Running Bear's December 2018 Coffee Shop


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Good afternoon. 21 degrees early this morning and we are already up into the mid 40's.

IB Ken - Nice to see you checking in. It's been a long time. Hope your ops session was worth all of the trouble you went through. I can appreciate all of the work that it takes to get firewood ready for winter. Willie is another one who hears with wood. Years ago we only used wood to heat out house. I have a national forest right out my front door and enjoyed cutting firewood, but I was also a lot younger. I would cut the wood, pine, to 10 foot lengths, I made a set of stock racks for the pickup and once I was over the top of the cab, the logs were about 15 footers. I could easily get over a cord and a half on a trip. Didn't have to split much because I was able to get plenty that would burn whole which also burns longer. 4 cords would take us through the entire winter. Now were have a gas stove sitting where the wood burner was and my wife likes not having to clean up the mess.

Beady - Keeps the kids on their toes. Years ago when out 2 kids were still quite young, we were walking into out local mall and the guy who was the mall santa was a real good friend with a real natural white beard. As we walked in, Santa said Hi Chet and I managed to catch myself and not respond to his real name and said hi Santa. Both kids spun around to my wife and with fear in their eyes said "Dad knows Santa".

Willie - I can feel for what you are going through with the roads. I have been in our house for the past 41 years and have watched the valley slowly go to pot with all of the newbies moving into the area. Over the years new subdivisions have gone up all around Bozeman and now the traffic can be a nightmare compared to what it used to be. What used to be a 2 lane highway out of town is now 5 lanes. (center turn lane). When I go to town on Friday night for bowling all I can see is a solid stream of headlights leaving town. Nice photos you posted. Keep them coming.

Here's a photo of what I have for log loading. Didn't have enough room to do what I wanted, but it works for me. The number 8 shay is waiting for the main line to clear on the switchback so it can back onto the main line and then into the yard. Tried hard to work the backdrop into the hard shell scenery.

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Later
 
PRR Modeler said:
Willie- Very nice layout pics. What's the industry in the background?
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Curt - Thank you. The main structure is a Walther's "Red Wing Milling Co.", I am using it as a flour mill, but have not yet decided whether to use the Red Wing decals or name it something else. The grain bins and elevator are from Rix Products and the open-air grain unloading shed is scratchbuilt from parts contained in a box that I got in an estate sale. They are mostly from a Walther's "Vulcan Manufacturing" kit. That end of the facility is not complete pending removal to paint the backdrop...silly me, I should have painted it first.
 
Got a tip from a fellow modeler for wheel cleaning.He sprays this stuff on a paper towel and wipes the rails.Hold the running engine in place over the area this was applied.It keeps the wheels clean and getting that black buildup.We ran 9 hours yesterday and 6 hours today and wheels still clean.
 

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Good evening .

Chet ... That is a nice shot of your logging operations.

Regarding Silver Streak kits, below is a wood caboose I put together using a kit for an SP caboose. I made it to resemble a GN caboose.

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Trussrod said:
Louis: When I expanded the picture I realized I've never seen switches with such short points or tight radiuses! Unbelievable.
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David: That's how yard and industrial trackage is. The Baldwin Road Switcher is a six axle unit. Prototype equipment is more tolerant of tight radius curves than model equipment is...part of that is that model curves are tighter to begin with. On the railroad, you learned to make it work.

Concerning the photo Beady posted, it is not that unusual for residential buildings to be that close to the ROW. Two blocks from where I grew up, there were houses adjacent to the PRR's Philadelphia - Washington four track main. before the railroad was elevated in 1903, the tracks were at street level, adjacent to the rear of several blocks of residential structures. Those structures stood for 90 years before they were demolished as part of urban Renewal. Other lines of street railroad ran between rows of houses on either side of a narrow street or alley. Admittedly, that CN switcher was close, but there was a new home built in Dayton, NJ adjacent to the CR Amboy Secondary. The crossing protection blocked a portion of the driveway.

Boris
 
Willie, Chet and Garry: Nice photos guys.

Willie: I really like the flour mill.
Louis: Nice photo of the yard at Altoona. Also Tennessee Ernie's 16 Tons. That was my favorite song when he released it back around 1956 or so, possibly because my father was originally a miner and several other family members still worked as miners.

Boris
 
Boris said:
David: That's how yard and industrial trackage is. The Baldwin Road Switcher is a six axle unit. Prototype equipment is more tolerant of tight radius curves than model equipment is...part of that is that model curves are tighter to begin with. On the railroad, you learned to make it work.

