Running Bear’s July 2021 Coffee Shop

[TLOC]

Good morning from Wisconsin. It is 66f degrees up from 61 at 6am heading only to 81. The smoke haze yesterday was substantially more then this morning

Willie, straight line winds or tornado. Totally agree with your comment. Either are very destructive and insurance will help but FEMA doesn’t. I always thought the ladies and guys of the night worked the seedier side of town. The ladies are looking good

guy, those are the pictures need and love, thanks

Tom, party on. Have a good time

to Bud, get well guy you have lots of folks beside your owner who are pulling for you and none of us want you to suffer

Everyone else, I may have to start writing names and comments down after I read each comment. We are a prolific diner group. I know lots of folks laugh at groups like us but to me it’s a great morning wake up and much better then meeting in a real bar.

We we’re sitting yesterday taking a rest after Terry and I were walking the the front grass looking for construction debris. Our contractor stopped as he figured out what we were doing as he drove by. Gave us 2 36” magnetic things on wheels for us to find the metal if any in the grass. On the driveway, we found 20roofing nails. In the grass 51 nails. Glad he let us borrow those.

enjoy the day
TomO

 

[bnsf971]

I just returned from dropping our pooch off at the vet. She's been having some issues lately, both physical and cognitive. I talked about my concerns with the person at the office when I dropped her off, and was assured somebody would call us back to discuss these. When the person called us, all they wanted to talk about was the prepaid services our dog was slated to get, and when we would be able to pick her up. Talk about a serious disconnect! We have a dog that seems to be very sick, possibly dying, and all the person wanted to talk about was the wellness plan services.

 

[Boris]

Good morning y'all! Happy Saturday! 68º and sunny, only going to the upper 70s today. I have been rather busy for an old guy. The past couple have been hectic.

I just couldn't get rid of the sharp boundary line between the stained and un-stained bricks.

Last night, I watched the Yankees at Miami on WPIX 11...over the air...like the Lord intended....only difference was play by play with Michael Kay and Paul O'Neil, instead of Phil Rizzuto and Bill White. PIX 11 only carries about 20 Yankees games over a season, and an equal number of Mets games.
but it was fun...and no political side stories like on Fox or ESPN. Was fun for a change.

I'm not going to try and catch up, but hope to show up on a regular basis....

Air Brake instruction car at Trenton, NJ 7-24-1967. As I recall, fellow named Al McRae was the Regional Air Brake instructor back then. Car required a location with a ground air plant to function. By 1973 / 1974, the car had been replaced with a Carousel Slide projector / sound cassette presentation, which enabled the instructor to reach more employees, at more locations, than possible with the car. Photo by Hal Smith.

Shore Tower 7/28/2021. Kensington and Sedgley, Philadelphia, PA. Structure has not been used as a tower since the 1990s at least, but remained standing Tower used to govern connection between PRR, (PC/CR/Amtrak), Main Line PHL - Jersey City, and Delair Branch to South Jersey. Due to the decrepit nature of the building, PFD used a defensive attack with external streams to extinguish the fire. Photo courtesy Philadelphia Second Alarmers.

 

[santafewillie]

Good Saturday Morning to Everyone. Clear, warm and 78°, wind is at 2 mph. That might increase to 6 mph later today. Heat advisory for this afternoon. Yesterday only topped out at 97.5°.
Deep house-cleaning is the order of the morning. Granddaughter didn't get enough of us on our brief visit last Sunday, so she and her parents are driving up for a free meal of hamburgers on the grill this afternoon/evening. They have their own pool, so they aren't coming for that, except theirs is usually about 2° warmer than ours since they have no shade. Mine reached 88.5° yesterday. Presently it's 85°. Weather people are still predicting a cold front out of the north tomorrow evening into late Monday which is not only supposed to cool the daytime highs into the lower 90's for a week, but also brings a nearly 60% chance of rain. That could be nice.

How about a whole plateful of scrambled eggs with a double handful of bacon for me this morning Flo.

Thanks to all of the gang for the likes and comments on yesterday's mini-scene; Christian, Garry, Karl, Guy, Rick, Tom O, Patrick, Steve J, Hughie, Tom, Ken, Sherrel, Joe, and of course Emilly.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I only worked on cleaning structures before running trains. I am at a point where I am doing a whole lot of smaller businesses, none of which are rail served. I did at least a dozen yesterday. I'll just post a few of the more notable ones, mostly from 2018.
As we move out of the industrial park, we come across a Blair Line laser-cut wood model of The Green Door Lounge.

