Running Bear's Coffee Shop LXXII


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Morning Everyone:
Weather is looking more like the beginning of summer already. Another 40* this morning going up to 84* they say (another repete from yesterday, Willie). The quote remains: "Dry conditions will continue".

Have to make something to take to our Bunco group Superbowl Party tomorrow. I will partake of the festivus, but could care less who wins - and as usual - will leave the room for the halftime show. I used to go outside and smoke, but don't do that anymore. Happened to park next to someone who was smoking yesterday; I just stood there for a minute thinking how wonderful the smoke smelled. Nope! I wouldn't go back to that for anything - happened to glance at the smoke rack in the grocery store and nearly fainted at the $7.95 a pack!

I'm just the opposite in the store - I go in with 5 things on my list and come out with a basket full! Can't help it - Everything just looks GOOD, lol.

I'm just really down in the dumps all last night and today thinking about Terry and his wife. Just really sad, and bad news. I just really hate that there has to be such things as this in the world that we live in. I wish that it were not so.
 
No train stuff with the winnnings, half my windfall went to help pay winter taxes on the house and the rest saw us through the trip with gas and food. It was just a crumb...LOL
 
Terry - just now getting caught up, somewhat. I'm very sorry to hear about your wife's troubles. You'll have my prayers and I'll add you to the prayer list at church in the morning. God bless you both.

Jesse
 
new guy said:
No train stuff with the winnnings, half my windfall went to help pay winter taxes on the house and the rest saw us through the trip with gas and food. It was just a crumb...LOL
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I hear you. It sounded good though.

Jesse
 
Terry, I'm sorry to hear about your wife. My dad was on dialysis for about four years before receiving a transplant in 1983. Back then he had to go to Jacksonville, IL three times a week for his dialysis. Things have changed for the better since that time but I know it's still a life-changing event. Stay strong and you two will get through this together.

PLEASE, everyone reading this should consider signing up to be a donor. It's quick and easy and could transform someone's life! Everyone in our families have been donors since 1978 as soon as they were old enough to sign up for it. You may just end up being somebody's hero!
 
Good Morning Everyone. Lukewarm this morning at 48° and mostly cloudy, might even be foggy at daybreak later. It will be nice until around sunset when the 25 mph+ winds from the North return. 70% chance of thundershowers Tuesday. After Mass later today, I will be trimming firewood for the rest of winter. Wood is already rough cut but needs to be trimmed to length to fit through the door of the wood-burning heater.
Out in the train shed, I fine-tuned the structure layout in that small town business district and determined some ancillary stuff like parking lots, fences, alleys, etc. I ran some trains and cleaned some (about 24) freight cars. According to my cleaning records (yes I am anal about records); in the new shed, I am able to go about 4.5 years between dusting except for black tankers. In the old train room they barely made a year before being noticeably dusty. In the process, I ran across two more cars that needed plastic wheel replacement. Done! Best guesstimate is that I now have less than 50 cars that still need metal wheels, and ten of them are in a seldom run MOW train that will be last to get replacements.

Justin - Nice score on the hoppers and an even better price.
Jesse - Nice score as well, three for one is hard to beat.
Bruce - Congratulations on the casino win.
Joe - I really appreciate being able to read your posts regarding NE railroading from an insiders point of view. Thanks.
Sherrel - Your cigarette recollection reminds me that I quit smoking in 1970 when the price took a 10% leap from 30¢ to 33¢ per pack. As a poor college student, I couldn't justify it anymore. Not sure if I ever really liked it to begin with.

Everybody have a great Sunday. I have a busy day sorta planned and it does not include the TV.

Willie
 
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Good morning. It's 33 and raining.
Thanks fir the good thoughts, I'm sure it's going to be a challenge going forward.
 
Another wild temperature swing again this morning! It was 33 degrees at 4:30 when I got up to let the dog out. The front came through soon after, and by 7:30 it had dropped to 19 degrees, and still falling.
 
Good morning .... 39*F here. Cloudy. ... Ill have coffee and a pecan roll, please.

Another Amtrak accident..... Head on crash with CSX freight train in Souther Carolina. 2 fatalities reported.

Terry.... You are welcome, of course. We care. Will your wife be able to travel with you ?

Burlington Bob ... That was thoughtful of you and excellent advice about signing up to be a donor.

Sherrel .... I'm a bit like that. .... I'll shop with a list, but when I pass through the bakery section,...... I can't resist at least one scrumptious goody. .... I have a balanced diet. Half nutrition, and half junk food.

Willie .... I still have some cars with plastic wheels, but most have been changed over. I keep new metal wheels on hand, and if I am working on a freight car, I change wheels while it is on the work table.
 
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Morning Everyone: Had a devil of a time drifting off to sleep last evening - usually I can't hardly keep my eyes open after 9PM, but last night was an exception. Did some yard work yesterday and could not get confortable - finally took an Advil around 2AM and slept soundly afterwards.
OK - I am declaring that Winter is over! 40* again heading up to 85* today. Not a cloud anywhere in sight and the winds are showing SSW at "ZERO"!
Spousal Unit had MIL duty until Tuesday and I am heading to the Bunco Party this afternoon. Decided that my contribution, other than my normal losing on the "score chart", will be a huge platter of deviled eggs. I have made them before and the platter usually is empty in short order; this time I will take two platters, HA!