Concerning the photo Beady posted, it is not that unusual for residential buildings to be that close to the ROW. Two blocks from where I grew up, there were houses adjacent to the PRR's Philadelphia - Washington four track main. before the railroad was elevated in 1903, the tracks were at street level, adjacent to the rear of several blocks of residential structures. Those structures stood for 90 years before they were demolished as part of urban Renewal. Other lines of street railroad ran between rows of houses on either side of a narrow street or alley. Admittedly, that CN switcher was close, but there was a new home built in Dayton, NJ adjacent to the CR Amboy Secondary. The crossing protection blocked a portion of the driveway.

Boris
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Boris: that's what you call living with the train for sure! Convenient of course if that's the road you work on?
 
santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. 38° and mostly cloudy with no wind in this part of the universe. Didn't quite get as warm as expected yesterday with a high of only 59.7°, but I'll take it. This morning is as close to freezing that is in the forecast for the next ten days. There are showers in the forecast for Christmas Day. It's extremely rare for us to have a white Christmas, but we had one in 2012 with about 1" that melted overnight. Many years we see no snow at all.
Man, what a beating having to go grocery shopping on Saturday morning is. I was expecting heavier crowds than I usually get on my regular day, Thursday, but this was drastic. Thankfully there were very few kids along for the ride, but the crowd was considerably younger and more connected (on their phones) than normal. They were absolutely not paying attention to fellow shoppers, stopping in the middle of an aisle while talking to someone, etc.
Urbanization is coming to an area close by where I live. Six miles away, there is a rather scenic FM (Farm to Market) road that leads to the town of Sanger TX where we go out to eat occasionally. It is a rather nice and well maintained two lane road with no shoulders, narrow bridges and steep embankments on the side for drainage. It's going to be widened to four lanes with shoulders and center left turn lanes where needed. Currently and for the last few months, the residents all along the north side have been constructing new fences about 100' back from their original fences. Hundreds of trees are going to be razed and as I see it, at least two newly-built brick homes (built in the last 15 years), are going to be bulldozed. In the town itself, there are at least two dozen small businesses that will have to relocate. Offshoot: I will have to start using an alternate route soon, as the orange barrels have appeared along the side of the road meaning one lane controlled traffic is coming soon. While the alternate route is actually shorter, the roads are less than well-maintained and you may encounter very large and hard to pass farm equipment during daylight hours. Another alternate route takes me through another small town with several school zones to deal with.

Thanks for all of the very kind comments regarding yesterday's post with the GP60's; Joe, Garry, Mike, Karl, David, Sherrel, Chet, Curt, and anyone else that I may have missed.

Meanwhile out in the train shed yesterday, it was just another average day. Running trains, a little (very little) scenicking (Johnny's word) and some general cleanup of the shed. How about a pair of SD40-2's pulling a mixed freight around the layout?
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They are Athearn models that I haven't weathered yet.

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Here they're approaching a pair of Kato SD45's waiting on the siding in the outskirts of the town of Vernon.
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David - I meant to include a Happy Birthday to you yesterday. Better late than never. Happy Birthday!
Garry - Many thanks. I am hoping to get my layout to the completion level of yours in the next few years.
Sherrel - Hope that you're feeling better soon. Nothing like being under the weather for Christmas.
Beady - Any idea whether that is a photo-shopped picture or the real thing? I have seen industrial trackage in Pensacola FL that ran that close to structures, but I didn't see where it went when it curved off out of the way.
Curt - Nice touch naming that pass after Jeffrey.
Ken - Good to see you here in the Coffee Shop again. Cutting/hauling/stacking firewood is one of my year-round forms of exercise!
Tom - Great pictures.

OK Louis, Today is the Third Sunday of Advent, lest you forget!:rolleyes:
Everybody have a great day.
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Willie: ,No problem, I figured you just got busy, but I do appreciate you're mentioning to let me know, thanks it's appreciated.
 
Good morning Everybody!

Another busy day, but no was my answer to Amazon yesterday. I'm a contractor, I work at will :)

This my grand niece Cecilia's letter to Santa
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Her Mom, my Niece helped guide her hand as she wrote it, but the list was all her ideas. Cecilia is only in pre-K.
Santa is sending her a Lionel Polar Express and the movie via Amazon.
Her Mom and Dad are in the process of searching for a house to buy. I didn't want anyone to worry she was homeless :)
What the eggs are for I can only guess, but she does love eggs.

