Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend and Easter holiday, let's see if we accomplished what we set out to do. Good Friday: I was off by noon so I spent some time on here and uploaded a bunch of new images so I can update my build thread on the N scale Granite State Industrial. I then worked on my truck until dinner which was a burger at the local pub with the wife. Saturday: I got up, made coffee and went to the workshop. After a few videos and research surfing online, I went outside to work on the truck. Seams I had a bad brake line go bad, so I carefully took out the old line, went to the auto parts store and got some new fittings and line and got home. I bent up a new line and installed it and repairing my brake issue. I then helped with yard work until 7:00 when I relaxed by grilling burgers on the grill for dinner. EASTER: We had our granddaughter over for an Easter egg hunt and for her to see what else the Easter Bunny left her. We visited for about an hour than made the hour plus drive up north for Easter dinner with Grandma and family. It was a nice meal and the pecan pie I made was a big hit. On the way home we called my dad to wish him a Happy Easter and catch up before wrapping it up before we got home. Once home, we crashed on the sofa and realized the whirlwind weekend was over. So how about you? What did you accomplish? Let us know. We'll gather again on Friday, April 5th to start it all over again. I will post the WMP thread hopefully late Thursday night as I will be traveling to Denver Friday, but if you don't see the thread at the regular time Friday, please be patient as I'm trying to write it from an airport terminal somewhere. Until then, have a good week, stay healthy, be safe and as always... High Greens!
Greetings from a thunderous morning in Mc Lean VA. Well, um, ya, I got a long done including assesing the space for structures, a new video which I should upload today and a better concept of a mountain to build.
Good morning and Happy, Happy Monday. NC State men and women both got to their final fours this weekend. The City of Raleigh is rocking this week. On the train front I got stymied somewhat. Woke up Saturday AM and with a hot water circ pump leak. Water was all over the garage floor by the water heater. Had a plumber get here, took out the pump and got everything dry. So now we have to wait for the new pump. Just takes a long time now to get hot water to certain parts of the house. Yesterday we went to mass to celebrate Easter. Great service and the church was packed to standing room. Meanwhile, back at the ranch in the workshop and train room: I did manage to get a new decoder into one of my F7's as well as put a new speaker in another. Also got some work done on the barn project. The other thing I got done was repairing some freight cars that had been eating space on the work bench. Each had their own little issues like wheel alignment on one, coupler pocket on another, and weight/balance issue on the other. I got them fixed up and ran them in a train to test them out and they are good to go. (Photo below) Have a great week all!!
Good morning everyone, It was a rainy but productive hobby weekend here. First, I finished and installed the communication tower in Carlin. Got my Tokyo modules out to check them and clean the track in preparation for the setup this week. Added a few more people to the scene, particularly to the platform and station stairs after removing the roofs for access. I think I have about 150 people on this 2-meter set of modules now. Did a bunch to the downtown block of Carlin, still on the work bench. Added parking stripes, oil spots, mailbox, and street lights. Also finished the vacant lot between the buildings. And throughout the weekend I was adding items to the N Scale database. Have a great week everyone.
Happy Monday all! Friday after work, I just barely made it to the closest LHS for some paints. The arroWedge replacement decals plus another set for another project car from Circus City were in the mailbox. After getting home and having dinner, went down and made some progress on a couple of the many projects. I also started the DCC install on an Atlas GP38 but didn't finish. Not a fan of doing this on Atlas units. Saturday, I did finally finish the decals for the M/T arroWedge container and it's done except for a clear sealer coat. Completed the assembly of the little transformer and it just needs some paint. Did more wok on pipe loads. Al the green ones are done but the black ones aren't going well so went backwards instead of forward on those. Finished (and I use that term lightly) the less than stellar DCC install on the GP38. It's programable and runs but more noisy than when I started so someday, it will revisit the workbench. I also started the decals on another car. Only got part of one side done. It's going to look okay but not as good as I was hoping. Also discovered I'll need a different deal set to be able to complete some of the car. Sunday, Was out of pocket all day so nothing train related. Vack to the grind today. Hope you all have a great week!
Unfortunately for me the weekend was dominated by hernia pain. The mornings and afternoons were not bad. The evenings, however, were the opposite. The pain would come in waves and at times it got very close to 10. On a few occasions I thought about calling the surgeon and requesting moving the surgery up on the calendar. I can’t tell you what triggered the pain. I was under close supervision from my wife and daughter and was constantly reprimanded even if I looked at something slightly heavy. We did get out to PetSmart, the post office, and the grocery store. Easter was nice and quiet. My contribution to dinner was directing my daughter on how to do the dishes I usually make such as the ham and yam casserole. I was allowed to make the casserole but not to carry it to the oven. My modeling was impacted by the pain. I did receive some items I need for the bridge area. I tested the tunnel portal and determined what needed to be trimmed off. I figured out what I need to complete the base of the roadway and bridges. I also figured I need at least one set of stairs from the sidewalk to the top of cutout section. Therefore, it was back to eBay and Trainworld to order the needed supplies. Since sitting was my main attribute, I did work on entering some boxcars into my inventory program.