On the Railroad front - I managed to open a box that had not been touched since my first "D" in 1985. It had lots of track supplies in it: code 100 points, frogs (I once built my own switches in place), track gauges, NMRA - HO, O, On3 and a few other old Atlas turnouts.
Damn -- I sure wish that I had not sold my Kadee Spiker .. and I had two bricks of spikes.
I shall see what else I can "discover"?
 
Slow day at Timonium today. Very thin crowd, probably because it's snowing now.
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Good afternoon y'all. Been a cold and rainy day today. Thought I'd share my most recent score.

At the risk of Sherrel threatening to send the men in white coats after me like when Justin was agonizing over a track plan, I am pleased to present my "new" diner... version 3.0.

Decided that the circus cars were too nice to be as mundane as a diner, so I bought an actual dining car instead. Haven't made up my mind what to do with the circus train yet, but the coach I originally planned to use is going to find a new home on an abandoned and forgotten siding. Probably with some hobos in residence. Hope everyone is having a great day. If you're watching the game, enjoy. If you could care less, share pics of your railroading adventures.
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Jesse
 
Jesse - That is a nice looking rail car.
Glad to hear that you will leave the circus train intact!
I'm keeping the "men in the white coats" standing by for Justin - just in (pun) case!
 
Afternoon All,

Did some chores and errands today. Afterwards I relocated the chimney hole in the roof so it will line up with the outside chimney brick I will be adding (when the extra brickwork arrives). I spent about 90 minutes putting on shingles that are provided with the kit. It's a very slow process and as you can see they aren't the straightest.

Justin- Looks like a great deal.

Jesse- Nice looking cars. The diner will work out well and so will the hobo scene. One time I had a EMS call on a parked circus train car in south Orlando. They had made a lot of small cubicles (bedrooms) all in plywood with a very narrow hallway. If there had ever been a fire that car would be a death trap.

Bruce- Congrats on the winnings. I've never had much luck gambling.

Sherrel- I have a couple of boxes like that.

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I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Ok apparently I have some track level issues. No matter what I do I still have a derail in the same spot. Looks like it's shim time! I'm gonna win one way or another.

Justin
 
Greetings from ice-covered central MD! The weather guessers got it wrong this time, temp was supposed to go up to 38*F by noon today. Well...it didn't; it barely made it to 33*, and I don't think my property ever got above the freezing mark (usually 2-3* colder than what the Weather Channel says). I'll have to spread rock salt on my sidewalk so SWMBO doesn't slip and break her angle again!

I'm keeping a close watch on the discharge pipe of my sump pump - I want to make sure every ounce of water drains away from the opening so it won't form an ice clog like it did in early January. I dug a drainage channel after the thaw, today I had to clear away some leaves and other debris that were damming it up.

Mighty quiet in here tonight - I guess the Super Bowl has most of us preoccupied...

Terry - have you or your wife connected with any online support groups for people on dialysis [and their partners]?

Curt - your tower roof looks great! Hopefully someday I will be able to super-detail my layout structures; but for now, the 3-foot rule will have to suffice.

Jesse - that dining car looks like it will make an excellent restaurant! Does it have interior detail?

Justin - good luck with that track issue. At least it's just that one spot, I'm sure you'll get it working. Are you securing your track with nails thru the ties? If so, that might throw your rails out of gauge if the nail is pressed down too hard (i.e. bending the tie). But you probably already knew that...

* * *

As for mrr news, I finally got my #118 Kadee's and installed them on all my 86ft hi-cube boxcars that needed them; that appears to have resolved the unwanted separation problem. After that, I finished pre-staging all the cars to be used for the op session. In times past, I would do a rehearsal run of every single planned train to catch any potential "gotchas"; I don't think I'll have enough time for that this go-round. But I definitely will test every train that includes auto racks and 86-footers, especially the moves that involve pushing them thru yard trackage.
 
Sherrel - Thank you. After doing some research I learned that the 70s were the heyday for the carnival. And since that works with my planned era, I'm going to start building my circus train collection for my own Midway on a future layout.

Curt - Thank you. I'm looking forward to making the hobo scene. I'm even thinking of leaving the coach in her Pennsy colors. Just faded, rusted, and worn out since it will be a long forgotten car tucked away in BFE. Lol.

Justin - Good luck. I hope you get it figured out before Sherrel makes his call to the men in white. Lol.

Jesse
 
Ken in MD - Thank you. I'm not sure about the detail yet. No info in the description about it and can't tell from the pics that were with it. If so, cool. If not, I'm going to add them. I'm hoping it's bare so I can add what I want in it.

Speaking of mrr news. I swapped out a coupler on my diesel the other night to see if the circus train would run on my curves. That's a big fat no. Too tight. But the point of that story was to set this one up. N scale coupler springs are like ballistic missiles. They also seem to be manufactured using stealth technology. I lost 2. Spent some time looking, then gave up. I'm changing them anyway. Thinking about metal and electromagnetic decoupling on my spurs and branch lines. I know most of y'all are HO, but does anyone have experience with n scale body mounts? And can they be installed on Bachmann locos?

Jesse
 
Jesse ... I like the Santa Fe Diner a lot. In fact, I had one a long time ago while I was briefly modeling in N Scale. It is remarkable you could buy one at such a low price.

Ken in MD.... I’m not watching the Super Bowel. (Intentionally. Misspelled ) Count me as one who was not happy with certain players being disrespectful of our national anthem.

After all the work on the layout, I’m getting back to running trains now. Several electrical gremlins have invaded apparently. So I have a lot of troubleshooting to do.
 
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