Running Bear's Coffee Shoppe LIX


Having a night where I can't sleep. My shop got raked across hot coals last night I'm sure it's gotten into my head some. At any rate it gives me some time to work on laying some more ballast on the layout. Curt with the placement of the tower the second pic looks to put it close to your loadout. Looks a little out of place to me but it is your layout and the placement is ultimately up to you. My pick would be the first pic.

Justin
 
Good Morning All. It's a beautiful morning with clear skies, 33 degrees and a very bright moon.
Not much to report on the modeling end today. Mostly yesterday I tied up loose ends, like adding curtains to a few houses, people to a couple of sidewalks, did a few more metal wheel conversions and found and re-attached the missing air tank to a GP60 that I alluded to in a post last week.
Sherrel - Speaking of Frisco, the place where I worked in Carrollton TX for 43 tears was alongside a Frisco mainline into Dallas. I really admired their cream and orange GP40's that I saw on that line prior to the 1980 merger. Just across the ROW from us was a leading point industrial spur that they always switched with a "flying switch". Quite interesting to watch. They were good at it and it never failed when I was watching. That ended after they became part of BN.

Well I can't add to the tank discussion since I know ZERO.
Have a great day everyone.

Willie
 
Back to normal Jan weather here, an inch of nice new snow, all clean and sweet looking...till you take a breath and realize the wind is wrong, bringing a waft of landfill stench from two miles away across the hi-way, lovely!

Chompin at the bit for this next birthday! Daddy needs incline sets! I've been considering birthdays a yearly victory since I was a teen, nothing to be sad about, living another year is a good thing in my book. Yea, sure, sometimes I wish I was young again but then I talk to a young person and realize how BONE DUMB I was then, I ain't that much smarter now but who wants to backslide!
 
Good morning. 21 degrees with clear skies to start off the day. With sunny skies in the afternoon we have had some warm temps in the upper 30's and even hitting 40 degrees. Hopefully some of the snow will melt off.

Here another great photo from the old calender.

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Louis would enjoy this one if he drops in.

Any word on Tony (Wombat) yet ????
 
tootnkumin said:
Eric, seeing you say you don't like high ladders is a big help to me. I've had to do it a few times, they all say, face your fears, it'll get easier each time. Doesn't seem to work that way with me, just the opposite. In fact when it gets to the last instance doing it, that's when I really freeze.

By the way, when it comes to keeping secrets, remember this is a public forum, don't have to be a member to read it.
Click to expand...

All points taken Mate King Toot! I'm actually ok with the height so long as I remember to NOT look down.
 
Good morning ...

Curt ..... Your "tank cars" look great. That reminds me of 2003 when I saw a more modern version. I saw an entire train of DOD flat cars with military vehicles. Most of the flat cars were 89' piggyback flats with DOD reporting marks. It was 2003 at the interchange track where the Fort Campbell rail line connects with CSX in Hopkinsville, KY. It was 2003, and the equipment was beginning its trip to the Middle East.

Chet . ..... The famous arch bridge in the Twin CIties is where many trains have been posed for publicity. I definitely like the photo of the old Empire Builder. If it was not black and white, we probably could see Glacier Green is the paint scheme on the 4-8-2.

I've been finding time to operate trains on the layout. I have a cycle of events in which every car in every industry is switched out and another car replaces each one at the siding.

Happy Model Railroading
 
Chet .... It takes a few days. I do a little at a time when I take breaks from doing other stuff.

Here is a Rock Island train departing from Chicago.

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Looks like we're taking the day off today. I'm ok with that.
Larry says his neck is bad sore from painting the ceiling. I don't much care for overhead painting on account of that.
I wouldn't mind to get some more painting done on the cabinets however.
But I also don't mind getting my energy levels back up.
Too bad I don't have the stuff to build a big batch of spaghetti!!!
I could eat on that for a week.

On the train front I'd like to figure out how to bring in some roads. Gravel or pavement (concrete or asphalt - don't really care).
I kind of have an idea for a service road into the sanding and fueling facility. How or where to bring "roadage" into the non existent town is another matter. How to build the crossings is yet another matter. On my ancient N scale layout, I'd just cut thin pieces of balsa (stained) and lay between the rails and then some beveled pieces for the approaches. However, I never got to the point of making roads.
E.
 
