Running Bear's February 2020 Coffee Shop


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A little extra info on the two GP9's. #109 is the ex NP. Low nose job by MRL and 21st unit to receive new logo repaint. A bit more about #127. Is the ex GN. Repainted Sept 13, by RockyRail, 19th and first GP9 to get new logo. Received cab roof A/C unit the same summer.
I guess fairly safe to assume, both were done about the same time. Looking at the notes about others, the repaints into the new logo were performed over a couple of years (2015)
 
Been checking on my MIL yesterday and today. She took one step forward and then slides back two steps.
We think she had a mini-stroke last week and she has trouble walking again. Feeling better most of the time.
There are some very nice pictures that have been the last couple days.
OLD SOUTHERN SAYING- Sometimes the best helping hand you can give is a big push.
 
Good Morning. Partly cloudy and 47°. Slight chance of light rain later today, but right now it's all in Oklahoma.

Eggs over easy with sausage patties today Flo. Maybe a piece of raisin toast to go with it.

Thanks for the likes and comments yesterday; Joe, Garry, Phil, Jerome, Sherrel, Bill, Ken.

Not a lot going on in the train shed. I did add some folks to the movie theater sidewalk. All are Preiser figures that I painted. I wanted to add a Woodland Scenics lady walking in the center, but I couldn't get her to stand up straight.
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Over on the workbench I started assembling the trailer that I will use in the rural lot. It is different than any of the ones that I posted the other day.
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I also scraped up some of the ground foam in that lot and added all of the fenceposts for a chain link fence.
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Today the trailer goes to the paint booth for a primer coat and the ground cover is improved. Won't start on the fence for another day or two and lastly I'll add the trees and overgrowth.

I don't seem to be having any problems with this site yesterday or today, and I am usually the first one to experience them. I wonder if that explains the absolute lack of activity yesterday or if it is just Spring?

Everybody have a great day.
 
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Morning all. Light projects this weekend. One interesting one. I have an Atlas H660 Gold that started out nice but began giving me fits some time back. Repeated shut downs and restarts. I took the shell off & looked for a bad connection. None found. Got sidetracked, put it away. Spoke with an Atlas rep at Trainfest & got his card, figured I'd send it back & let them worry about it. Then I saw how long ago I'd bought this thing. It's way out of warranty. That's one of the unintended consequences of owning too many locomotives! Having recently gotten into the Lok sound decoders I figured it's probably a bad sound board, I'll just replace that myself & save the repair charges and long wait. I picked up a Lok Sound Micro & installed it. Same thing. OK so now I'm a little irritated. In fiddling with it I touched one of the phosphor bronze strips that lead to the brushes. She fires up! There's my issue. Touching this and tweaking it makes power interruptions. Remove motor, solder phosphor bronze strip to brush post, reassemble. Same issue. Moderately irritated. Internal motor problem! I thought of installing a motor I had on hand, but checked with Atlas and found they have this motor, mounts, flywheels, U-joints, and all for about forty bucks shipped. That showed up yesterday, so I decided to re-install the factory board. For some reason I had enough foresight to cut the wires and leave enough room to splice them back together. I call this the "Blind Squirrel" corollary to Murphy's Law. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now & then. It is alive! Needs a trip to the program track. Now to decide what to do with that Lok Sound Micro. Maybe that Athearn Genesis MP-15...

The moral of the story: DCC is fun and sound is nice, but every now & then they will teach you patience!
 
Good morning y'all. Sunny and 34° going into the 50s.

Not much going on with the layout. Been super busy with other stuff.

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Conrail OCS crossing the Hackensack River Bridge coming into South Karney. Note the Twin Towers in the back ground to the right of the span.

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OCS moving through the "Bathtub" at marion, on the former EL Northern Branch at Marion in the Jersey Meadows.
 
Good morning America! Getting ready for our trip to Tennessee to sign the closing papers on Wednesday. I forgot how crazy a move like this can be. We moved back to Illinois 30 years ago and we have accumulated a LOT of STUFF! Needless to say, I haven't been on here in several days and When I get a chance to sit and read everything, it will probably take most of an evening! But I do plan on doing it!

Got to run, there's still more to pack and I haven't even done ANYTHING in the garage or storage shed, 10'x12', so it holds a lot of stuff. Mostly woodworking tools and lawn mower.

Planning on moving day to be 3/12. It'll be here before we know it! Glad when it's all over.

Stay safe and I'll catch up later!
 
Good Morning Everyone....bright and sunny here in Wisconsin, but a major snow storm is forecasted for later in the week.

Yesterday was a field trip day with the wife. We drove to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin to have lunch at the Depot a restaurant in a historic, surviving Milwaukee Road depot constructed out of granite stone located along the CP tracks. We had track-side table seating and shortly a east bound CP unit oil train rumbled pass our window. It was pulled by a pair of CSX and Kansas City Southern locomotives. This was my first time to see a KCS locomotive in action.

The restaurant had a small HO layout being operated by a younger rail fan and a wall mounted display case with a collection of rail models.

