Running Bear's Coffee Shop August 2018
- Thread starter bnsf971
- Start date
santafewillie
Same Ol' Buzzard
Very positive news. Good that they got things under control so soon. Prayers still for a long term improvement.
Raincoat2
Well-Known Member
Good morning everyone. 76 and steamy out there.
Terry - I join everyone else on this forum in praying for a complete recovery for your wife.
I was able to get all of the walls of the DPM structure painted their basic color - Poly Scale DRGW red. I'm thinking a green for the windows, doors, cornice, and trim. What do you think?
Not much else to report today. Have a good day everyone.
Terry - I join everyone else on this forum in praying for a complete recovery for your wife.
I was able to get all of the walls of the DPM structure painted their basic color - Poly Scale DRGW red. I'm thinking a green for the windows, doors, cornice, and trim. What do you think?
Not much else to report today. Have a good day everyone.
santafewillie
Same Ol' Buzzard
Good Morning All. A little cooler this morning at 78° and clear. Still headed for 98° again today. No rain in sight and none in the ten day forecast. Looks like a mundane day ahead on the home front. Got to look in the freezer to see what I will grill tonight. I also use beer when grilling or smoking, from bottle to belly. I may have to purchase some cheap swill for that pork roast that Greg (was he the one using the beer or was it Mike?) has been posting about.
Out in the train shed yesterday, I continued on my "odds & ends" odyssey. Installed a few more ground throws, painted some colors on some figures that were tired of being naked on the workbench and added another few pieces of fascia board. Still pondering what area to do next in my scenery completion quest. I'll probably paint and ballast some track while I am deciding. I've got a few hundred feet of that left to do. Speaking of completing scenes, I was reminded of generational differences Sunday when Felix, my bathroom remodeler in his late 30's, saw the Drive In Theater on the layout and asked me "what that was?". As usual, things eventually evolved into running a few trains. Did I ever post that I like switching?
ShermanHill - Welcome to the Coffee Shop. Great to see a new face here.
Justin - Interesting video. Surprised that the military would allow some of that to be seen.
Johnny - Parties - What gets me is the "one year old" parties. The kids never remember them! They're strictly for the adults. My daughter served more champagne/wine/beer than orange juice for my granddaughter's first birthday.
I guess you like that DRGW Red color for brick. I certainly do.
Moving on now. Everybody have a great day
Out in the train shed yesterday, I continued on my "odds & ends" odyssey. Installed a few more ground throws, painted some colors on some figures that were tired of being naked on the workbench and added another few pieces of fascia board. Still pondering what area to do next in my scenery completion quest. I'll probably paint and ballast some track while I am deciding. I've got a few hundred feet of that left to do. Speaking of completing scenes, I was reminded of generational differences Sunday when Felix, my bathroom remodeler in his late 30's, saw the Drive In Theater on the layout and asked me "what that was?". As usual, things eventually evolved into running a few trains. Did I ever post that I like switching?
ShermanHill - Welcome to the Coffee Shop. Great to see a new face here.
Justin - Interesting video. Surprised that the military would allow some of that to be seen.
Johnny - Parties - What gets me is the "one year old" parties. The kids never remember them! They're strictly for the adults. My daughter served more champagne/wine/beer than orange juice for my granddaughter's first birthday.
I guess you like that DRGW Red color for brick. I certainly do.
Moving on now. Everybody have a great day
montanan
Whiskey Merchant
Good morning. A chilly start to the day at 40 degrees, but we should be in the upper 60's today and the high 70's on Wednesday. The rain stopped around sunset yesterday and the skies cleared. We did get a dusting of white stuff on the peaks. At least the smoke has subsided some.
Terry - Hoping the best for your wife. A good omen from what you posted.
Sherrel - I think that SD 45 looks excellent. I can remember seeing a lot of the BN equipment looking rather shabby years ago.
Greg - Our DCC guy at the club tried a number of things to try to speed up the NW2. Being brand new, I did have the book for it and he worked on it for almost 45 minutes. We did get a bit more speed out of it, but it most likely will never be paired to the Atlas RS-1. I hope to get the F-9 up and going and this should be a good match to be paired with the RS-1. I did get the side frame details in the mail from Bowser and now just waiting for my order from Walthers to finish the shell. They seem to be quite slow. The last time I ordered from them it took over 2 weeks for the order to arrive. I can live with the NW2 running slower. It makes things interesting running at the club having to take passing sidings to let faster trains pass. The only thing I have ot do to it is to turn down the sound. I had it running around the layout yesterday dragging the track cleaning car around and it really got annoying after a while.
