Running Bear's January 2019 Coffee Shop


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GarryCBQ said:
David ..... Because the locomotive crew was too drunk to run the train, the train should not have been running at all. .... The yard clerk did not belong in the locomotive cab, and certainly not at the controls. . ... Another fact, I did not mention is there was an employee at the origin terminal in Baton Rouge who observed the yard clerk boarding the locomotive. He failed to report was he saw, and was in trouble for that failure. I think I heard he was fired. ....Read Willie's and Joe's comments. ....

Boris ... I'm sorry to learn about the fatal accident you described.
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Ok, granted she shouldn't have been there but neither should the liquor which very possibly was more of the cause of the calamity than she was. It caused the engineer to pass out drunk and possibly incapacitated the fireman too ?! Even Joe mentioned he lost a good fried to another drunk engineer who slammed into the cabin car his friend was in. The problem lies in the inability of the responsible individual/s to maintain a clear focus on what they are supposed to be doing rather than allowing their attention to be distracted for any discernable amount of time due to whatever reason which sounds like what happened in this case. The lady was just an added distraction like talking on the cell phone, hands free or not while driving your car and especially texting which have caused other train wrecks too. The ability to maintain clear focus of the situation at hand is of the utmost importance.
As an added note Garry, you mentioned that with the train crew drunk it should have been stopped! So why wasn't it stopped then?? Refer to my statement above about, 'Clear focus of the situation at hand', if the train shouldn't have been rolling down the tracks then why was it?? Because the engineer and fireman lost focus of their responsibilities !! They allowed their focus to become clouded due to liquor or whatever. Again, They allowed their attention to be distracted or clouded. That's the bottom line.
 
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David ... Railroads have had “Rule G” for decades which prohibits employees from drinking on railroad property. Today, they have better ways of enforcing the rules.

Also David , Thank you for commenting on my Texas Special train.
 
GarryCBQ said:
David ... Railroads have had “Rule G” for decades which prohibits employees from drinking on railroad property. Today, they have better ways of enforcing the rules.

Also David , Thank you for commenting on my Texas Special train.
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Garry: That's good to hear about RR's preventing employees from drinking on RR property. Any impairment of an individual's thinking and actions can cause serious damage, as your well aware.

Your welcome to my comment about your Texas Special train. As I mentioned the train winding it's way through the 'S' curve I find very enjoyable. I have just such a scene on my upper line which is more at eye level approximately where the old trains slowly make a semi-s cure and always enjoy watching them as they roll through it as it traverses a hill.

About the site being slow, it seemed to take forever to get this posted from my cell phone but I don't have WiFi but it still seems it should be faster ! ??
 
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Good morning.....Making coffee,14 out dog made quick work of her bathroom break.Looks like even Louis is sleeping this morning.:)
 
Good Morning All. 35° and cloudy here this fine morning. Continued cool temperatures for today and tomorrow and then a gradual warm up to the mid-60's Wednesday. Colder weather returns Saturday. I'm an outdoor type person and these blustery days don't sit well with me. Tired of the rain as well, but it could be worse. Still trying to get used to my wife returning to work, the increased household duties have disrupted my style a bit. Vacuuming the house is a real pain, and with the wet ground outside I am tracking lots of debris inside! Ooops! Baked a few more loaves of French Bread yesterday, the aroma throughout the house was great. The corned beef in the crock pot added to the mix.
Wife started on the Keto diet yesterday and I am having to readjust my meal preparation for her. No carbohydrates! So I fixed carrots and cabbage (along with potatoes for me) with the corned beef last night. Whooops! Who knew that carrots were a no-no? On the other hand bacon, cheese and mayonnaise are OK, just without the bread! Hard to eat a sandwich without bread. I am not on this diet and still prepare the forbidden stuff, although I may benefit slightly from a reduction of bread, potatoes and pasta. Not sure how she is going to survive without pizza, chocolate, fried okra or cookies?
Had a change of pace in the train shed yesterday, I actually did some more ground cover along some of the ROW where I had recently ballasted. As glue set up and began to dry, I switched a small town on the lower level for about an hour. Switched the tannery, scrap yard, tractor dealer, cannery and as in most of my towns, the grain elevator. Several industries in town did not require any moves yesterday, I'll get them on the next run.