We then drove to some of our favorite spots in the rural countryside to find them closed so we headed to DuPlainville, Wisconsin to the diamond where the CP crosses the CN rail. Being a beautiful day in the mid-40's there were at least a dozen vehicles with train buffs waiting for the next CP train. A freight did come through and it was a mix of oil tankers, box cars and hoppers. We were parked with 25 feet of the right of way.

Brunch today and then down to the layout for a little while. On Friday I did install some more wall mounted signs that were made to look older and distressed. I added on to a Walther's water tank and the decal gives the tank some character.

On Thursday, Cathy dropped a spice jar on my cell phone so I did an upgrade to a better phone and camera so I hope I'll take some improved photos of the layout.

That's all to report.

Greg
 
Good morning. A warm 56 degrees compared to home and should get up into the upper 60's for the afternoon NASCAR race. The Xfinity race got rained out yesterday and they plan to finish it after the cup race today. Don't think we'll stay for it because we want to take off early tomorrow morning and head for home. It's just over 800 miles and hope we can pull it off in about 12 hours.

Just had a great breakfast and will probably get a Uber ride to the track and back to the hotel instead of driving.

I did find the one and only model railroad shop in Las Vegas last Friday. All of the guys headed back home Friday and found Westside Trains and took a trip over there. It was nice to be able to visit a hobby shop in person for a change, but didn't end up buying much. Got few scenery items and that was it. I need some caboose steps, but they did not have any.

I'll have top try to catch up on the posts when I get home. I see a lot of interesting photos and posts.

Although we are staying at a casino in the strip, I have not gambled yet so I may take a couple of bucks and see what happens.

Later
 
Afternoon fellers. I hope everyone is well. Have been crazy busy here lately. Work has been brutal the past two weeks. Had to replace the brakes on my personal truck yesterday. Also found that the blower motor only worked on high. Naturally I figured the blower motor was going out. After installing the new one found it too only worked on high. So ordered a new resistor and well now I have all my fan functions back again. Haven't done anything to the layout. I haven't even been able to run trains. That's just how busy I have been lately. Been trying to keep up on here as best as i can. I'll share a pic of how my mind has been here lately. Hope yall enjoy and I'll try to stop by later.
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Good morning all. ell it started out sunny, but the gray, gloomy overcast sky seems to have settled in for the day. They are predicting a possible freeze mid week.
Well I finally got one of the Broadway Limited SD40-2 to go long hood forward. CV-29 = 39. Together the pair of SD40-2's make a pretty impressive train, pulling 30 cars up grade.

Happy railroading!2SHTsEq.jpg
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Greg@mnrr said:
On Thursday, Cathy dropped a spice jar on my cell phone so I did an upgrade to a better phone and camera so I hope I'll take some improved photos of the layout.
Click to expand...
Greg- How long did it take you to position the cell phone under the spice jar? Pretty good way to get a new phone!

Willie- Some how I missed your post and pictures when I first came to the forum this morning. It is good to see your continued progress on several scenes. In you trailer scene, which one is the "old goat"?

RECENT SOUTHERN SAYING- The original point and click interface was a Smith and Wesson.
 
Good afternoon, it's clear and 60.
It's been an interesting weekend here.
First, similar to Greg, I had an "incident" with my tablet. It still works, but the digitizer is smashed, and to keep using it, I'd be risking getting my fingers cut on the broken glass. Since I also use the tablet at work, I kind of needed to replace it soon. I was looking at Apple stuff to replace the broken one, but the prices have gone up a lot on the better ones. I did some searching on the 'net, and found an Android-powered tablet that got high marks on sale for a pretty significant savings at my local Big Box electronics store. I found one in open-box condition for an even greater savings. Unfortunately, it was only available at one of their stores in Charlotte, and there was only one. I bought it online, knowing full well it would not be available by the time I got there, if it was even there at all. I got a text message telling me it was ready (!), so I headed there. When I got there, it was on an even larger sale than advertised online, and the store refunded the difference. The end result was, I got a really nice premium tablet for a hundred bucks.
While I didn't like spending the $$$, the huge savings took nearly all the sting out of it. Full retail price was $649.99.
So, that was the good/bad combo.
Next, most of y'all know my wife has nightly dialysis treatments, which we set up and perform in our home. My wife set up everything after I did the heavy lifting, and started everything going. Without getting into graphic detail, the machine uses 5 gallons of sterile sugar water, among other things, for dialysis fluid, and it drains through a vinyl tube into the toilet when it's been used.
Imagine my surprise when I walked barefoot into the bathroom at 3:30 in the morning, and found myself wading in cold dialysis fluid. My wife forgot to place the drain in to bracket on the edge of the toilet bowl to drain everything, and it just drained onto the floor. Everything on the floor in the bathroom was covered in used sugar water. Including my feet. I then spent several hours cleaning the bathroom, mopping up the mess, and cleaning everything up. I finished running the dirty clothes that were on the floor in the bathroom closet through the washing machine about 8:00 AM.
Last, the software update seems to be working for the radio on the truck.
 
Howdy everybody .

Greg ... That sounds like a nice place in Oconomowoc.

Terry.. .. That sounds like quite a mess to clean up. Sorry you had to go that.

...

I finally had a little model railroad time. I added more grab irons to the Super Chief . I have done 7 of the 8 original cars.

Have a good evening .
 
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