Bigglemeyer's Burger Parlor is next to the Green Door Lounge. Bigglemeyer's is a Walther's kit known as Miss Bettie's Diner.

Lots of details inside which can hardly be seen from the aisle.
Skipping down the street a bit, we come to Oakleaf Shipping & Storage, a Bar Mills laser-cut wood kit.

Some of these white metal details came with the kit. I added others as well as the figures.

Tom - After that flood last week, the mosquito company probably has lots of business around there. Tent looks good and sturdy, enjoy the reception.
Karl - Sorry to read of Bud's relapse. It is truly unfortunate.
Tom O - Interesting about the firewood up there. With our summers here, unsplit 10" hardwood logs are usually dry within 9-10 months. Split ones in about 7 months.

Yesterday I found a few 2x4’s struck like arrows in the ground cover that covers the house roof.

Is your home partially underground???

I always thought the ladies and guys of the night worked the seedier side of town. The ladies are looking good

Equal opportunity town on my layout. There's others over by the Coco Club in another town.
Guy - I don't know why I find piles of rock so interesting, but I do. The shapes, the blend of colors, the whole thing. Wife wonders about me sometimes, but just briefly.
Steve J - Forest Lane was the drag strip venue even in the 60's, but much closer to us was that unopened part of LBJ Freeway which we used. It is a good two miles from Ferguson to Garland Road and the whole thing was in three different police jurisdictions, Dallas, Mesquite and Garland. None of them ever ventured out there since there were no nearby homes or businesses at the time. According to my wife, in her neighborhood in Oak Cliff, her brother and friends used Camp Wisdom Road or Kiest Boulevard.
Hughie- I am looking forward to your builds of the Bar Mills kits. I don't have any of the three and would like to see how they look.
Ken - Been there, done that with the solvent glue. I ended up using some weathering powders to blend it better, still noticeable if I look. I also added an appropriate warning sign to detract from it; in my case a "Hardhat Required in this Area" sign.

I am off to a rather late start this morning as a result of sleeping in and a lot of catching up in the Coffee Shop. Y'all have a great day, I'll return next month.

 

[Rabοliot]

 

[bnsf971]

Since I’m basically reduced to sitting at my computer with my finger on the “Nuke” button, I might as well post a photo or two…
ATSF126, an EMC model FT A/B pair, is about to roll onto the bridge over the dry creek at Smallton.

 

[bnsf971]

In the same location decades later, going the opposite direction, brand-new Cotton Belt 9629 leads a train with a sister, and a far-from-home C40-8M trailing.

 

[Texas Hobo]

Good Evening all! No rain but has been overcast most of the day.
Flo, you think Mel might have leg of lamb back there? I know it's not Easter but I just had a yen.

Well the Bar Mills structures arrived this afternoon. Photos below. I started with the Old Dominion Broom Co.. I glued the bracing on and painted some of the exterior walls.

I did run a train for a few minutes but other stuff got in the way of a good operating session.

STAY SAFE

LATER

 

[bnsf971]

I just picked up our four-legged kid from the vet. First, the person we gave all our info and concerns to didn't bother conveying any of it to the vet. Not one word. The vet told me they can't get rid of her, because there is absolutely nobody else they can get, and they can't hire a replacement, because nobody wants a job.
As for the issues with our pup, she has canine dementia, osteo-arthritis, and has pretty much gone deaf.

 

[Jaz avalley]

Good Morning Everyone. Is it Friday yet? Clear and 76° here, topping out today at 99° although the weather geeks haven't been correct all summer with the high.
Quite a busy day yesterday with the grocery/beer trek, the stop at Hobby Lobby and the bi-weekly stop at the Wine Store. Then we went to my wife's favorite fried chicken joint and they were closed for remodeling. So I went to Schlotzsky's instead. Neither place is low-carb friendly and neither one serves onion rings or beer, so it didn't matter to me. After returning home, it was laundry and I made my last batch of pasta sauce for this season with the homegrown tomatoes, garlic and onions; supplemented with oregano, thyme and basil from the back porch pots. The remaining tomatoes and the few still left on the vine should last us another three weeks of fresh eating.
Got the bloodwork results yesterday...A1C is now down to 5.7, happy for that. Everything else is in the OK range or just barely out of it, not enough to matter. Didn't mention yesterday that my BP was 130/60, a good reading for me. Beat my wife who had 140/80.

