. What gender are you? We're you born this gender. Are you still this gender? Do you still identify as this gender.
Click to expand...
I think that these are required Medicare questions now, not questions that the doctor thinks or wants to ask. It's similar to the depression and falling down questions that they began to ask about a decade ago.
 
I don't know the exact temperature overnight at my house but my watch said 28F for a good portion of the night. We tend to be the same or colder overnight than the watch but warmer during the day or at least the first half of the day. I'm not sure what part of town the watch reports but I think it's the airport (used to be called Salt Lake City#2, don't know what it's called now but it's a GA airport and national guard helicopter base) about 4 miles east, and lower in the valley.

The house has two external sensors -- one I put there that's hooked into the home automation HomeKit system, but is sometimes slow to respond when queried, and one hooked to the home's heating and cooling controller, which is the one I usually look at as the thermostat shows it and I can check it on phone easily without waiting. But they usually agree :)

When I fell out of bed this morning around 9:30am the watch said something. like 36F but the home sensor, which is out of the sun on the N side said 42F. (I was up late working on a course I am taking and then had a spell of not being able to sleep a few hours earlier when I had to make a pee run and then the wife's alarm went off). Right now at 11am, it is 38F on the watch but 48F on the sensor outside.

I think I'll be doing my walks in the afternoons now that it is cold in the morning. Supposed to get to 50F today and mid 60s by the end of the week before veering back to cooler, low 50s.
 
santafewillie said:
I think that these are required Medicare questions now, not questions that the doctor thinks or wants to ask. It's similar to the depression and falling down questions that they began to ask about a decade ago.
Click to expand...

Yeah the pediatrician had a parent survey they give and it's probably all suggested by some oversight board or required by some group (we don't use any govt insurance program so it wouldn't directly be that). A couple questions were about firearms in the house. I always just leave them blank. They don't ask.

We were there a week and a half ago for a High School athletics physical exam. My youngest is a senior and the swim season starts next week.
 


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