Running Bear's Coffee Shop LXVII


Ken: Great video of the coal drag. I'm fond of unit trains of any type.

Nice work.

Wish I had the room for a layout that you have to work with.

Greg
 
Just finished work on the empire for the day. When I initially ballasted the sorting yard, I put a little to much ballast down. The rolling stock and locos were rolling up onto the ballast causing all kinds of problems. I used the wet water to soften up the ballast then just scraped it away from the ties and rail. Ran a couple cars and a loco back and forth through the yard to test it for smooth roll. Just have a couple more tracks to do and that job will be done.
I keep looking at the bridge and trying to figure out where I left off and what the procedure was for building the cat walks. That is some tedious work.
 
Get some luggage labels with "I was here" on them and tie them to where you got to each time you leave it.
 
Sirfoldalot said:
Well Sports Fans and Model Rail Roaders - What do you know ... good, decent night's sleep and zero trips to the potty last night!
That hasn;t happened in a VERY long time! I doubt that it will happen again anytime soon, but I just cannot describe how much better it makes me feel. Just have to NOT overdo anything today.

I'm glad thay you all have enjoyed the "fritters" that I brought along yesterday .. have to remember to pick up more the next early riser that I do. I love apple fritters almost as much as doughnuts! Spousal Unit was up with me yesterday morning - she took #1 grandson to Disneyland for the day, was there when they opened the gate at 7:30 and came dragging in the door here at midnight! It was their last hurrah before school starts again. Ex SIL gripes, complains, and throws a fit if g son misses a day of school like you would not believe - what an a hole he has turned out to be! My folks took me out of school many times .. sometimes making up the work was a drag, but they believed that I gained much knowledge of the world which was good too- might have been what prompted me to spend most of my life traveling the world, huh?

OK, Seems I always get distracted and on other subjects. I repaired the water feture of the fountain which had not worked in over a year and then repaired a couple of extension cords that I had sawnthrough by being in a hurry and not paying attention. Dang it's nice to get in m truck and nt have the headliner sitting on my head! Need to take it down and see what $ they want to paint it today.
Weather was 95 yesterday and expecting 94 today - no clouds at all!

I'll try and ramble more later .. I'm sure that you all are waiting with baited breath?

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Sherrel I for one like to hear your ramblings, even if I don't have time to reply.

I'm very happy to hear about your good night, I know first hand how much of a difference it can make.


bnsf971 said:
https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Version-Wi-Fi-Extender-WN3000RP/dp/B004YAYM06
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Terry my son bought one of these gadgets, not sure what brand it was, but he loves it. My son has so many connected devices the data mining companies probably just call him by his first name. God knows he uses more bandwidth than any 10 people should.

montanan said:
Louis - If the price is reasonably on that old farm house, it could be a decent deal. Sort of like the HGTV show "House Hunters Renovation" which I like a lot. 30 some years ago I had a good friend buy an old home like that and it really turned into a dream home. We worked on it for around 6 months. It had the old knob and tube wireing which we replaced. Brought the electrical service up to a 200 amp service. It only had one bathroom, but the house was large enough that with some moving of walls a master bath was built and a huge walk in closet which his wife fell in love with.

It also had no central heating, but only had one fire place. We brought natural gas to the house and built his wife a gourmet kitchen. With the help of many friends, the house was completed. He still lives there and wouldn't move for anything. We recently installed a Rinnai tankless water heater like we have at out place. Of course, this was 30 years ago, and he got the house with 12 acres for $6,700. renovations cost him around $7,500 for materials, and with a lot of free labor (and beer) it was completed. It was recently appraised at $850,000. It was a long process but well worth the time and effort. With all the people that have been moving into the area in recent years a bare one acre lot can go in the mid $50,000 range.
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Chet, the farm house looks like a deal too good to pass up at $89,000. The relators estimate if it was completely updated it would be in the $750,000 range. Only problem I have is they want me to go fast and over bid. I might miss the deal, but I won't hurry up and f&%k up. I can't take on that much work as most of my get up and go has gotten up and went. I am having some contractors look at to give me an idea how much the renovations will cost. If I miss out, oh well. I'll be fine.

Market value in Baltimore has been slow to come back after the bubble burst. I'd have to liquidate some assets that have provided me with a steady flow of income. Lots to consider, time to make a spread sheet to analyze the entire deal.

I've been renting this property for almost 13 years. When my health failed I had to reduce expenses and I knew these people from prior business dealings. They offered me this place with a life-time automatically renewable lease. My rent has not gone up in 13 years. I need that stability and this area, Dundalk is not a high dollar neighborhood. Lower middle class really. I love it here, I've been very happy here, thank God.

That reminds me of what my Mom said about my Christmas lights last year. Ok, I get a bit crazy with Christmas lights. My Mom commented "as long as you like it, nobody else cares, it's only Dundalk" :) That's my Mom :)

If you remember I was offered by my land lords to buy one of their properties. It's the one I went to look at Monday. It is not yet on the market and they offered it to me for $52,000 below market value, according to the relators and my own research. I told him I would call again tomorrow and I would not be upset if he reconsiders, that's a lot of money. If he has not changed his mind I will buy the house. That place will give me about 800 square feet for my trains once my son moves out and his wife assures me it won't be long.

