Running Bear's January 2020 Coffee Shop


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Sad news this Thursday afternoon. A C130 firefighting aircraft operated by US company, Coulson Aviation has crashed in the Snowy Monaro region of NSW with the loss of all 3 crew members on board. No further details as yet.
 
Alan - I have some old blue box AC4400 that I added some details from Details West. Coupler bars,MU hoses, air hose and plows can make for a nice engine.

No question about that Tom. I've done many BB upgrades over the years. I moved away from them because of gross accuracy issues. The F unit nose & windows, and the too wide GP and SD hoods caused me to sell off the BB fleet over the years as better models became available. Then there was that whole concentrating on steam issue...:) I still have a few around here in the "round-tuit" pile. A GP-35 and a SW-1000 I want to paint & letter for the Birmingham Southern, and a few other misc. projects. They make very serviceable engines, and if you want you can spend almost as much on them as you would on the more modern stuff depending on how far you take your upgrade.
 
Good morning everyone. 33 and raining. Got a dusting of snow overnight, but it's just above freezing now and should stay there most of the day. This evening and overnight they're still saying we will get a couple of inches of snow.

Flo, how about a couple of eggs over medium, sausage AND bacon, a short stack of pancakes, and a cup of coffee - oh yeah, and a chocolate croissant for dessert!!

Willie, David, Burlington Bob, Iron Belt Ken, Posse, Tom, Chessie, Jim, Sherrel, Robots Walk the Earth, Patrick, Wheeler, Flip, Karl, Chet, Boris, and anyone I may have inadvertently missed - thanks for the likes and comments on my post yesterday. Not sure which drew more attention, the photo of the fire tower or the list of things to do in an elevator :D

Ray - Sorry to hear about the airplane crash and loss of life. Do hope some progress is being made on those fires.

Chet - My cousin, the one who sent me that list of elevator fun, is only partially sick - he is retired Air Force, maybe that's why?! He and I exchange all kinds of interesting stuff.

A few ideas for today:
If you're sitting in a public place and a stranger takes the seat next to you, just stare straight ahead and in as deep and gravely a voice as you can, say "Did you bring the money?"

Interviewer: "So, tell me about yourself."
Me: "I'd rather not. I kind of want this job."

I had my patience tested: I'm negative.

Progress on that jigsaw puzzle I got for Christmas. Sorry it's a little blurry - but so was I after getting this far with it. This is one tough puzzle. Can you recognize any of your favorites?
PuzzleProgress1.jpg


Life is fun. Have a good day everyone.
 
Good Morning All. 42° and foggy. At least it's warmer than it got all day yesterday. Rain gauge has 0.5" in the last 24 hours. Warming back up to the lower 60's for the next ten days if the weather geeks are right. The trip yesterday to our county seat of Gainesville TX to obtain the handicapped parking permit went well. As planned, we also stopped by the local feed/seed store for onion plants and to just generally browse. Also stopped by the German butcher outlet (the actual butcher shop is in nearby Muenster) to pick up lots of German sausage links and some summer sausage. Gainesville is the county seat of Cooke County and is a small town of about 16,000 very conservative folks. The last Democrat who won this county was fellow Texan LBJ in 1964. It is kind of deteriorating with lots of vacant buildings due to the coming of Walmart (a pretty horrible one judging from Yelp reviews) some years back. Today is the weekly grocery/beer trek in the other direction.

Ham, eggs and an English Muffin over here Flo. Not too busy this morning I see.

Thanks for the likes and comments regarding yesterday's tour pictures; Karl, Phil, Patrick, Jerome, Chet, Bill, Sherrel, Jim, Justin, Tom, Joe, Ken, Bob, David.