My weekend was rather relaxed and not much completed on my new On30 layout due to the rain, maybe today will be clear / dry enough to cut the last bits of wood that I need to get the first modules together. But I did get a shelf put up above my electronics workbench to hold four drawer units with most of my loose / cut-tape bits of electronic parts. So my workbench is a bit cleaner now. I also got some time to test the Nexxt Throttle battery charging circuit and found that it is a no-go, not sure why but it refuses to charge the battery at all! So I modified the throttle PCB to fix a couple bugs in the current version (mainly the display connector being backwards) and removed the charging circuit from the main PCB in favor of a short four pin wire harness that can provide power and data to the main board. As part of that I created a smaller PCB that will connect the battery, charger circuit and USB connector so it can be swapped out more easily if required due to issues. The separate charging board will also make shifting to an exposed contact surface and charging cradle option a lot simpler, for the design on this it could be similar to walkie-talkies or I could opt for a simple cable attachment that allows continued operation while it is charging (not ideal but is doable). I'll share photos of the throttle once I receive PCBs in a week or so.
I didn't get much done with the trains. I was in a lot of pain and sinus flair up. So the medications had me messed up. I did get tow of three packages. One was from Kalbachh Publishing. Two books and two CDs on installing DCC. I already have three from Atlas. I keep reading how simple it is to go to DCC. But, all this literature and CDs makes it sound like a lot of study and work. With summer coming I think it will be slow. The N is Kato so that means more stuff and the HO I don't have much. So it's time to get busy.
Good morning from cloudy and rainy Northeast Ohio! Friday, I spent most of the time I had for modeling repairing and checking my piggyback flats to take to the club on Saturday, in the evening went to the bowling alley to pickup our winnings for the year and have pizza and a few alchoholic beverages. Went to the club on Saturday with my piggyback flats and they all ran flawlessly. In the evening I worked on decaling an Eastern Car Works hopper car along with finishing up a GP7 by painting some of the detail parts for installation. Sunday, did the laundry and installed all the hand rails and other detail parts prior to dull coating the the model this week. I then started on another Moloco RBL kit and an Exactrail Evans 4780CF Covered Hopper. Rick Jesionowski
Good mornin from sunny Socal. (After a rain filled weekend) I cleaned and serviced about 20 switchers. Most run very well - now. I also worked on a couple of Kato GS-4's -- they now run as they should. I worked a bit on an IM cab forward. She is still giving me fits. Y'all have a great week, Wolf
As expected, I got absolutely nothing done train-wise. We had worship services on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and twice on Sunday. I preached on Thursday and Sunday, led communion and the baptism remembrance at the Saturday Easter Vigil, and was in charge of hosting the community service at our church on Good Friday. Otherwise, Friday my wife and I drove a half-hour or so to Minerva, Ohio to drop off our taxes with our accountant with plans to go out for lunch but, by the time we drove there, my lady wasn't feeling well so we just drove home and ate food that we already had. Saturday, we expected all but our Texas kids to come for lunch, but one cancelled at literally the last minute and since our daughter has been fighting some kind of bug anyway, my wife just told them not to come. We ate some of what we had prepared and put the rest in the refrigerator. Sunday, my wife played guitar (with another guitarist) to lead the sunrise service, then a church breakfast, then Easter worship, then out to my brother's house for lunch. We took the potato salad from the previous day, plus the homemade potato rolls that my wife had made for the occasion. Once we had eaten and socialized, my wife and I were both completely exhausted, excused ourselves and came home for a (long) nap. After the nap I felt a little better but was still so exhausted I didn't feel like doing anything other than sit in my recliner and make trips to the kitchen for snacks. I got a decent night's sleep last night but sheesh, I am still tired. No major plans for today other than I have a class (on Microsoft Teams) this afternoon. Next week is women's Sunday so I'm hoping to get some rest and catch up on a few other things this week. I hope all of you had a great Easter regardless of how you do, or don't celebrate.
Burger for dinner...burger for dinner. It's Burger Heaven! A concept mountain. Cars back out of the repair shop and on track! People add so much to a scene. Don't worry. I do lots of less than stellar stuff. I have had hernia pain. I wish Tompm did not. Charging circuit not charging would "chagrin" me. Sinus pain is major pain. Hopper car, GP7. Sounds like Christmas! Twenty switchers sounds like a record! (I hate it when equipment gives me fits. ) Busy Easter weekend = need to rest, for sure. Yep. Whirlwind weekend. Very good though. Lots of family visits. No MRR time Saturday or Sunday. However, today was car service and errand morning. Rainy weather predicted. Depot building time predicted. I am hoping for major progress this week. Have a great week.
I didn't get as far as I hoped to, but I have a game plan to get close to where I want to be. I thinned out and reorganized quite a few items. I plan to order some stackable totes so I can remove a dresser and cabinet from the garage/layout space. I plan to have some on rollers for easy movement and stow the workbench on wheels against the wall. At this point the floor space for the peninsula will be open, so no excuses. Having storage on wheels, as I did on another layout, sure speeds things up and is so much less discouraging. I can simply roll the totes out of the garage, build, then roll them back in under the new benchwork and out of the way. Yes, I am at that point in my life. Harumph! Model Railroading will be fun when I can share the layout with other operators.
Got one of my scores from Ottawa painted and lettered: Proto FB2 dummy, Microscale decals for the Copper-Bronze stripe and Canadian National lettering, Black Cat decals for the numbers (a batch done for the CN Lines SIG, now the CNRHA). CN 9417 was part of the first batch of FB2 units delivered by MLW to CN, and the last batch of FA2/FB2 engines delivered with the Copper-Bronze stripe. After this batch, the stripe was yellow. Seems that the metallic paint needed a lot of attention and was not very dirt resistant. This one was a high cuss-to-result ratio case... I also painted the two Atlas RS3 units in CN green to prep them for decal work.
