Running Bear's LXXIII Coffee Shop


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Good Morning All. 50° and mostly cloudy. Yesterday was pleasant at 65°, today is supposed to be ten degrees warmer and tomorrow into the mid 80's. Beginning to dry out a bit from the rain, will probably be able to resume mowing late this afternoon. It appears that Terry sent Murphy down here. After the dishwasher finally failed last week, the clothes dryer started making a very loud rumbling yesterday. I'll have to check it out today. First, everything has to be removed from the top of it and the washer. Then the washer has to be disconnected and moved out of the utility room and out of the way. Then repeat for the dryer. Fortunately we have a solar powered clothes dryer outside that we normally use (energy saving), in addition to this one, so we're not completely "up a creek" right now. Only certain items cannot be hung on the clothesline.
In the train shed yesterday, I did a little bit more ground foam and ballast. I have run out of foreground trees and will have to set up that assembly line to make some more. I have some "Made in China" products, but they are really only good in the background. Reassembled the two Matchbox cars that I am redoing, I need to paint rear lights, door handles and other details on them today. I did have to fabricate part of a broken (and lost) bumper on one of them. While it doesn't exactly match, you cannot tell from a normal viewing distance.

Garry - I do believe that Dave Banta (LASM) - posted that he was taking an extended break from modeling. I miss him and his "how to's", although the old ones still exist on YouTube. That's quite an engine that you posted yesterday. Happy Birthday to your wife.
Chet - Nice pictures from the club. I am sure that you are glad that you found out about them. Seems like a good group of people. Great pictures of the street lights as well. Looks like you nailed the placement very well.
Gene - Those are some very nice pictures of the CN switchers.
Greg (WI) - Sounds like you have been busy. Believe me, in the real world, trees and light poles do lean. I wouldn't worry too much unless it's about to crash over.
Terry - Be careful, lest you be cited for having an illegal swap meet!:confused:
Mike - Nice progress.
Ken in MD - Excellent progress despite the setback. You're lucky to have MBK so close by.

As I post this, I noticed that there are 11 members and 109 guests on the forum. I wish we could convert some of those guests to members, although I believe that some of them are probably members that just didn't log in.
Everybody have a great day.

Willie
 
Just been looking at my Kato SD80MAC again, which has been sitting in a box mostly dissasembled. Bodyshell and walkway off but it says the cab can also be removed to help with the fitting of details. Found a couple of Y'tube vids on fitting LED ditch lights to them, but the presenters only said they removed the cabs, no showing how. Can someone tell?
 
Good morning. 34 degrees and my rock is white again.
crying.gif
72 degrees yesterday afternoon. As I got closer to work, the snow changed to rain as the altitude is not as high.

Greg - The Atlas Gold RS-1 with their Loc Sound has proved to be a nice locomotive. My only gripe with it is that it can only pull half of what the DC Alcos can handle. Limits what I can pull at the club.

Toot - Liked the video. Also like the Armstrong turntable.

Ken in MD - I know what you're talking about when working under the layout. One thing that does bug me is having to wear bifocals and having to look up at the under side of the layout. The lights weren't as bad as I thought. The wires can be pulled out to the front of the layout to be connected. The bad thing is that they aren't much larger than a human hair. I did utter some colorful words hooking up the lights. Sorry to hear that Murphy paid you a visit. Terry might be happy about that. The crossing really looks good.

Here are a couple of other pics from the club. They did a really nice job on the mill in the first photo. Doesn't show much of it unfortunately. It does offer a lot of switching opportunities.

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The next photo is the tracks which pass through a 24" think concrete wall into the next room in the layout. I heard that it ws amajor job to dril through it. This track leads up to the summit of the pass into Livingston.

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Here's a rail photo for today.

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Later
 
Good morning everyone. 55 and partly sunny here in SW MO. I need coffee, Flo, and a couple of glazed doughnuts, please. Thanks. Late this morning because I had to get a haircut early.

Saturday turned out to be a nice day. Had the kids and grandkids over for lunch, then MOH and I spent some time outdoors - had to replace some of the fencing around the garden, did some landscaping, etc. Sunday was a washout, however - rained pretty much all day. So after church and lunch, my wife drove into town to shop with our daughter, which left me free to get down to the train room and run some trains. Also painted all the walls, windows, and trim of the DPM kit I'm working on. It will be a printing business in the town - not sure yet whether to make it a newspaper or a general printing business. Will probably name it in honor of my dad, who was a printer all his life (as well as a volunteer fireman). Will post some photos later this week.

Have a good day everyone.
 
Good Morning Everyone....sunny and warming up here in Wisconsin...the forecast calls for mid-60's on the weekend at the cabin.

More ballasting today and will try to take a photo or two of the Atlas tower...not sure if I should mount the WS LED in the ceiling of the tower or on the floor. Major clean up of the floor in the layout room.