Johnny -
Raincoat2 said:
Willie - thanks for sharing those photos of the train shed. Looks nice. I remember seeing a photo or two of the layout - would love to see more. Also, what kind of heaters did you put in?
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There's two, a small electric oil radiator and one of those electric (short circuit) type heaters that are generally used under desks and counters. They are really too small to be considered heaters as each one has an actual heating area of around 150 sq ft. Keeps the 640 sq ft room mostly above 50° during the coldest times. Right now with the temperature in the 30's it is around 57°. They're adequate, but I need to eventually get something with greater capacity.
Joe -
Boris said:
I spend too much time switching pretend industries, and not enough time with structures and scenery.
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I know the drill. I do have a lot of structures in place, but I lag far behind in scenery.
Karl - Really nice work on that steamer. I like your scenery in the original picture.
Terry - Good luck with the replacement car.
Beady - Love the lamp.
Mike - Keep it up. You won't regret giving them up in the long run. Breathing is probably just now becoming easier.
David -
Trussrod said:
Men will be men !
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That may be true, but I observed very early in my career that there's a distinct hard line between a professional life and a personal life that one doesn't cross. Especially when safety is such a great part of one's professional life. Everyone should recognize the responsibilities of their jobs and act accordingly.
GarryCBQ said:
Today, they have better ways of enforcing the rules.
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Even in the 80's, I recall watching a "crew van" drive the crew to the ATSF crew change point near me. A current engineer told me that the van will make random visits to a testing facility, both with outbound or inbound crews for testing; something that IC should have been doing years ago.
Side note - It is somewhat amusing to watch grizzled engineer/conductors climbing aboard their trains with briefcases in hand! And yes, there are a lot of females in the mix.

Well, I think that I hear my wife wandering around so I need to put the hearing aids in so that I might actually hear what she is saying. She's probably not in a good mood since I read that her Dallas Cowboys lost last night; so I'll be extra cautious around her for a few hours.
Everybody have a wonderful day.
 
Good morning. It's 32 and raining. The power went out yesterday evening, and is still out.
 
Good morning everyone,

Got about 4-5 inches of snow between yesterday, and this morning. It was the light fluffy variety, so the snow blower chewed right through it. Looks like late this week our weather pattern will change from above average to below average temps. Guess it had to happen at some point.

Have a great Sunday all,
 
santafewillie said:
There's two, a small electric oil radiator and one of those electric (short circuit) type heaters that are generally used under desks and counters. They're adequate, but I need to eventually get something with greater capacity.

You might check into a couple of oil type electric baseboard heaters. installed them in a remodel house in CO.
Worked great - each one had a thermostate on it.

That may be true, but I observed very early in my career that there's a distinct hard line between a professional life and a personal life that one doesn't cross. Especially when safety is such a great part of one's professional life. Everyone should recognize the responsibilities of their jobs and act accordingly.

Most of my career we played hard on our layover/off time, but was strickly business at work.

Even in the 80's, I recall watching a "crew van" drive the crew to the ATSF crew change point near me. A current engineer told me that the van will make random visits to a testing facility, both with outbound or inbound crews for testing; something that IC should have been doing years ago.

Can't remember when it was started - randome drug/alcohol testing, but somehow over many years my crew was never picked out. Folks hated it because it mostly caused them to miss their "commuter" flights home sometimes resulting in having to spend an extra night away from home.

Well, I think that I hear my wife wandering around so I need to put the hearing aids in so that I might actually hear what she is saying. She's probably not in a good mood since I read that her Dallas Cowboys lost last night; so I'll be extra cautious around her for a few hours.

Well, she should be in a lousy mood -- What a sorry-ass game they played. Looked like how teams normally play at the start of the season.
Everybody have a wonderful day.
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Good morning .....

David Trussrod .... I have several S-curves mostly because of the shape of my model railroad room. It is in the lower level (walk out basement) of our hillside house. Foundation walls along the up-hill side of the lower level have some 90 degree zig zags. The room follows the zig zags for 64'.

Willie .... Do you have any trouble with expansion and contraction of your rails with temperatures floating between 50 degrees in the winter and whatever it is in the summer ?
 
Morning: Looks as if its going to be a decent day here, but temp will only get to 60. We wound up yesterday with slightly more than ONE inch of rain and looking at the radar this morning - there is another line of rain offshore? Maybe it will come this way later on? It's been so dry around here that I would not care if it rained every day until the dry creekbeads started flowing again! Probably make the golfers very unhappy, but as my Dad used to say, " Only guys with little bitty balls play golf".

