Running Bear's March 2019 Coffee Shop


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Good morning gang.
Spent most of yesterday with GF helping her select the buy a replacement for her well worn Jeep Liberty. She wound up with a 2017 Equinox with AWD. Nice 23,000 mile unit for 17k. I no sooner returned then #2 son stopped by for a visit. Today was going to include train time, but that is being preempted by a last minute babysitting duty of her grandkids.
I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever see the basement again.
 
Good Morning all,

This is what we woke up to this morning.

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Good Morning All. 36° and clear. Happy St. Patrick's Day to all, whether Irish or not. A bit late this morning as I didn't get home until midnight. While I was at my daughter's house yesterday afternoon for the pre-41st birthday celebration, a couple of her old high school classmates came by. It reminded me that hers was the largest graduating class for her school at the time, 31 students. By comparison, three years later when my second daughter graduated, there were 13 in her class and later there were 16 in my son's class. Ended the evening at my best man's home to celebrate his wife's 65th birthday along with several of my high school and college classmates.

Thanks for the positive comments and likes on yesterday's scenes, Joe, Phil, Dave, Tom, Sherrel, Chet, Jim, Curt, David, Garry, and anyone else who I may have missed.
No time for trains yesterday, some days are just like that.:(

Greg -
Greg@mnrr said:
Bruette: Excellent choice....Chicago....I seen them in concert in the late 60's or very early 70's just after they changed their name to Chicago from CTA.
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That's the second time that I saw them as well. Quite an exhilarating concert at the time. First time they were still CTA and every song was fifteen minutes long.
Joe - Thanks for the wreck train information. Are the cars blocked in any particular order? I know very little regarding them specifically and have just collected cars and strung them together.
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For operations, I just move it from one end of the layout to the other and park it on various sidings along the way for a few sessions and work around it. Then it moves one or two towns further along the way to park again. After seeing Terry's train, I realize that a hopper of ballast would probably be appropriate as well.
Tom - DC is not operations friendly with groups. As a lone operator, it works just great for me though. While the ability to operate two trains at once is there, I can only pay attention to one at a time anyway since I primarily do switching.
Mark -
NP2626 said:
"As Confusion will be my Epitaph"!
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I like it! Came from King Crimson's first album in 1969, track three "Epitaph", Greg Lake (later of Emerson Lake & Palmer) on haunting vocals. Mellotron was played by Ian McDonald, later a founder of the band Foreigner.

OK, time to move on. Got to get the corned beef into the slow cooker before going to church.
Everybody have a great day.
 
Good Morning Everyone....clear and cold here in Wisconsin. A warming trend finally starting.

Plans for today include finishing the project that I started yesterday which is installing LED lamp post lights on my highway over pass that covers the Saxeville Interchange. A project since holes need to be drilled into the bridge assembly to install the lamp posts, holes to fish the wires through the metal framework and run the wires down to the underside of the layout. I'll fish the wires through a drain pipe (straw) and then run them under ground cover and then down a drilled hole in the sub-roadbed. The lamp posts are Woodlands Scenic's.

I have several sections that I want to work on the scenery and yesterday I purchased the most realistic birch trees that I've seen.

The trip to Walthers provided me with a shopping spree that I never intended to happen. I purchased too many materials, but everything needed for the layout, sooner or later. For those who never been to Walther's Showroom, walking into the front door you're greeted by a large display layout approximately 26' X 12' and has a double track mainline. Usually two long, double headed freights or a passenger train are running with a freight. Like a kid walking into a candy store. This was my second trip in a week to Walthers.

Check out the videos on Walther's website site, especially the one filmed at John Tews' Timber River Railway where John installed a Walthers' 110' turn table on his layout.

The turnout that was giving troubles now is working fine and I didn't do a thing to the track. One thing was the temperature was 64 degrees when all the problems occurred and now the temperature is a toasty 68 degrees. A thermal condition causing some expansion or contraction?

Time to go....

Greg

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santafewillie said:
Joe - Thanks for the wreck train information. Are the cars blocked in any particular order? I know very little regarding them specifically and have just collected cars and strung them together.
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Willie: I imagine, the make-up is what ever works best for the "mission". The wreck trains I was most familiar with, Baltimore, Wilmington, Enola, So. Philly, Conway and West Philly, were made up Derrick, boom and cable car, tender, tool car, (baggage car), riding and commissary car,(coach or sleeper), the panel cars. They were usually stored on a double ended siding, so that an engine could couple to either end. The preferred method, was Derrick behind the engine, boom trailing, as boom leading carried a speed restriction. There were variations, diesel derricks did not require a tender car, and some trains did not carry panel cars. Other locations varied the consist, and each railroad was different.

Boris
 
Willie, it was quite the operation.I took a peak under the table to see the maze of wires in the yard area.Don't miss those days with the club layout,it was nice to simplify when we switched to DCC.
 
Good morning, 32 and sunny. Just finished our pancakes and eggs, probably my specialty. Currently downing a fine French Roast.

Mike-- seeing the snow just brings a bad feeling this time of year. Our winter didn't start until January, but the 60" we got in February more than makes up for it!

Here is my layout shot of the day. The pulpwood load is authentic to our region, they loaded the wood like this from at least the 20's until even present day, if other cars are not available.

This pulp was made from the dried goldenrod weeds, same as the logs except smaller pieces:

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Have a restful day, if possible... Dave
 
Sirfoldalot said:
Thanks, DAVID, can't you just buy replacements for the broken parts, or another set of trucks?

BTW - nice photo!
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Sherrel: I haven't tried to check into replacing the trucks yet as I think I'd want to hopefully find another source of more substantial trucks. Just haven't taken the time as to many other things get in the way.

Btw, thanks for your comment about my shot of the Wood Ore car which isn't finished and needs a fair amount of detailing yet.

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LoL, it was enjoyable though setting up the Wood Ore car, just visable on the Left pic edge, up on the the abandoned bums box car siding but first I had to use the small vacuum tools to suck up a bunch of mouse crap. I don't know he finds to eat but I left a block of d-Con mouse bait for him to snack on and make me happy ! Well in taking a closer look at the picture I see where he was eating the bark off the Oak branch stump that I placed there for the bums to easily climb into the old scratch built box car which also needs a lot of details added yet such as the truss rods, grab irons, break staff and wheel plus couplers.

In taking the shot with my cell phone I was in too close and hence the blury bums around the campfire. Kindly don't report me to the Hobo's Sole society ! Ok?
 
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santafewillie said:
Good Morning All. 56° and raining and a lot of high winds. At 4:30 it was 64° and then the thunderstorm moved in. We're under a severe thunderstorm warning.

Moving on to a "waiting for further scenery" part of the layout, here is a small non-rail served grain and seed dealer. The base model is a cheapo freight house model called Williamsburg Freight House by AM Models. To the left is an outhouse , still common in rural Texas in the 70's and early 80's which covers part of my era.
View attachment 35104

Everybody have a great day.
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