Keeping for stuff and I can't find it so time to sort the drawers in my work bench.

Will run some different locomotives today. Clean the tracks in the small Pine River yard, hopefully I can do it with a track cleaning train.

Ken: The girl in the photo is my nephew's new wife taken at Christmas. She's a writer and worked for a major Metro newpaper with her own column and now has her own business. My nephew is an attorny at the US Patent Offfice in DC.

Nice CPL and the Cross-bucks. Operating signals really add a lot of realism to a layout. I have mine connected a ringer which I can switch off and use for visitors.

Boris: Used to see a lot of coal unit trains traveling to a power plant in a small city on the shore of Lake Michigan. Plant is now gone. Miss the trains with the Wisconsin Energy coal cars. The coal was piled into huge mounds at the plant.

Bob: I am noticing that spell check isn't catching a lot of simple spelling errors.

Chet: Nice photo of your RS-1 and the logging train.

My printer developed Murphy's problems and will not print. Guess I'm buying a new one after just spending $$$$ for ink for the failed printer.

That's all for now.

Greg

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Afternoon All,

Extremely humid here with occasional drizzles which only make it more humid. Did several inside chores today and then I spent time gluing on boards. The good news is that I'm 3/4's done with the platformo_O. I just found out that I volunteered again this coming Wednesday at the school. I wonder how that happens?:confused:

Garry- Happy Birthday to Shelly (I hope I remembered the name right). I did not know that you have Pennsy stuff at one time.

Chet- Very nice rail shot but you weathered it too much! Great club shots and the street lights look great.

Gene- Nice looking switcher.

Terry- We have had people take stuff at the curb but never drop off.

Migalyto- Exciting times when you start a layout.

Joe- There is never too much Pennsy stuff on the market!:D

Toot- Nice video.

Ken- Great looking road crossing. It will be a focal point on your layout. Did you try to use a razor to take off the insulation on the red wire? I was successful doing that with their Pennsy signal but you didn't have much wire to work with.

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I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Greg@mnrr said:
Bob: I am noticing that spell check isn't catching a lot of simple spelling errors.
Click to expand...

I am reminded of the old urban legend / Air Force joke.

Pilot Report: Auto-pilot on plane is not working properly.
Mechanic's Reply: Plane is not equipped with Auto-pilot.

Likewise, the forum has no built in spell checker. But wait, you say, "I see a spell checker when I'm typing!" Any spell checking that you see is the one built into your web browser or iOS device. So any tech support for that is going to come from your browser.
 
Good evening. It's raining and 58.
So, the city came by and picked up all the remaining stuff. The mattress and futon, as well as a chest of drawers had been taken away previously--though the drawers themselves remained. Also, there were a half-dozen windows added to the pile sometime between when I went to work, and when the city picked everything up.
 
Good evening. A quiet day out here today.

Got home and found a rather large tree limb was taken down by the very heavy wet snow this morning. The timing wasn't bad because tomorrow I have a tree service scheduled to cut down the hedges around the house. Planted them 40 years ago and parts of them are dying. The guy who has been trimming the hedge for years suggests cutting them down to the ground and they should come back healthy again. That shoukld eliminate hedge trimming for a few years.


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I am really over snow.

Later
 
Howdy ....

Joe, Willie, Curt, and anyone I overlooked ...... Thanks for the burthday wishes for Shelley .... She appreciates it. ... We just got back from going out to dinner again to celebrate.

Chet ..... The tree looks bad. I know what it is like to have storm damaged trees..... Nice photos of the club layout and the rail photo of the day.

Toot .... Thanks for posting the Tasmania video. Looks like a fun train to ride.

Iron Belt Ken ..... The grade crossing signal looks good.

Regarding the Pennsy T-1 topic ..... The Bowser model I had was very heavy, and had two big motors. It had more pulling power than any other steam locomotive I had . ... The prototype was good after it got up to speed.... It could pull 25 heavyweight cars at 100 mph. ... However, EMD began producing E7 locomotives about the same time, and diesels were much more economical.

Not much model railroad activity to report.. Busy with other stuff....

Cheers
 
PRR Modeler said:
Joe- There is never too much Pennsy stuff on the market!:D
Click to expand...

Curt: True! cannot argue with that. Like to see a few more lightweight passenger train cars, I can't really run, but would buy to have :rolleyes:

Garry: My first boss, on the railroad, and the guy who hired me, was a fellow named Art Kardell. He was from Alliance, OH, and fired and ran T1 Powered passenger trains prior to accepting promotion to management. He related that the biggest flaw with the T1 was that the front set of drivers would suddenly go into uncontrollable wheel slips, without warning, and cause the train to lose momentum. They were also bad on rail with the slipping. The E7s, were also capable of 100MPH speed, and were more efficient. Had there not been a internal combustion alternative available, the PRR would have either solved the adhesion problems or replaced them with conventional 4-8-4 designs such as the N&W Class J. In any event they were an awesome locomotive. My son has a Bowser T1, he inherited from his grandfather. It runs, but needs work. I sat on a shelf for over 20 years, before he gained possession.
My personal favorite steam power, is another T1, the Reading version, which I had the opportunity to run while it was on the AFT in 1976. My second favorite, was the UA Army 2-8-0, which I once ran at Ft. Eustis, under the auspices of the 714th railway Operating Bn. in 1969.

