Valley Forge RPM

[Colin 't Hart]

Anyone from here attending the Valley Forge RPM end of March?

Would love to put same faces to some names!

I'm scheduled to fly in to Newark on the afternoon of Friday of 27th March. At this stage I'm not sure how I'm getting down to Malvern PA, so if you're driving down from the north east on the Friday afternoon I would love to hear from you. More than willing to share the costs and then some.

[carrman]

Meet cancelled. Shaping up to be a lousy year for the hobby.

[Gary P]

Mar 13, 2020 9:13:06 GMT -8 carrman said:

Meet cancelled. Shaping up to be a lousy year for the hobby.

Sad year indeed. (For many things..... )

[riogrande]

It sucks the meetings are canceled for some months ahead but I have plenty to keep me busy working on the layout and more than enough on my hobby to-do list. And I can still get stuff via mail order. I don't have a decent LHS anyway so online is how I get most of my goodies. I was planning on treasure hunting at Timonium in early May but that plan is scuppered now.

[fr8kar]

As people become stir crazy in their homes, it might be a good time to list those unwanted trains on ebay. I'll bet ebay sees a spike in traffic in the coming weeks.

[riogrande]

So far I haven't seen any spikes of anything I've been interested in. I regularly do searches on some brands or items and was wondering the same thing. But I'm regularly going through my collection to see if there are things I can sell as I refine my interests.

[sd40dash2]

Mar 18, 2020 13:55:53 GMT -8 fr8kar said:

As people become stir crazy in their homes, it might be a good time to list those unwanted trains on ebay. I'll bet ebay sees a spike in traffic in the coming weeks.

I believe the virus can transmit via surfaces as well, so I am unfortunately not too interested in having anything shipped to me at the moment. I will enjoy the shelves full of stock currently on hand until this passes.

[riogrande]

Or just let the parcels or items "time out" for more than the time needed.

From a BBC report on the subject:

Neeltje van Doremalen, a virologist at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), and her colleagues at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, have done some of the first tests of how long SARS-CoV-2 can last for on different surfaces. Their study, which has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, shows that the virus could survive in droplets for up to three hours after being coughed out into the air. Fine droplets between 1-5 micrometres in size – about 30 times small than the width of a human hair – can remain airborne for several hours in still air.

It means that the virus circulating in unfiltered air conditioning systems will only persist for a couple of hours at the most, especially as aerosol droplets tend to settle on surfaces faster in disturbed air.

But the NIH study found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus survives for longer on cardboard – up to 24 hours – and up to 2-3 days on plastic and stainless-steel surfaces. (Learn how to clean your mobile phone properly.)

The findings suggest the virus might last this long on door handles, plastic-coated or laminated worktops and other hard surfaces. The researchers did find, however, that copper surfaces tended to kill the virus in about four hours.

But there is a speedier option: research has shown that coronaviruses can be inactivated within a minute by disinfecting surfaces with 62-71% alcohol, or 0.5% hydrogen peroxide bleach or household bleach containing 0.1% sodium hypochlorite.

...

SARS-CoV-2, the name of the virus that causes the disease Covid-19

So get items and let them sit for a longer period - double it or triple it or whatever. Most parcels are cardboard so by the time they arrive, they should be good for handling but if you are risk averse, use latex gloves and set them away and leave them sit for a week or so to be conservative. Remove the gloves from the inside and and dispose.

[valenciajim]

SARS-CoV-2, the name of the virus that causes the disease Covid-19[/quote]So get items and let them sit for a longer period - double it or triple it or whatever. Most parcels are cardboard so by the time they arrive, they should be good for handling but if you are risk averse, use latex gloves and set them away and leave them sit for a week or so to be conservative. Remove the gloves from the inside and and dispose.[/quote]


I think the idea of using latex gloves and letting things sit is a good idea. Theoretically, you don't know whether the delivery man is an asymptomatic carrier of the virus. Given the likely demographics of this group, hopefully we are all able postpone getting infected until after there is a vaccination or at least the capacity to treat the percentage of people who require hospitalization.

It was interesting to see the name of the virologist, Neeltje. That is my sister's name and it is a quite rare Dutch name. In fact this is the first time, besides my sister, that I have seen someone with that name.