Thanks for the likes and comments yesterday regarding the cleaning progress and layout tour; Karl, Christian, Steve J, Tom, Patrick, Chad, Hughie, Guy, Tom, Chet, Garry, James, Sherrel.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I did some infrastructure work. Whoops! Can I post the word "infrastructure" without invoking the wrath of a moderator??? I installed another 2' light fixture under the upper deck, replaced a couple of 22 gauge wires with 16 gauge and generally bundled up and tied together some stray wiring so it wouldn't hang down in pictures. I also started looking at my collection of vehicles and figures for some of each to add to the Graham scene. I managed to get four vehicles for Wayne Feeds, dull coated them and added them in.
View attachment 130514
While looking at the scene I realized that I had left the sign off Woody's Country Mart so it got found on the workbench and added. Vehicles for here are next.
View attachment 130515
I am at an impasse on more figures right now. But I did add four more to an already existing structure in Maultown while I was cleaning the tobacco shop. I needed tenants for the upstairs apartment and here is Miss Daphne meeting with one of her friends.
View attachment 130516
Miss Zelda is on the other side of the building meeting one of her friends.
View attachment 130517
A very friendly friend.
View attachment 130518

Steve J - Nice job weathering those wheels.
Guy - I love your posts no matter how many, what the subject matter is or whether they contain photos (rail or non-rail) or not. Being here in Texas, I don't get any exposure to CN which I find refreshing. For the same reason, Joe's posts about eastern RR's are great as well. Like others, I also like looking at the weathering and trackside details. This forum is the only social media in my world (by choice) and I find everybody to be friendly and interesting.
Tom O - I always say "who cares if it is straight line winds or a tornado", serious business either way. Thankfully everyone is safe.
Steve - Thanks for the invite. I surely hope that the "Little Joe" is simply misplaced.
Jaz - Garden looks great. Ducks look yummy!

Never thought to see if the PM yesterday contained any train pictures! Like others, I reported it as soon as I saw it. Didn't especially want my wife seeing it!

And a salute to Patrick today. It is National System Administrator Appreciation Day. Those geeky guys (and gals) who know what porn sites everyone in the office visits, and gets us out of trouble when we hit the wrong key combinations.
Everyone have a great day, and an awesome weekend coming up.

We have to keep the right male female ration so yeah we eat boys….winks.

 

[Jaz avalley]

A really desperate young lady if she's going after this bunch of old fogies!!!

I think they think old fogeys are desperate

 

[santafewillie]

I think they think old fogeys are desperate

Or we got money!

 

[IronBeltKen]

Hi Shop Dwellers, just a quick update here...

As I mentioned in last night's post, I finished cementing the wall sections of the Geo. Roberts kit onto the Lexan on Friday ~5pm. Here's a photo of when I did a laser-level alignment check. A few paint cans and other containers were used as weights, wherever needed, to hold the slightly-warped pieces flat:

...and earlier this evening (~6pm) I picked up the cemented facade, set it in its intended location, and shot this view from ~10ft away - the only way I could fit both ends of the structure within the photo:

I still need to find some black fabric and hang it behind the Lexan, to create the illusion of depth. The plywood above the laundry room door sags a bit, since I couldn't place a bracket under that segment; guess I'll need to place some tufts of Silflor grass along there to conceal the gap...[?]

...and that's about all I have time to post this evening since my presence is requested elsewhere, I promise I'll try to respond more to the current conversations on Sunday.

Good Night - and have a Pleasant Tomorrow!

 

[DakotaLove39]

@GarryCBQ Your layout looks awesome!

Steve - I hope you find Little Joe. I really hope you don't have a thief in your midst.

Thanks, McLeod and others who have responded to my loss.

Wouldn't you know, I found it at club last night. As I suspected I had left it in a really dumb place and it was well out of sight. If I hadn't changed from my work pants to shorts and sat down to put my shoes back on, I wouldn't have seen it.

Also I am continuing my work on scenery at club. I feel a bit out of my depth, as the last guy to work on these areas had real talent and I am a total amateur, but I have done scenery before and YouTube/Facebook are chock full of good philosophies and tricks for doing scenery.

This area, like its neighbor, has been unfinished for decades and sported bare subsurface with zero ballast. I'm finally getting it scenicked and up to snuff, including extra equipment/facilities to ensure this little shop can actually service small locomotives properly.
<- Before and in progress ->
The gap I haven't covered yet is where a backwoodsy, podunk coal loader is going to go.

Sorry for keeping on, talking about trains, but by day I'm just a boring warehouse worker. Not much fun there.

 

[bnsf971]

Running Bear's August 2021 Coffee Shop

This is the new place, open 8-01 through 8-31.

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