Very disappointed with the Dallas team yesterday - NOT a LA fan! Well, I am out of dog treats - just barely had a couple bites each this morning - so better hit Wally World this morning - noticed that I only have one can of food that I mix with their dry. YES - sometimes I think they fare better than myself in the grocery dept!
 
Good morning, Happy Sunday! :) 26° and snowing. We have a dusting of white on the ground with little likelihood of more. ;)

santafewillie said:
Even in the 80's, I recall watching a "crew van" drive the crew to the ATSF crew change point near me. A current engineer told me that the van will make random visits to a testing facility, both with outbound or inbound crews for testing; something that IC should have been doing years ago.
Side note - It is somewhat amusing to watch grizzled engineer/conductors climbing aboard their trains with briefcases in hand! And yes, there are a lot of females in the mix.
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Willie: Like in many other situations, where personal freedom and privacy suffer "for the Greater Good", when a small group of anti-social people deliberately violate laws, rules policies, and common decency because they can.

In the Railroad Industry, the tipping point came in 1987, with the Chase MD. Train wreck, caused by two individuals who elected to smoke weed and watch a Colts game on TV, while taking lite Engines from Baltimore to Harrisburg. They may also have been drinking. They ran a stop signal, crossed out on to the main in front of a passenger train running at twice the speed of the light engines, causing a collision, and wreck that resulted in numerous unnecessary deaths, injuries and destruction. That incident opened the door to Mandatory Post Accident Testing, Mandatory testing after a major rules violation, and ultimately random drug and alcohol testing.

Briefcases, are common among railroad Engineers and Conductors, because of all the required publications they are required to carry and be familiar with. Formal training has over the years evolved from learning by the seat of your pants, to formal classroom training as well as apprenticeship with a trained mentor(s). Today's railroader, is more of a business professional, than a semi skilled laborer. They are still human, and prone to errors of judgment, and still subject to fatigue, for instance, but they are better trained and more efficient than ever.

Sherrel: It could be snow...

Boris
 
Good morning. 12 degrees to start off the day with an expected high around 40.

Garry - The video and information on that derailment was really interesting. Thanks for the post.

Karl - That is one sweet looking locomotive.

Ray - You seem to be quite versed in DCC and when I see you having the problems you are having, it really makes me glad that I am still running DC. I do have a few DCC locomotives that I run at the club and know just enough to get them on the rails and running.

Jim - I really enjoyed the photos of the trolleys. Nice.

Joe - Thanks for posting the photo. I would like to see more. I know just how you feel when you're switching. I can't count how many times I have gone down to the train room with all good intentions of working on a project and just end up running trains and switching cars. It's too bad you can put in a drop down bridge for continuous running. I originally did not want to put one in, but it worked out quite well. I have three hidden tracks. Two I use for storing trains which I use for inbound trains to be staged and outbound a place to be parked. The third track allows a train to run continuously. There is enough room for about 80 to 90 cars to be stored on the hidden tracks. In just the past few years I have started using the continuous running capability and it does come in handy to let the grand kids run trains plus to put all of the locomotives on to let them run to keep them lubricated while working on other projects.

Willie - Thanks for posting photos of you train shed. Quite the place. The next best place to a basement.
Keto Diet - My wife, son and daughter in law have been on it for around three years. Pizza, my wife made one for herself last night. There are a lot of alternatives available. She orders different kinds of pasta and also breads and bagels. She has a thick binder full of different recipes. I have tried a number of her goodies and although there are some that I didn't care for, some are excellent. I also am not interested in the diet. I am what you would call a meat and potatoes guy. I won't give up my carbs. I like my beer too much. The breads she orders is excellent. If she is interested, let me know.

Here's a rail picture for today.

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Later
 
Whats going on fellers? Hope everyone is doing well. Have to fix a dresser today for the baby's clothes. Then off to the garage for some much needed cleaning. The misses finally said enough is enough and I need to declutter the mess. It's what happens when the garage turns into storage. But all of my stuff for my trains and my tools are down there that she doesn't wanna mess with much less move. So it's now my project. Which is fine. It'll give me the opportunity to sort out my train stuff and put away the things I don't need. I'll try to stop by later.
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Afternoon All,

Back from the show. I attended several great seminars on weathering and ops. I have to process what was talked about via handouts and notes that I took. The one disappointment was I was planning on buying several Funaro Pennsy cars for a project I want to do this year but they weren't there this year because of an illness:(. I also took about 25 pictures of display models that I spread out over a bunch of postings.
 
