HAd a good weekend building two bridges to an almost complete stage. I elected to leave out the side supports until I have the track installed. I also got the two short girders built up. Then I just had to set them together, and put them in their approximate final location! It was a pleasant building session, as trains steamed around and cruised past, the crews hanging their heads out to gawk at the B&B crew building away! Before any of that, I had to spend a bit of time doing a small leak repair on the roof. Time to start thinking about a new roof on the trainshed!
Bridge 4 arrived and is in process! Am screwing up some courage and working to improve the pulling power of the AC-12. Here some weight is added to the cab, about 1/4 ounce. But it's biggest issue is the location of the traction tires, the lead axle of each engine. It appears to be correctable, with some tough axle work. Then the big concern will be can the siderods and pins handle the torque? Hmm, pondering to do. So, while I was under there, the pilot wheels got swapped out and some solder added for better tracking.
So not much has been happening on the road lately, summer busy-ness and all.However, I was able to hit my LHS in Billings last week and pick up some brass strips so I can finish these bridges. I tried using the plastic strips, SNAP! So, bras it will be! And a little bit of scenery imaginings going on with styrofoam leftovers from work projects, The only other bit of excitement was having a co-contractor bring her nephew over to watch and play trains! ( years old and excited! But he did very well not touching anything and just driving them like I asked him to. A good kid that! His dad sat and was just amazed at all of it and the detail available in N! Yay! Just another day of spreading the modelrailroad disease!
Had to look to see what uou were seeing, and I think it is just the little rivet that holds on the reversing rod to the eccentric. It has a lot of play on both sides. Thanks for looking tho! I miss stuff like that all the time, which is one reason I do close up pics and look at them on the PC!
This is the extent of my layout time today, I built a pc tie bridge and put it in where the temperature extremes caused the track to seperate. As you can see, the near rail really moved a long way. And even tho this are of the layout got up near 80 today, nothing buckled anywhere. I will fill the gap with styrene, eventually. These two switches are slated for replacemnt with #8's so it can wait. Having fixed this I was able to run trains again! Aaaaaaahhhh, relaxing.
Got motivated last night and put in some more foam and sheetrock mud. Then paint this am. The point here is to hide the "not-tunnel" going into the cut and disappearing into the scenery without it being an obvious tunnel. I think it is successful here.
Made a little progress on this corner this last week. Evenings in the trainshed at 80 when it is near 100 outside sure does feel cool!
I am doing better Ken. Day by day. This has not been diagnosed as to why yet. Which has been hard to swallow. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
It's been good to hear from gcav since his incident. Now to get him back into working on his rails! Here's a quick video of the first train through the new scenery in this corner I have been working on. There is still more detailing to do, but it looks a lot better than open space!
Just a quick update of what little has been getting done. The wife has been having some health issues, not life threatening, but time consuming. and busy days working, like yesterdays rough, rough, rough trailer home move. 6 hours to get 40 miles! Blew the fan out of my truck, went through the radiator, got a tow and then lost tires on the trailer, 16x70, made for an exhausting day. Trains make it worth it.
