Running Bear's December 2018 Coffee Shop


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Bruette, Not meaning to cause friction; however, I pay no attention to Football, even though I am from the land of the Minnesota Vikings! My better half and I want the Football season to end as soon as possible and find the preemption of shows on Sunday night due to Footbal to be a genuine pain in the butt. Other people from this state are true fans like from most other states; but, I am not! I feel I should end this discussion now before all the fan's get overly protective of what they may term as what "Makes America Great, Again"!

I'm right there with ya Mark! I could give a rats toocas about football. I subscribe to the Ernest Hemmingway theory, that " There are only 3 sports. Bull fighting, mountain climbing and auto racing. Everything else is just a game."

besides, its more fun being a Ferroequinologist!
 
Good Morning All. 31° with clear skies. Looks like winter is here with temperatures ranging from the mid-30's to upper 50's for the next ten days. No snow in that range. I'll take that over Mark, Chet, Tom or Greg's weather any time. Of course, remember last June when I was reporting 110°+ for quite a few days. Skipped the grocery/beer trek this week, since we weren't home four days and I did purchase beer on one of our outings. I need to consume more from the freezer for a few days.
Lots of activity in the train shed yesterday, after four days of minimal time out there. Ran trains, repaired a freight car that I knocked on the floor recently, did some more freight car inspection, ballasted another six feet of main line, went through the bag of figures posted yesterday and selected a few that can go onto the layout without any rework, and I daydreamed. On a switching run yesterday, I exchanged an empty tanker of gasoline for a full one at a fuel distributor, picked up a boxcar of furniture and spotted a boxcar of lumber at a furniture manufacturer. pulled an empty boxcar at a chemical distributor and left off another one loaded with drums of something, exchanged full grain hoppers for empties at the grain elevator, left a full reefer of frozen food at the cold storage warehouse and took away an empty and also switched boxcars at two other as yet unnamed warehouses. My current switching scheme almost always involves trading cars at an industry. I will eventually develop something involving frequencies and not always switch everything in town on every turn.

Mike - Interesting video regarding the porch pirates. I watched without the sound so I may have missed something, but if he didn't turn the video over to the police, it would seem to be an expensive endeavor. Much easier to fill the box with used kitty litter.
Patty Duke - Yes, yes, yes!
Chet - Yes on the figures. I am basically treating the whole package as unpainted. Their color selection is horrid in many cases. But I still very much appreciated the gift coming from the same son who gave me a wooden coaling tower a few years ago. Hint: I don't own a steam engine and I model late 70's to early 90's.
Was yesterday's rail photo a picture or a painting?
Sherrel -
while I try and sell some covered calls to help make up some of the horrendous beat down in the market. :mad:
Hope that you didn't panic too soon. While the last two days may just be an anomaly and may not be sustainable, it did erase some losses. I'm still down for the year, just not as much. I almost panicked and my wife insisted that I move her Roth IRA holdings to safe guaranteed funds, but that was less than 2% of the overall kitty. As I have stated before, I don't intend to lock in my losses. Everyone else's situation is different.
Greg - I too listen to music in the train shed. I use an I-pod with 30,000 songs on it playing randomly.
Mark - For many years I had the same issues with my mailbox, especially as it is 1.25 miles away. It finally got resolved when the new property owner behind the rag-tag collection of eleven mailboxes there moved in, (just too tempting for vandals), He built a large brick mailbox stand for all eleven of us, without any advance notice.
Louis - Nice shot of the Cowboy jersey. Let's see, Super Bowl wins: Dallas Cowboys 6, Washington Redskins 3, Baltimore Ravens 2. Hmmmh!
They haven't been America's team since the man with the hat retired.
Don't count Jimmy Johnson out!
Disclaimer: I no longer watch professional football for reasons other than kneeling during the national anthem, although that re-affirmed my position.

Well, I've rambled on long enough. Everybody have a great day and an even greater weekend coming up. I do miss weekends since I retired!:)
 
Good morning. 17 degrees and dark outside and overcast. Hope Mark missed the blizzard that was forecast in Minnesota.

The dogs survived their trip to the vet yesterday. It was a bit comical to watch them huddled together in the car shaking like there was an earthquake.