I have a lot to do, I may need to make a trip to MB Klein's. I hope not I don't have time to drive 20 minutes each way.

The pink candle is lit, I'm running out of time and moving slower then usual.
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How to punish yourself when you have gout: eat too much ham for dinner and later snack on mixed nuts! Needless to say I'll be walking a little bit slower for a day or two.

That reminds me, years ago, before kidney disease I took medication to prevent gout flare ups. My Pharmacist is from Egypt and he tells me "you have the disease of Kings" I say "wtf?" he says "in my country we say only a king can eat enough meat to get gout". Well, that makes me feel better, not! In America we are all kings and like they said in Mel Brooks' movie "the history of the world", "it's good to be the king"

Have a great day Everybody!

PS I'm sorry I did not reply to many of the great posts, too much to do and time is running short.
 
Good morning Track Layers.

It not so cool this morning. 50°F with a considerable chance o rain till 9:00 Am.
 
I think the Tsunami (series 1) decoder in my P2k SD45 might be going bad. Has never been too good volume wise, but I'd read that was a problem with them somewhere. I had adjusted the speed curve to apply more power early to try to better consist it with the Athearn SD40's. Seemed to be helping. Yesterday at the club I ran it with 2 of them, pulling a not very long train (about 10 - 12" long) and it appeared to start dragging it's feet (wheels) after a while. Power drops do seem to occur at times on the layout, so didn't take a lot of notice.

Got around to the main yard (fiddle/staging) again which is where the boosters are, and where the Auto light bulb short circuit protection also is. I had stopped the train short of them, but on starting to move, I noticed 2 of the bulb filaments start to glow and more so as I increased the throttle. Normally a derailment will stop the trains till it's fixed and the bulbs will light up brightly. This was just a glimmer, increasing to a glow. Checked all wheels for being off, they were OK. Applied a bit of throttle to step 1, which caused a slight glow and checked each loco by tilting it off the track, Sure enough, the SD45 when tilted, the glow went out. Deleted it from the consist and removed it, the other 2 having enough traction to pull the train up the grades.

A thought occurred to me as I'm writing, that maybe it's picked up something off the track, stuck between the wheels or somewhere, causing the effect, or maybe a pickup wire is nipped. I don't like Auto bulbs as short circuit protection for DCC, but, they did alert me to a possible fault.
 
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Our Cyclone has moved off the coast a bit and become slow moving up north. Still packing lots of rain, but expected to move away. We've had no effect from it, but the upper level trough has been causing the most rain fall to the inland areas, one receiving 24.5" (623mm) in a 24 hr period from 9:00AM Saturday morning over the weekend, with a foot of that in 5 hours, Saturday night. There are warnings to watch out for Crocodiles in the water. One was spotted on a road by Police who went to help stranded people. There are still warnings in place for my region (Moreton Bay) from this trough, so we're not out of it yet.
Down south, the storms there have moved off the coast, but tonight they're saying another system is moving across from the west.
 
Toot, good news; but, still somewhat worrisome, keep us posted! I know there is a reason for my putting up with the cold weather. No Hurricanes, small and very rare Earthquakes and occasional Tornadoes and I'm far more likely to get killed sliding off the road, from ice, than getting eaten by a Crocodile! I suppose I could get eaten by a wolf; or, black bear! However, I don't consider those methods of death as much of a threat.

Weather: 10 degrees predicted high 32 degrees, Sky cover Clear and sunny, wind 0 from N.E., No Precipitation, Barometer 30.32 and falling over the next three days.

Unsure how you can say a wind with 0 wind speed can be out of the N.E.; but, I just report the weather, I don't make up the weather reports!
 
Here's a "shorty" vid of 2 MRL GP35's on Bozeman pass with a "shorty train". Their GP35's have 645 motors, so are more like GP40's in fact

 
Now here's a somewhat longer vid with 2 much longer trains at Austin, Montana, meeting at the big curve at the bottom of Mullan Pass. Interesting is the NS additions to the BNSF trains. Volume up for these, especially for the 5 MRL ACe's in the middle of the "up" train.

 
Good morning. Clear and 41.
I seem to have damaged something while plowing snow. Out of work since Friday, with more dr visits scheduled. We'll see if the company will allow a workers comp claim.
 
Terry, I'm sorry to hear about your injury. I hope your employer does the right thing. More importantly I hope you feel better and recover 100%.
 
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