Still cleaning structures, figures and vehicles as I move along the wall of the layout. The tour continues with my largest grain elevator next. This is the Walther's ADM elevator kit. Unfortunately I waited too long before applying the decals and they disintegrated in the water. Two sets!
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The large grain bin is a Walther's kit and the smaller one along with the elevator are both from Rix Products. The area behind the facility is undecided for now. The top two choices are either a cow pasture or a cemetery. Another farmstead is the third choice. Kinda depends on whether I still have a farmhouse available when I develop it.
My next rail served industry is RJ Frost Ice and Storage, another large industry from Walther's. This is a good example of why you don't apply decals to unpainted plastic. It should have gotten a shot of Dull Coat first. I think that I can fix it though.
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Looks like a fallen ladder on the right. That's the type of stuff that I fix when I do this maintenance exercise. As you can see, the maintenance staff is on the roof working on the cooling tower. I'll get a better picture of them later today.

Johnny - I think that your cousin needs to get a life!o_O Nice looking trees.
James - Hope it's nothing too serious with the water supply. Good Luck. Probably not the best weather to have to deal with it.
Chet -
Willie - Like your photos even though the scene isn't completed.
Thanks. Please note that those round hay bales came from Montana...Thanks again.
Mikey - I googled AMRA and got the same results as Karl. Seems that their spam issue goes back a few years as evidenced by the lengthy series of posts over on an O gauge forum from 2017. Sometimes I think that "unsubscribing" just increases the amount that they send because they realize that there is someone there. I just send them to the spam filter now and that usually works until they change their originating address
Sherrel - I get real moody and depressed after a few cloudy days as well.
Bob - I like the area around Cookesville TN. My wife's sister and her husband have lived there for about 25 years now. The only drawback (to them) is that there are no Whataburgers in TN.

I'm still getting used to wearing this first ever set of eyeglasses. What a hassle! It's only been four days now and my wife says I will get used to them, eventually. Easy for her to say as she's been wearing them for 50 years now.
Everybody have a great day.
 
Morning all,

Just time for coffee this morning.

Not much today as we have a school program tonight for one of the grand kids. We always try to go to those as we can.

I heard on the news this morning about the C130 accident. U.S. folks as well. I hope the fires start getting better there soon.


I once worked in a grocery store. I got fired when a lady asked me how much is 1/2 and 1/2. I told her "one".
 
Thanks for everyone's ideas. I found an old email from early December that seemed to have a slightly different address. I wonder if they are using multiple sources to spam their ads? I am going to block them again AND keep unsubscribing..
Usually, the change the part to the left of the @. OTOH, some mail clients can block an entire domain, so the savvier spammers alter the other side, as well. There was a time, back in the elder days, when using a * after the common part of the address would do the trick (tester@testone and testy@test2 could both be blocked by test*@test*). I don't think tat still works.
 
Warning: Semi-rant
I have now reached the end of my patience with AMERICAN MODEL RAILROAD ACADEMY spamming activities. For the last couple months, I have gotten 4 or 5 "offers" a week for their video services. I have "unsubscribed" on three different occasions and blocked their emails once. I probably should not have tried one of their "free"videos, which I decided was not useful to me.
Any suggestions as to what else to do?
Do you have an Adblocker program on your computer?
 
Funny thing! Since I posted my rant, I have not gotten another Academy ad. We will have to see if that continues.
I have a pretty basic laptop and use Gmail for email, so I don't have much adblock software.
This has been the only persistent spammer I've had in years.
Thanks for every ones help.
 
Ray - Sorry to hear about the airplane crash and loss of life. Do hope some progress is being made on those fires.
The coastal fires have had some help from heavy rain, but not long enough to be drought breaking, flash flooding, which has brought it's own problems with it. New South Wales and Victoria are still carrying the worst of the fires. They are still badly effected by the smoke in the main cities and would you believe, thunderstorm generated massive dust storms off the dry "outback". Melbourne, in Victoria's south has had hailstorms of golf ball and larger hail doing lots of damage. The Australian Tennis Open, which is 'on' at the moment has had delays caused by the smoke, another when a dust storm combined with a rainstorm and coated the outside courts and stands with muddy rain.

Last I heard this morning, they haven't yet reached the air tankers crash site and no news on what might have happened to cause it.
 