Garry - Nice photo.
Down in the train room yesterday I managed to get 8 cars with missing coupler springs up and running. I managed to use the knuckle spring from some plastic couplers I put on the junk piles in my scrap metal yard. Only had to use a couple of 158's. Here are some photos of my very first custom painting and detailing project. Yes, old school. Both locomotives had their motors replaced and constant lighting was installed. On the F unit, I used fiber optics for the class lights.
These units had been sitting in the hidden staging area for quite a while and needed to be run for a while. Here are a couple of other photos I took while it was dark in the train room.
Here's a rail photo for today.
Later
Terry - Hoping the best for your wife. A good omen from what you posted.
Sherrel - I think that SD 45 looks excellent. I can remember seeing a lot of the BN equipment looking rather shabby years ago.
Greg - Our DCC guy at the club tried a number of things to try to speed up the NW2. Being brand new, I did have the book for it and he worked on it for almost 45 minutes. We did get a bit more speed out of it, but it most likely will never be paired to the Atlas RS-1. I hope to get the F-9 up and going and this should be a good match to be paired with the RS-1. I did get the side frame details in the mail from Bowser and now just waiting for my order from Walthers to finish the shell. They seem to be quite slow. The last time I ordered from them it took over 2 weeks for the order to arrive. I can live with the NW2 running slower. It makes things interesting running at the club having to take passing sidings to let faster trains pass. The only thing I have ot do to it is to turn down the sound. I had it running around the layout yesterday dragging the track cleaning car around and it really got annoying after a while.
Garry - Nice photo.
Down in the train room yesterday I managed to get 8 cars with missing coupler springs up and running. I managed to use the knuckle spring from some plastic couplers I put on the junk piles in my scrap metal yard. Only had to use a couple of 158's. Here are some photos of my very first custom painting and detailing project. Yes, old school. Both locomotives had their motors replaced and constant lighting was installed. On the F unit, I used fiber optics for the class lights.
These units had been sitting in the hidden staging area for quite a while and needed to be run for a while. Here are a couple of other photos I took while it was dark in the train room.
Here's a rail photo for today.
Later
I'm starting to realise that the idea of moving away from one problem to do something else so as to allow the sub-concious to work away (fester?) on the first one, is not always the way to not just add additional ones. Think I reported on bringing out a P2K SD45 with Tsunami to get running better (yes, I remember now, I did), well I did improve it somewhat apart from the horn's volume (the bell had to be turned down a lot, but that didn't do much for the horn. Anyway it is running and sounding better than it did and has received all my custom CV changes (nothing spectacular and all borrowed or stolen).
I figured I could use it as the lead engine with my two Athearn SD40's, so I set about installing the same CV mods into them. I remember mentioning that there was a big disparity in the speeds, so before doing the '40's, I set about changing the speed curve on the Proto. The Tsunami manual has some suggested ones to try, so I progressed through them, eventually settling on the 4th one on the high side that increases the power with a bias to the start of the curve. That brought the loco pretty close on average to the 40's.
I then set about doing them, figuring they would most likely be set on a lineal, straight speed line from the factory. I did find out from Soundtraxx that these particular ones had a factory design decoder in them, which was minus the start-up sounds. I had originally thought they had the Econami's in them (which later releases now do have), because they both got released around the same time. Something though ain't as it would seem as I expected. On installing the Same CV values as I've used in all the other Tsunami equipped Athearns I've got (albiet Genesis ones), a strange effect has happened. When accelerating the 40's to about 30+ (128 speed steps), they both slow to a crawl (1 even stopped) and advancing the throttle results in minimal increase in speed until I reduce it back down to pull up, whereby they then leap forward. One is not as badly affected as the other. 28 speed steps only shifts the point lower down. So, it's now late and I'm going to bed. Another thing for the sub-concious, hope it lets me sleep.
I figured I could use it as the lead engine with my two Athearn SD40's, so I set about installing the same CV mods into them. I remember mentioning that there was a big disparity in the speeds, so before doing the '40's, I set about changing the speed curve on the Proto. The Tsunami manual has some suggested ones to try, so I progressed through them, eventually settling on the 4th one on the high side that increases the power with a bias to the start of the curve. That brought the loco pretty close on average to the 40's.
