Another weekend has pulled away from the platform and for me another Trainfest is in the books. How did you spend your weekend? Even though I had to work, I still had a great time this past weekend at Milwaukee. I set up both of my modules at the T-Trak section where we had an impressive display of modules from Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. Friday night we had a dinner and I met up with my fellow club members from Bloomington- Normal. Saturday I was able to pick up some items for both my T-Trak modules such as crossing gates and a few more freight cars, to a laser cut church kit for the home layout. I also got to meet a few Trainboard members such as Testuma and Oblivion, always great to put a face to a name! Saturday night was topped off with a local N scale home layout tour of two talented modelers. Sunday, I walked the show and bought any last minute items I thought I would need, packed up the Carstens booth and headed home getting back right at midnight. All in a all, a great weekend. So how about you? Did you have a chance to go to Trainboard or did you stay in your home area and work on your projects? Let us know, with pictures if you have them. We'll get together again on Friday the 15th and get some more railroading plans set. Until then, have a great week and.... High Greens!
First, a thank you to all of our Veterans! I had grand hopes last Friday, but, well, let's just call them "stretch goals" like we do here in Dilbert-land at work. I did get to work on both my Tichy boxcars and the tannery buildings, just not as much as I'd hoped. I finally figured out some of my confusion with these cars. There's an extra bag of parts in one of them - half a dozen sprues of doors, brake parts, bolsters and roofwalks. Not enough to make a car, but certainly enough for head-scratching. That problem solved, I started on the cars themselves. I trimmed and sanded the floor pieces, glued in the weights and added real wood flooring because I plan to model these cars with at least one door open. These will be the "hide service" cars that run between the packing plant and the tannery, and I figured the crew might want to air them out a bit. I've got to be in just the right frame of mind to tackle all those little brake components under the cars. Tichy kits don't mold them on - they're all separate parts, and the brake lines must be cut and bent from wire. I wasn't in that frame of mind, so instead I started detailing and illuminating the interiors of the remaining tannery buildings. These aren't full take-off-the-roof-and-look-inside interiors, rather more like shadow-box bits and some "stuff" inside to suggest activity when peeking through the windows.
I went to the hobby show Saturday, and picked up some freight cars at $5-$8 apiece and a Spectrum H16-44 for $30. The vendor did warn me that the loco didn't work at all. But something in the back of my head told me to take it anyway. A good gamble - after taking it apart, I found that there was some corrosion on the frame where the motor contact touched it, and that the mechanism (and more) was greased to within an inch of its life. The last time I saw that kind of mess is when my Dad's Trooper was rustproofed. I cleaned the excess, used a wire brush on the Dremel to get rid of the corrosion. It works like a charm now. From what I've seen and read so far, with Spectrum, you either get really good ones, or really bad ones. That would explain a lot of the really polarized opinions on Spectrum. I have started painting it for CN, in the green and yellow scheme, road number 2206. And a big thanks to our veterans and serving soldiers - without them we wouldn't have the freedom we have now.
Trainfest was fun (nice to meet you, Jim, as well as Steve from Bluford!), and my daughter loved that we got to park on a race track - though she wasn't fond of the walk. I got in 3.5 hours there - with a 7 year old girl, I think that's pretty darn impressive. We were both pretty crabby in the last half-hour, so I rushed the end a bit, but I think that saved me from spending too much money. I didn't see a few items I expected to pick up - like rail gauges, PC ties, etc. - not saying they weren't there, I just couldn't look as thoroughly as I might have. No biggie. I picked up a couple N boxcars, another DZ125 for my last Bachmann convert, and a Loconet cable to connect my PR3 to my Zephyr. Once home, I threw that decoder into a HO Mantua 4-6-2 I was given a while ago and did some 'testing' on the living room floor with my new Digitrax gear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRRuqQyJKrs&feature=c4-overview&list=UUwUV1j56XvnEwm9VfWEO1UA Yesterday, I put the decoder in the second Bachmann F9, which I've discovered has really touchy power pickup, so it doesn't run as well as the other one. I'll have to work on that. I also got around to finishing wiring my DS64 to the turnout control panel I made - I'll try to video it tonight. Initially, I had 'thrown' and 'closed' reversed on all 8 inputs - THAT was annoying. I'm really frustrated by the trackwork/turnouts on that layout, and I'm really tempted to rip it up, but it mostly works for testing my new-to-me DCC stuff, so I should just leave it for now and plan for the 'real' layout. I also fit in some yard work and cooking to stay on Mama's good side.
My weekend is just starting heh heh.... Time to hang some lights Cut some foam board Run some wires for. Power buses Install PSX boards for power districts Glue down some foam Maybe build a structure kit Attach an extension to my peninsula Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