My boy ran himself into debt, Impala, Camaro, Equinox, all loaded with all the bells and whistles. Not to mention, vacations and every computer/electronic gadget and gizmo known to man. He never missed or was late on a payment. Since he has been married he really took charge of his debt and is now almost debt free! I can only imagine what kind of palace he and his wife will buy. My boy has to have the best of everything. He is like me when I am buying trains. Only difference, he is like that in everything he buys! Trains are an anomaly with me, I'm otherwise cheap!

To be honest all my kids could have stayed with me forever, but I know they want their own place. I am just proud of them for staying until they each bought their own place. Two out of three are home owners and the last one will soon be too!
 
Sirfoldalot said:
OK ... No Excuses Now! You need a Super Chief pulled by a matched A-B-B-A set of F-3's.
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I do have the DayLight Southern Pacific pulled by an E8A and a couple E8Bs and the Zepher pulled by an AB F3 set. Both are BLI sets. They both look awesome on the broad sweeping curves.
 
Good evening, everybody ...

Ken D&J ... 3751 looks good, and so does the layout.

Sirfoldalot said:
OK ... No Excuses Now! You need a Super Chief pulled by a matched A-B-B-A set of F-3's.
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Sherrel ... I know you were not talking to me, but I do have a Super Chief with F-3 ABBA power. It is still not converted to DCC, however, and it is in storage because of that. ... Another "round tuit".
 
Ken D&J Like to see a video of the SP's running. Wish that you had PA's pulling though. I grew up bout a quarter mile from the Cotton Belt and used to hang out near the depot when the once each way daily train came by. A single PA, baggage, mail, combine, and 2 or three coach cars. Sometimes the PA's were Cotton Belt - sometimes Southern Pacific!

Garry- Long as you have it "round toit" by the time we make our Easterly trip (may be next year) -- Git er done!
I saw a lot of Kentucky from about 1000' when I was ferrying airplanes for Piper in the early 60's. I still remember refuling stops at places like Bowling Green and how beautiful the country was - want to see it again!

Here;s ashot of the San Bernardino train accross the LA River while we were on the Perris train.

River view 1.jpg
 
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Good evening. Just a few quick words before bedtime.

Eric and Johnny - looks like you guys are at exciting milestones with your layouts, enjoy it while you can!

Louis - best of luck on buying the new property, whichever one it turns out to be.

new guy said:
... The Shingles is as bad as you have ever heard it was, the backside of it takes two and a half weeks and it STILL feels like a GIANT hand is SQUEEZING my left chest. If I was not sure it has shingles I'da thought I was having a heart attack, that stuff ain't no joke!
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Bruce - at least your suffering hasn't been totally in vain! When I read about it, that convinced me to finally get my @$$ over to CVS and get myself a Shingles vaccination - after my doctor advised me to do it 2 years ago. I'm glad I got it, but was really PIST when I learned my med insurance wouldn't cover it...WTF!?:mad: It's a potentially crippling condition if you get it, would they rather pay for more complex medical treatment if I get inflamed nerves?

* * *

[I just lost a few more paragraphs of entered text because my hand brushed across the touchpad and bumped my browser back to the previous web page. I'm too exhausted and frazzled to try to retype it all, so I'm off to bed now.]
 
Good morning. It's cloudy and 68.

I just made an interesting discovery over on that auction site. I clicked on an item, and the payment requirement was for a debit or credit card, NO PAYPAL. And I checked, just to see how that worked. Sure enough, Paypal was not provided as a payment method. I guess requiring a seller accept Paypal only has changed.
Here's a link to the sale, if anybody wants to see what I'm talking about: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Broadway-Lt...%3Ad0ca960215d0a86681155ce4fff9860f%7Ciid%3A1
 
Good Morning: Have been up for an hour already - so ran out and grapped more Apple Fritters and another dozen plain glazed doughnuts - enjoy!

Had a pretty good evening/night. Would have been nicer if I could have stayed asleep a couple more hours.
Accomplished taking down the side gate (wooden) and cut 1/2 inch off the bottom and then rehung it. It was dragging and was hard to close. I finally decided to get it done yesterday morning while the temp was still cool. Then I spent an hour searching for the debit card for the "just opened" bank account for the house payment - still have not found it along with 2 identical 4 inch buck knifes. For some reason I keep hiding things from myself - getting old playing this game.

Ken in MD - I keep losing txt all the time by "brushing" the touchpad. I'm on the ASUS this morning and it's terrible about that. No one can shut off the touchpad - several have tried?

Terry - listing is interesting? I also noticed this at the bottom of that listing ... my mouth is watering and drooling!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HO-BLI-BROA...d=122620637257&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851
BLI - Good, BAD, or indifferent?
 
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