I then set about doing them, figuring they would most likely be set on a lineal, straight speed line from the factory. I did find out from Soundtraxx that these particular ones had a factory design decoder in them, which was minus the start-up sounds. I had originally thought they had the Econami's in them (which later releases now do have), because they both got released around the same time. Something though ain't as it would seem as I expected. On installing the Same CV values as I've used in all the other Tsunami equipped Athearns I've got (albiet Genesis ones), a strange effect has happened. When accelerating the 40's to about 30+ (128 speed steps), they both slow to a crawl (1 even stopped) and advancing the throttle results in minimal increase in speed until I reduce it back down to pull up, whereby they then leap forward. One is not as badly affected as the other. 28 speed steps only shifts the point lower down. So, it's now late and I'm going to bed. Another thing for the sub-concious, hope it lets me sleep.
'afore I toddle off to bed, when you istalled the fibre optics, did you put in lenses in the holes, or did you polish the ends of the fibre. Am thinking of using some on headlights etc to hopefully make things simpler??
Greg@mnrr
Section Hand
Good Morning everyone.....over 2 inches of rain again last night and more later! Over 5 inches in the last two nights. Got keep this short since I have to do some domestic duties for the trip to the cabin tomorrow.
Chet: Nice picture of the F unit in the dark. Constant lighting brings back memories of the "old" days, but the results were great.
Toot: Glad to hear that someone else stays up at night thinking about the problems or challenges we encounter with model railroading. I solve a lot of problems at night.
Willie: We'll send some rain down to your area. It's been so wet up north and at home the last two summers that everything that's made out of wood up north is starting to rot. Being in the woods the lack of sunshine and too much rain is the reason. Then add in the snow like one storm we had in April dumped 27 inches of heavy, wet snow.
That's all for now.
Greg
##############################
Chet: Nice picture of the F unit in the dark. Constant lighting brings back memories of the "old" days, but the results were great.
Toot: Glad to hear that someone else stays up at night thinking about the problems or challenges we encounter with model railroading. I solve a lot of problems at night.
Willie: We'll send some rain down to your area. It's been so wet up north and at home the last two summers that everything that's made out of wood up north is starting to rot. Being in the woods the lack of sunshine and too much rain is the reason. Then add in the snow like one storm we had in April dumped 27 inches of heavy, wet snow.
That's all for now.
Greg
##############################
Weather has been downright nice around here for the last week. Temp highs of 88-92 - which is nice with the very low humidity and does not seem hot unless you are in the direct sun. Haven't seen a cloud in, like, forever!
TERRY - My best wishes, thoughts, and prayers that your wife continues to improve. So glad to hear that some progress is being made - may things continue to improve.
I had several comments to make, but they disappeared as soon as I started typing? Funny how that happens - Have to start making a list.
Nice pictures CHET and GARRY! F-Units are the best! Did the Burlington have any ALCO F-Units?
TERRY - My best wishes, thoughts, and prayers that your wife continues to improve. So glad to hear that some progress is being made - may things continue to improve.
I had several comments to make, but they disappeared as soon as I started typing? Funny how that happens - Have to start making a list.
Nice pictures CHET and GARRY! F-Units are the best! Did the Burlington have any ALCO F-Units?
Raincoat2
Well-Known Member
Willie:
Johnny - Parties - What gets me is the "one year old" parties. The kids never remember them! They're strictly for the adults. My daughter served more champagne/wine/beer than orange juice for my granddaughter's first birthday.
I guess you like that DRGW Red color for brick. I certainly do.
I agree - the stuff at my granddaughter's 2-year party was all for adults - cheese logs, vegetable plates, little smokies, apple cider, etc.
And yes, I like that DRGW red - I bought two bottles of it from that stash my LHS had. May have to go back and see if he has another - one bottle's almost empty.
Johnny - Parties - What gets me is the "one year old" parties. The kids never remember them! They're strictly for the adults. My daughter served more champagne/wine/beer than orange juice for my granddaughter's first birthday.
I guess you like that DRGW Red color for brick. I certainly do.
I agree - the stuff at my granddaughter's 2-year party was all for adults - cheese logs, vegetable plates, little smokies, apple cider, etc.
And yes, I like that DRGW red - I bought two bottles of it from that stash my LHS had. May have to go back and see if he has another - one bottle's almost empty.