Curt - You hit a sore spot with me when you brought up FedEx. We live in whjat used to be a rural area and do not get mail delivery and use a post office box for mail. A few years ago, the county did a new GIS survey for police and fire and although we live near the town of Gallatin Gateway, the official address is listed as Bozeman. FedEx sometimes delivers packages to the post office instead of our home. I have gotten into the habit of listing both the physical address in Gallatin Gateway and the post office box for a shipping address. For some reason, some shippers will reject the physical address in Gallatin Gateway and the Bozeman address will have to be used. This doesn't work as the packages sometimes go the the post office in Bozeman and is returned by that post office as undeliverable because we do not get mail delivery. There is mail delivery to our area from the Bozeman post office but we have had the same address here for 41 years, and it would be3 a major pain in the a** to change the address. We do get delivery to the house if the shipper recognizes the Gallatin Gateway address. WTF !!!

When we first built here, we did not have a physical address or even a street name. Back then I had a Walthers dealership and they shipped using UPS. At first they said they couldn't deliver to me, but after some coaxing, they did ship. I knew the UPS driver and there was no problem at all. We owned a newspaper in Big Sky, MT at the time which is where the UPS drivers route started and worked his way back to town. If we were in the office, he would deliver to our office or deliver to the house. I even had him deliver to me when he notice my pickup parked in front of Stacey's bar when I was having a cold one.

Louis - Like the old photo of Baltimore. Thumb up.gif

Willie
- You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned those figures from China totally needing a repaint and treating them as unpainted. Sounds like you enjoy switching duties also. I believe that yesterday's rail shot was a painting.

When it comes to sports, I'm not much of a fan. I used to play and watch baseball, but when the major league banned Pete Rose from baseball, I lost interest. We used to have season tickets for the Miami Dolphins when we lived in Florida and even had Sunday Ticket on DirecTV, but the prices kept going up for the subscription and we dropped it and then when the players started the kneeling crap when the National Anthem was being played, there went football. Sunday is NASCAR day for me any way.

I did get one of my procrastination projects started yesterday. Got Stacey's Old Faithful bar started. I have some window shades somewhere for the second story windows and will try to find some sort of photo for the bar area so it doesn't look empty.

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Here's a rail picture for today.

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Later
 
Good morning, y'all. We have weather at the Jersey Shore too. 50° and wet with sporadic rain squalls . How's that for being poetic?

Believe I'm caught up with the forums.

Louis: Guess Athearn has run out of standard color schemes to do, so they are coming out with oddballs. Oddly enough, the cab appears to be done in Conrail Blue. Different if nothing else.
Willie: While I no longer have any real interest in football, I was attracted to the whining sound coming from Cleveland, concerning Art Modell's moving "HIS" team from Cleveland to Baltimore where they became the Ravens. They need to get over it. They still have a team called the Browns.
Interesting factoid, the Cleveland Browns were the second Major league professional sports team named the "Browns" to relocate to Baltimore and be renamed for a bird. the first was the St. Louis Browns who became the Baseball Orioles. Also, when counting Championships, remember Baltimore also had a Grey Cup winner, the Stallions, which filled the need between the Colts and Ravens. No other American city can claim that.

On the financial front, while I need to rebalance my Portfolio, I have no intention of selling and locking in my losses. Short term investing is a gamble, and what we are seeing is short term speculation and short selling, in an effort to make a fast buck by panicking retail investors. Over the long term, buy and hold makes more money. We saw this panic in 2008, and we should have learned from that, as it was not so long ago. My cash position is too high, considering that money market yields are still too low.

Mark: I fully agree with your comments about football, but I'm surprised that while you live in the "State of Hockey", you are interested in "Beisbol".

BTW, your local team the "Twins", was the original Washington Senators owned by Calvin Griffith. The second Washington Senators, became the Texas Rangers.

In addition to my interest in Railroads and Model Railroading, I am also somewhat of a "Fire Buff". I follow my old employer, the Chester, PA., Bureau of Fire, through the IAFF Local site, and a site that transmits real time fire dispatches from the county 9-1-1 center. Sometimes, my interests cross paths, like yesterday afternoon, when there was a small fire along the roofline of a 100+ year old riverfront industrial structure that houses a paper packaging company. The structure is located adjacent to the ROW of the Conrail Chester Industrial Track, which happens to be the line I am modeling. Someone took some photos of the fireground operation and was kind enough to upload them to the IAFF web page. The photos show a great deal of structure detail and industrial background, which can be very useful to a model railroader.