Good Evening y'all. Thought I would share a photo of Conrail SA-31 out of Browns yard in Sayerville, NJ, on 01/02/2020. The train is passing through Tinton Falls, NJ, enroute to Lakewood, NJ on the former CNJ Southern branch. This is my old assignment from the 1990s. BTW, Sayerville, is the home of rocker Bon Jovi. Tinton Falls, is not far from Rumson, NJ, home of Bruce Springsteen. (Noted Musician and proud papa of a Jersey City Probationary Firefighter). The Southern branch passes a couple miles from my home in Howell. I usually hear them blowing for crossings as they make their weekly (Thursday night) run.

SA-31 at Tinton Falls on 01-02-2020.jpg
 
Do the paint jobs need a touch up?:cool:Almost too shiny.
That was my thought too. SP was a high choice when I was returning to model trains, back about '06 (found out the other day, I joined my club in '07) because of how good they looked once faded and weathered. Best colors for that. But, then I found MRL with it's high mix of new and old. Much easier to find rolling stock that fitted the late era. But everytime someone shows up at the club with SP, I'm all eyes. Love Athearn's new release SD45T-2's.
 
Good morning everyone. 35 and snowing here. Had a dusting of snow overnight and will continue fine snow for another few hours. Maybe an inch total accumulation. But we've dodged another bullet, I guess. You know, one of these days a bullet is gonna kill us.

Mornin', Flo - just coffee and a pastry this morning. Kind of like yesterday, isn't it - - not very busy right now.

Jim, Tom, Robots, Beady, Flip, IB Ken, Patrick, Wheeler, Willie, and anyone I missed - thanks for the comments and likes on my post yesterday.
Ray - Hope they can get to the crash site and find out what happened. I saw where one of the Australian Open players succumbed to a fit of coughing, seemingly from the smoke from the fires? Continued prayers for them to get those fires contained.
Beady - I proudly admit I am a jigsaw puzzle freak! Not an "anal" freak mind you, but just a "freak.":D

Got home last night and wasn't feeling real well. Had dinner and went to bed. Feeling fine this morning. No clue.

Nothing fresh to post, since I didn't get anything done last night. But here's an archive photo that I like:

TwoTrainsThroughTownAug2019.jpg


Have a good day everyone.
 
Alan- a really nice shot!
Do the paint jobs need a touch up?:cool:Almost too shiny.
Seriously, a great variety of excellent engines.
They aren't that shiny in person. This area is right under the lights, and that kind of makes it worse. Several pieces are brand new and haven't been weathered yet, others only lightly. When I mix eras, the steam goes away and there is a mix of Black Widow and bloody nose, so the Bloody nose will not be heavily weathered. It gets a flat coat, a little road dust, some exhaust, like that. :)
 
Good Morning All. 36° and clear here today. Continuing warming trend here, Low temperatures remaining well above freezing and highs in the 60's for the next ten days.

Eggs over easy, pancakes and a handful of bacon this morning Flo. I'll pay for that box of doughnuts for the first few that want one.

Thanks for the likes and positive comments yesterday on the cleanup progress/layout tour; Alan, Jerome, Karl, Chet, Patrick, Ken, Phil, James, Bill, Tom, Jim, Bob.

Nearing the end of the quarterly cleanup project in the train shed. This time around is taking longer than most due to all of the trackage in the staging yard. Here's a few more structures along that wall.
Next to the RJ Frost Ice and Cold Storage is another rail-served industry, Drywell Inks.
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This is a DPM Gold Series kit from about 15 years ago. While they no longer ship boxcars of ink in barrels, they still receive tankers full that they transfer to drums. You can just see the corner of Rosa's Cafe, a Mexican food place to the left. More on that tomorrow when I retrieve the camera which I left out in the train shed.

Johnny - Boy, I have to agree with Beady about the puzzle pieces!:D
Mikey - How are you making your tarps?
Alan - Nice shot of the SP power. However, I thought that all SP engines came from EMD pre-weathered!:cool: Never saw a clean one in all my years of railfanning back then. Also once spoke with an SP engineer who claimed that the reason that SP always double-headed power was for when (not if) one unit broke down.

So today is National Beer Can Appreciation Day. Some of us may remember when beer was only available in bottles, or on tap, although I have to admit that I was too young to purchase it at the time. I actually only purchase it in bottles because the "pop-tops" get caught in my mustache
Everybody have a great day.
 
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