What did you use to heat it, a flame or the heat from a soldering iron? In this case I'm intending to replace the bulbs on a couple or so of Athearns, with LEDs. I have some small 2 pin plugs coming wth the intent of mounting the fibre and LEDs permanently into the shells but be able to disconnect the wires for servicing the mechanisms (more plans of Mice and Men to go awry).
Thought that might happen here too, has before, it's a well known phenomenom of the sub-concious to let it work away while the conscious is out of the way. Hasn't given me a solution this time, but the problem may be because of the different motor types, but can't really see why.
Something I like about the Genesis engines with sound is that they come (or at least the ones I have did) with a booklet which featured a couple of pages of all the CV's and their settings and defaults, something no one else seems to bother with. Their RTR's don't unfortunately.
Bruette
Well-Known Member
Thank you Willie, that's a lot of work! Good Lord man, you almost have enough for a Golf Course! If you lived near me I would ask if we could carve out a couple of baseball fields, football field and a basketball court. For the kids to playball.
I doubt you have many kids coming to trick or treat. Hey, maybe they come on horse back? That would be a Texas Halloween!
"Everything is bigger in Texas" My wife and I will come get a real steak, a Texas steak. Texas is at or near the top of the list every time we talk about it, when we finally retire that is. I don't want no steak from a chain of steak houses. I want a steak from a real, independent top of the line Texas steak house!
As for the music; I didn't notice they regulated the volume of the shows. It was probably a good idea! If I remember correctly, the early 80s was a time of much litigation involving heavy metal and rap music. There were many congressional hearings as well. I remember something about laser shows. I was not paying much attention to anything outside my world back then.
The concerts I saw were great for the most part. The shows that were no so great, it had nothing to do with their volume. I once saw Pantera talk more than play. I could careless what his drunk ass had to say. Deep Purple was amazing to see! Seeing Black Sabbath with Ian Gillian was even better
I'm biased. Have you ever heard Black Sabbath play "smoke on the water?"Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward are the best lineup I have ever heard, no matter who was singing. I can't remember how many different singers I saw them perform with, but every show was fantastic! I like Bill Ward much more than Cozy Powell! Vinnie Appice was good, but still not Bill Ward. Iommi and Butler are fantastic with any drummer, but they are at their best with Bill Ward. For me any way
I can't remember how many times I have seen Toni Iommi and or some version of Black Sabbath he was playing with. It's more than two dozen, less than 50. From northern Virginia to Philadelphia. Constitution Hall in DC is my favorite place to see a show. The Baltimore Civic Center is the best arena for sound. Either that or the shows I saw there were better.
Personally I thought the debate over "who is louder than who" was silly. It's like measuring homeruns, I wonder who cares? That reminds me of "The Who" weren't they also in the conversations regarding the loudest bands?
That reminds me of another thing; I saw Jimi Hendrix on a rerun of the Dick Cavett show. Hendrix thought playing loud was a way of connecting with God and his audience. For him it was a religious experience. Ok... As an American I feel compelled to make no comment. Out of respect for our constitution and the guarantee of Freedom of religion for all.
I still love live music, I managed to see the Ozzfest several times, over the years. I can say it was very cool to have 3 stages of live music! It's different to see these bands and their fans in the light of day and through clear eyes. There is a lot less fighting than there was in the late 70s and early 80s. Some people took the "head banger" moniker to the extreme. Maybe the mosh pit allows them to vent their frustrations. It's better than brawling in the stands and later the streets.
Sorry for rambling.
Good morning. It's 74, mostly clear, and humid.
Yesterday, when she was weighed, my wife had lost 5 pounds of fluid.
Today, she is having the procedure to install the ports for dialysis.
In partially related news, I'm taking a very hard look at our finances. Beyond the personal loss if my wife has to be permanently placed in a nursing home, or worse, our household will lose half its income. I'm trying to quietly research what will happen, besides a lot of collection notices, if I am forced to stop paying on all these credit card bills.
Yesterday, when she was weighed, my wife had lost 5 pounds of fluid.
Today, she is having the procedure to install the ports for dialysis.
In partially related news, I'm taking a very hard look at our finances. Beyond the personal loss if my wife has to be permanently placed in a nursing home, or worse, our household will lose half its income. I'm trying to quietly research what will happen, besides a lot of collection notices, if I am forced to stop paying on all these credit card bills.