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Note the stone foundation, bricked up windows and doors and fencing across the old upper story freight doors of the structure as well as the roofline. Also note the tedious aftermath as the firefighters break down, and repack the water supply and attack hose lines in the aftermath of the fire.
Could this be the start of another challenging modeling project?

Boris
 
Chet: Love the photo of Stacey's Bar. The daily track photo is nice and tranquil. Finally, I live in a Metropolitan Suburb of New York. Hardly out in the boonies, yet occasionally, I'm told my address (same for 32 years), is incorrect and cannot be delivered to. Yet USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, and Amazon deliver here on a regular basis. ...:rolleyes:

Boris
 
Good morning, everybody ..

All those OOGAH, OOGAH's
......

Ray ... Instead of Toot, Toot ! .... LOL

Willie ... Regarding the stock market . When there is a downturn, we simply ride it out. We rode out the 2000 Dot Com Bubble Burst and the 2008 Financial Crisis. Over the long term, the trend is upward.

Chet .... I like the bar you are putting on your layout. I think if I did it, I would call it Old Faceful . ... The track photo of the day is worth studying to get ideas on how to make our tracks look more real.

Boris ... You are right , the photos you posted do show a lot of detail we could include in model buildings. Thanks for sharing the pictures.
 
Good Morning Everyone.....Over-cast and damp here in this part of Wisconsin.

We're having several new windows installed to replace the original 40 year old plus Builder's Specials windows that leak water and air. Winter isn't the best time to replace windows, but the crew is working fast to at least have the new windows back in place to reduce heat loss while the trim inside and out is replaced. We're replacing the windows for creature comfort since the cost of new windows will never off-set the savings realised in HVAC costs with new windows.

Train time later today since yesterday was not a good day for me to be in the layout room.

My wife keeps insisting that I go to Hobby Lobby for some of my layout needs and she likes to buy Woodland Scenic "people and details" for the layout. Our local Hobby Town went out of business shortly after Hobby Lobby moved in across the street. Hobby Town had a lot of the basic, glue, paint and materials that I use on the layout.

I rejoined the NMRA association using their $19.00 special trial membership and I must note that many of the NMRA videos that I've seen offer a lot of new knowledge and tips on using various methods and products. Yesterday, I watched a video on using Pan Pastels which was very informative. I started using Pan Pastels and now prefer them over other types of powders. The Pastels seem to have more holding power and don't fade away when using a flat finish to seal the model's surface where other powers fade away after a coating of flat finish. I'll consider paying for a full NMRA membership when this trial membership ends.

That's all to report for today.

Greg

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weathered SOO Caboose.jpg

This old caboose has seen better days.
 
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Joe - Interesting photos. It would be neat to try to model building like this. The DPM kit I used for Stacey's looks so much like many of the old building in downtown Bozeman. Most of the older building are two, with a few three story building that could probably be modeled using DMP kits as is or lightly kit bashed.

Greg - I'm sure you'll like the new windows. A few years back we did a major home improvement project. Some times we'll get some high winds coming out of the canyon to the south of us and you could see the window curtains blowing the the air coming in from the old windows. We went and replaced all of the windows with low E double pane windows, wrapped the whole house in a product called fan fold and put new siding on the house. Fan fold is half inch foam board with kraft paper on one side and foil on the other. Got it free from my wife employer who makes the product. What a difference it made in the winter months.
 
Good morning all. Yes, I'm still alive. 29 and cloudy. We've actually had some nice weather over the last week. Christmas day was in the 50's and sunny. Not quite what i remember growing up on Long Island in the 1950's and 60's.

Had great Christmas with the whole family over for breakfast, then the reading of Luke 2:1-20 ("The Christmas Story"), then the opening of presents (with 9 people you can bet there was a lot of wrapping paper on the floor when it was all over), then turkey dinner with all the fixin's.