Chet: The winter that refuses to end! :eek:

Terry: See, something went right.;) Now, all the junk is gone.

Ken: Does your crossing have presence detectors, or do you control it with a stationary decoder, through your hand held controller?
 
Evening Guys. Just stopping in to see the new Forum,and it looks good so far. Traveled up to Gadsden Alabama,for a one day Trainshow over the week-end. Bought two new books,three new cars,an Atlas Track tool,and came home with a little more money than when I started. I also purchased one of the Walther's Proto 2000 SP GP 35's with sound. I got it on E-bay,for around $240.00. Let me tell ya,that loco is SWEEET:cool:. I'm okay,just a bit worn out,but otherwise fine. But it is getting late,so I'll check back another time. Y'all have a good one. Later. William.
 
Good evening Shop Dwellers! No time for a weather report tonite...

Joe/Willie/Chet/Greg/Curt/Garry - thanks for all the kind comments about Phase 1 of my crossing flasher project!

PRR Modeler said:
Ken- ..... Did you try to use a razor to take off the insulation on the red wire? I was successful doing that with their Pennsy signal but you didn't have much wire to work with.
Click to expand...

Curt - to be honest, I was in too much of a panic state to even consider that! I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on the flasher project with that damaged signal on my mind, so I just took the easier [though more expensive] way out. There is still ~ a half-inch of red wire on it, at some point later on I may try to strip it using your method, or maybe burning the insulation off. I'd really like to put it back on the layout since it looks better than the replacement one does.

Boris said:
Ken: Does your crossing have presence detectors, or do you control it with a stationary decoder, through your hand held controller?
Click to expand...

Joe, funny you should ask - I was just getting ready to discuss that!:D

This crossing flasher project has two phases: Phase 1 was getting the crossbucks mounted and connected to the flash module, which I did this past weekend. Phase 2 will be to install the IR detection sensors and circuit board, and connect that to the flash module. I purchased an Azatrax MRD6X 'HexDetex' crossing signal trigger module and it's sitting on my workbench ready to be installed; I just have to map 4 separate locations to place across-the-track IR sensor pairs, making sure I don't drill into any pre-existing wires this time! Then of course I'll have to crawl under the layout to connect all the 2 dozen wires:rolleyes: to the detection module. The turnaround time for all this, will depend on how long I can endure being crouched-down, looking upward, with my arms over my head at any one time. I'll probably have to go under a dozen times and take long breaks in between.

Goodnight!
 
Good morning. It's raining and 50.

I've noticed something different about this forum, hopefully it's just a setting somewhere I can change, but on the previous forum, when I clicked on a thread, it took me to the first unread post. Now, when I click on a thread, it takes me to the very last post, skipping all the ones in between. I have to go back and find the last one I read, and go from there.
 
bob said:
Where did you run the T1 on the AFT?
Click to expand...

The segment was between Belmont, in Philadelphia, and Aberdeen on the Northeast Corridor. I was working as Road Foreman of Engines with Amtrak at the time. I actually took the throttle between Brill and Hook on the NEC. Ross Rowland, wasn't with the train, and I was offered a turn on the seat box. I felt like a fish out of water. I suppose, I was nervous about screwing up. Any way, I didn't enjoy it, like I thought I might. The Cab was crowded, with AFT crew, CR Pilots, and Amtrak and CR supervision. They actually had to issue a train order to allow more than 4 people in the cab. When I got off, at Aberdeen at the station, I was surprised just how dirty I was. Only later in life, did I realize I was one of few who ran not only steam, but also the Acela...
Ironically, the official who replaced me at the throttle, CR Regional Road Foreman W.B. Suhrie, was a veteran of the PRR T1 program, and was involved with the test trains.
 
Good morning everyone. 44 and sunny heading for 70 today. Overall a very nice week ahead - spring is here (evidently).

I echo Terry's note above, about not being taken to the last post I read but to the very last post of the thread. So I have to scroll back to find the last one I read so I can catch up. Anything that can be done about that, Bob?

Garry - I overlooked Shelly's big day, so belated happy birthday wishes for her.
Chet - Is that melted snow and green grass I see in your yard?!?! Your wish is being granted!!
Ken (in MD) - was wondering how much it cost you to put in that crossing system - the flash module, crossbucks, and detection system.

In the train room last night I glued the walls of the DPM structure together, printed off some possible signs for it, and ran a train for a few minutes. Still hope to post something later this week.

have a good day everyone.
 
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