Well we are back again. Did you have a good weekend? Lets get started! Saturday: Was a great time. My buddy Steve and I left before day break and started our day at our favorite breakfast stop in Goodhue Illinois before taking the scenic route to the town of Spring Valley. I love downtown scenes and Spring Valley is certainly no exception. Before going into the train shop, we visited a good old fashioned bakery and had some donuts. Once our collective sweet teeth were satisfied, it was time to cross the street and head over to the railroad shop. Everything I had ever heard about this shop was true and we must have spent a few hours in the store. I picked up a few Micro Train boxcars I have been looking for as well as some detail parts and we headed out. Steve had never seen the restored CB&Q Waycar in Princeton so we took a quick drive to the Amtrak station. Hard to believe the last time I had seen this piece of equipment, it was red and not restored. That was back in June of 2004 on my way to Galesburg RR Days. It was in November of that year it got the full Q treatment. She is starting to show some age however. On the home we ran into some other surprises... A pair of Iowa Interstate GP38-2's and wait for it....... The find of the day! An original Rock Island PS covered hopper. It even had its CNW ownership stencil still on it! It certainly was a nice surprise and while the picture isn't the greatest, I have proof of a RI car in pretty original shape in 2017! We stopped for lunch before going back to Steve's place to look over his projects and N scale layout and before we knew it, the sun was setting and time for me to go home. Saturday was really a nice break. Sunday: Was a day spent finding the perfect Christmas tree, shopping and then getting said tree in house and starting the decoration process. I'm still not done with the O-31 display as I keep running out of time and other distractions have popped up but I'm determined to get it done this week. So how about you? How did you do this past weekend? Let us know how the train show went, the latest lighting project or how much track you got down. Whatever you were able to accomplish, let us know. We'll assemble again on Friday the 15th to start the process again. Until then, have a great week, be safe and as always... High Greens!
Well after a fun filled weekend in Mesquite and Las Vegas Nevada we will see if I get anything done today.
Only had a few intermittent hours yesterday, but did het the bridge in and operating! http://www.trainboard.com/highball/...and-black-hills-ry.69565/page-16#post-1037668
I shifted gears a bit this weekend. A while ago, I had purchased a Sountraxx sound decoder for my Overland GTEL 8500 -- I managed to fry it. So, earlier this year I sent it in for repair. Well, it was of their old design, and they did not have a direct replacement - until now. I received the new sound decoder last week. So, I decided to install it. All went well. I went extremely slow -- checking my work at every step.... I took it up to the layout for programming. All good. Until, I throttled it up.... nothing.... sound, but, no movement --- WTH-?? Did I fry it again-?? Damn. Not so fast.... I loosened the shell... put her back on the track --- she zipped right along.... phew --- what a relief. So, I cinched the shell down again.... again no movement... WTH-?? Then it dawned on me..... the darn decoder is hitting the darn flywheel. With no more room to move the decoder around. Well.....crap. So, out goes the sound decoder and in goes a standard one. Down the road I will purchase an ESU select micro. This process took up most of Saturday. Sunday -- went a bit better. I worked on the lighting for my SD-9's. Finished up 2 out of 5. The lights work great. I have a some light bleed up on one of them (Witch will subsequently be 4 of them). At the moment, I can live with it. I just want these units back in service. Hope Y'all had a great weekend!! Wolf
Awesome photo's Jim. Essence of "train". This weekend I put down quite a bit of homasote on the plywood I got down over Thanksgiving. I'll be able to to work on some bits and pieces over the next couple of weekends, but not much. This weekend we're hosting a family reunion, an annual Christmas thing and of course the following weekend will be Christmas itself. I'll be home the week between Christmas and New Years. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a big push on advancing the layout during that week.
Finally get to move on to something other than the Lumber Mill corner. Took much longer than anticipated with the corner mountain scenery challenge. Before and After