That's a great pic Garry.
Also reminds me that I'd like to get a couple of signal towers.
Now that I'm getting some money put back, I can start planning again.
The down side is that I'm working pretty much every day, all day so time doesn't lend itself so well now.
Sigh....
E
 
question mark.jpg What I do ?????? What I do ????? I've never even seen a nit, so how could I pick one. laugh.gif
 
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"Super Nit Pickers" oh my! I'd bet half of us here wouldn't last a minute there.
I got a catalogue the other day with a bunch of muscle cars featured and thought of Chet's car collection.
However, they wouldn't fit his era so I never mentioned it.
They had a 64 1/2 Mustang convertible that looked pretty awesome. I may get one just because my Dad bought one off the showroom floor. Dad hadn't remarried yet so it was me, him and Granny that went to pick it up on our way to visit Grandpa in the hospital. I was only 4 but remember it well.
That also had a Charger R/T and a hemi Barracuda.
http://www.historicrail.com/
Apparently I got on their mailing list somehow.
They have a HO Big Boy as a kit for $25 but I imagine that's only a model kit and not a running train.
Cool stuff!
E.
 
Your chuckle for this morning!

Honest honey, I just stopped off for a beer after work and, and you ain't gonna believe this.

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Bob , Great info on the "tanks". Thanks much.

Chet, You have been putting up some outstanding photos. Great one today.

Garry , Nice shot of the RI passenger.

DAVID in CA , Are you building those turnouts in place? Seems as if you are having a lot of trouble in that spot?

BIG E , Its not the neck that gets me on painting ceilings .. its the aching arms and shoulders. I have found out that over the last year .. ladders have become shaky! I don't remember them being unstable before my surgery.
 
Curt, If I did not say so before .. I like the tower in the second shot. I think your signs turned out very nice.

Terry always looking for RR sites .. PM me with the one you and Chet mentioned.

Willie, Nice story about the Frisco -- thanks.
 
Here's one more calender photo for today. This seems to be a fairly modern trestle for the day looking at the way it is built. Could get a nose bleed going over it though.

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Building a model of this could be interesting. Wondering if it would be easier than a wood trestle.

Just got an email from Walthers advertising their Capitol Limited. That is one of my favorite passenger trains, but I am not at all tempted as I don't model the B & O and there's no way in the world that it would have ever made an appearance on a railroad like mine and I don't need a shelf decoration.

Taking about class looking trains, tomorrow I will post a picture of another fantastic looking passenger train.
 
Afternoon All,

Well, another day and another change to the yard project...sigh. Last night I tried running my BF16 A/A consist. The units have a drawbar, diaphrams and are hard wired together with a speaker in each unit. Bottom line was I could either change the track or never bring the units through the yard. After some thinking (my weak spot LOL) I remembered the 3 way switch that did not work out for the coal mine. After installing that, the track geometries actually are eased. Friday I will test Locos. Probably no layout work tomorrow since I am taking my parents out to lunch.

Thanks to everyone who made a suggestion for my tower. I'm going to put it by the coal mine. There is less room in the yard now. I am thinking of putting a yard office and watch box in the yard instead.

Bob- "Tanks" for the information (sorry I could not resist). Based on your info I guess a future project will be to get different tanks. I would really like to get Shermans.

David- It is the Walthers version of a PRR tower.

Chet- Great pics. That trestle sure looks flimsy. I noticed there is a sign at the bottom that I can't read even when I make the picture larger, and there is another set of tracks by the sign. If you don't mind, what forum did you join? I recently joined the Scale Railfanning group.

Garry- Nice photo. We don't see anything Rock Island in here very often.

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I hope everyone has a good night.
 
That tower kinda fits in that spot pretty good, like it 'growed' there, looks like it has a good view of the track too. The local Club here in Lansing is trying to get an old tower from (ha) "Old Town" on the north side of town and move it to the club's location way down on the south side, have not heard much about it lately.

Bit by bit but I'm 'getting it', as much fun as it is to go fast there was something very differently satisfying about getting 50 assorted to stay together 'just creepin' behind the DD for a full lap and 'up the ladder' at speed step 5 out of 126!

I can't WAIT to start some grade action!
 
Hey everybody!

We survived the blizzard of 2016, never lost power and had no major misshapes, thank God.

I was pulled off the couch and pressed into driving the shuttle bus (my mercury villager mini-van) My wife's store remained open throughout the storm so if I ever wanted her to come home I had to deliver her employees to and from work.

I shoveled snow, mostly supervised my kids actually, but I did put them to shame when I did have the shovel for an hour or so at a time :) They seen the old man can still hump, just not for long. Chet I was wishing you and your heavy equipment lived next door! I was also wishing we had your low humidity, our snow was heavy!

Also my little beagle "Sophie" had an Ovariohysterectomy (OVH, Spayed) on Monday so I have been busy taking care of her. She is doing great, thank God.

The good news; the B&O Museum will open tomorrow at 11am, I wish I had time to go, but it made me happy to see it was going to be open :) Thank God the round house roof did not collapse like it did in 2003

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I hope everyone is doing great and I will try to catch up, at least with more recent posts.
 
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