montanan said:
Joe - Thanks for posting the photo. I would like to see more. I know just how you feel when you're switching. I can't count how many times I have gone down to the train room with all good intentions of working on a project and just end up running trains and switching cars. It's too bad you can put in a drop down bridge for continuous running. I originally did not want to put one in, but it worked out quite well. I have three hidden tracks. Two I use for storing trains which I use for inbound trains to be staged and outbound a place to be parked. The third track allows a train to run continuously. There is enough room for about 80 to 90 cars to be stored on the hidden tracks. In just the past few years I have started using the continuous running capability and it does come in handy to let the grand kids run trains plus to put all of the locomotives on to let them run to keep them lubricated while working on other projects.
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Chet: I really need to take photos of all that is there as of today. The portion visible in the photo, was built to closely resemble the actual track layout of the prototype, during the late 1960s. the area beyond is more freelanced than factual, with a bit of Baltimore thrown in :rolleyes:. I learned that prototype operations and layout doesn't actually translate to HO space limitations. I do need to make a few revisions, and enlarge the staging.

As the layout is presently constituted, I normally have about 60 - 75 freight cars on the layout at any one time, any more, and it doesn't work. The PRR side requires three engines and the RDG two. If I finish the West end, I will have storage for more cars, and engines.

Boris
 
GarryCBQ said:
Willie .... Do you have any trouble with expansion and contraction of your rails with temperatures floating between 50 degrees in the winter and whatever it is in the summer ?
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I have not had trouble in the train shed, I did in the old train room over the years. I have a much more powerful A/C than heater and the temperature remains below 80° during the summer. I have often read that humidity is a much greater problem with wood expansion than temperature, and that temperature, while having an effect on the rail is a relatively limited effect. Humidity in this area is really pretty constant and on the lower side. Even so, I do not solder rail except for occasional locations. If it's on the warm side when I lay track, I generally butt the ends together; if it's cool, I leave a gap about the thickness of a business card between some, but not all ends. I also rely on track nails instead of ballast/glue to hold track in place and I do not remove them afterwards. Once painted, they are not noticeable. It may be a little overkill with all of the nails, but they are cheap. Overall, except for a few rare days in winter, it generally remains between 60° and 78° year round. That's pleasant and tolerable for me, and all of my townspeople, and we're the only ones that count!
Here is a portion of a discussion from 2004 from the Model Railroader discussion forum.
Several years ago, we conducted an experiment before we started laying flex track for the Cochise & Western Model Railroad Club's 20x40 foot HO scale layout, because we had been having expansion and contraction problems in our non-heated, non-air conditioned clubhouse on our previous layout.

A 3-foot long piece of Atlas code 100 nickel silver flex track was placed in full sunlight on a clear day in early July, between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., when the forecast high temperature was 100 degrees F., and both rails were measured. The same piece of track was then placed in a chest freezer and left overnight. Contraction of the rail was less than 1/64th of an inch between 100 degrees and zero degrees F.
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Here's another quote from Joe Fugate over at the MRH forum.
The rule of thumb is one business card's thickness per three foot section of flex track.
I haven't measured it precisely, but that's probably about 0.010" ( ten thousandths of an inch ) ... In other words, not much.
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Good afternoon. it's cloudy and 33, and power has temporarily been restored. I sold the car for half what we paid for it 4 years ago, and I have a line on a couple of private-party offerings, and a really nice newer car for about half NADA.
 
Good afternoon gang!
Started snowing here around 6 last night, very fine, fluffy stuff. Still snowing 10 hours later, but only about 5 inches of total accumulation. Whats falling now is fairly wet, I suspect it will stop soon.

Keto diet Youngest son and his gf have been on it a few months, My GF wants to start. I was farm raised, so meat and potatoes with a hunk of bread to soak up the gravy is my style. If it works for them, great. To me a lack of carbs = fuel injection. :rolleyes:

Today was the pooches 1st time in snow. He's upstairs sleeping it off right now. He likes the fun, but not the cold.
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Justin, cool pic, if it weren't for those heinous ditch lights, you wouldn't be able to determine when that pic was taken!

Time to throw another log on the fire, L8ter gang!
 
Seems we've come full circle. NASA is said to be developing a steam powered planetary explorer to mine ice.
 
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