I haven't had time to read all the posts for the past 7 days or so, but I agree with a number of you regarding pro sports, especially football. Like Willie, I had been growing disgusted with football players and the kneeling-during-national-anthem issue just clinched my position.

Photos of the layout will be posted next week, when I get back on the forum regularly.

Have a good day everyone.
 
Chet: Speaking of DPM buildings, this last week we traveled through parts of Wisconsin where the downtown sections in the older established towns looked looked they were designed by DPM. There was a wide variety of buildings, styles and colors. The signage looked ala George Sellois. Lots of faded painted signs on the brick surfaces.

I've only completed one DPM building, but plan on doing more for the layout expansion.

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The King Building still under construction.
 
Greg: You may enjoy the discussion on the Model Railroader Forum, using this link.

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/257747.aspx

Many Walthers, DPM and City Classic buildings resemble buildings found in older urban industrial and commercial centers. The various kits also provide material for customized kit bashes. The building you show in the photograph is a great rendering of a classic industrial structure. If you closely look at photographs of industrial buildings, you notice fine details that enhance kit structures even more. For instance, viewing the photo of Chet's Stacy's Bar Building, it looks much better, with all of the period vehicles parked in front of the building.

Boris
 
Afternoon All,

Ran out to my parents house for several hours then went out to lunch. On the way home MOH redirected me to Wally World. After getting home I glued the painted trim on the walls. Not sure if I'll get to the kit tomorrow since Florida and ND are in bowl games. I don't watch pro anything but I still watch college football.

Louis- That picture of Baltimore traffic reminds me of Manila in 1981. I transferred off a boat in Subic and rode a bus to the Manila airport. Huge amount of traffic, barely any lanes and no traffic lights (it felt like bedlam).

Greg- If I saw that caboose on a layout I would think it was really over weathered. It just goes to prove there's a prototype for everything!

Joe- I believe that trim color is a match for Cornerstone Industrial building kits.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Boris: I enjoyed your link to the DPM and other manufactures' kits. Next trip I need to take some photographs and compare the actual buildings to some of the model kits that are available.

Curt: I agree about the caboose being really weathered and I have a late winter project to weather an Athearn caboose close to the condition that the one in the photograph looks like. My ore cars are all really weathered after a trip to the UP to visit the ore roads and observing ore cars in action and spotting some ore cars on a siding near my home and actually seeing the variety and types of natural weathering. Once the ore cars are manufactured they never see a wash job.

G38-PC-Ore-Car.jpg

Actual ore cars located some where on a spur.

New Ore Cars.jpg

A pair of ore cars on my C. M. & N. R.

Greg
 
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Howdy y'all! I've decided to crawl out of seclusion and see the goings on in the diner tonight. I also wanted to share with you fine folks my lastest find. Pics to follow.
 
Even though it is not my typical choice of roads, I picked up this SP Daylight train from a gentleman that was moving and selling off his collection. 20181228_090823.jpg20181228_090811.jpg20181228_090750.jpg20181228_090729.jpg20181228_090709.jpg20181228_090645.jpg

Powered A and B diesels, RPO, 2 baggage, 3 done, 7 coach, 1 observation. 16 units in total. I'm almost ashamed to tell you what I paid for them. So before I do, I want to see if anyone can guess. I'll post the actual cost of the train tomorrow. I want to give everyone that wants to take a guess time to do so.
 
Good evening. It's drizzling and 52.


Adding insult to injury: Your boss that can't afford to give you a raise for 8 years asks you to install a trailer hitch on his brand-new, $70K pickup he just paid cash for.
 
Good evening. It's drizzling and 52.


Adding insult to injury: Your boss that can't afford to give you a raise for 8 years asks you to install a trailer hitch on his brand-new, $70K pickup he just paid cash for.

For 70K, it should have had the hitch, wiring and controller already installed. he's a poor negotiator. Tell him "I'm injured, do it yourself!"
 
Good evening. It's drizzling and 52.


Adding insult to injury: Your boss that can't afford to give you a raise for 8 years asks you to install a trailer hitch on his brand-new, $70K pickup he just paid cash for.
Once an "A"hole, always an "A"hole. Maybe time to "really" injure yourself while installing it? (edit) and only half installed, i.e. hanging off.
 
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