It's Monday once again and in Illinois it kind of feels like spring left us. My weekend started by meeting my friend from the north at the local hardware store to pick up the last bits for his modules. Saturday we set out early for breakfast, some RR Archaeology of the P&E in Farmer City IL and then to my work shop to get the module work done. Long story short, we made goal and he'll be taking three modules ready for track. We just about pulled an all nighter but gave up on Saturday at 2:00 AM. Sunday we stopped in to the Decatur Train Fair and I was able to pick up an Illinois Terminal book I had been looking for as well as some buildings for the modules. We finally headed back to have lunch with a fellow railfan buddy then went back to work. We stopped about 10:00 last night. Soon we'll load up his modules for his trip north and another weekend will be complete. We have about two months to get our six module Galesburg layout done. So how about you? How did you fare? What did you do? Let us know. We'll come back on Friday the 24th to start the process all over again. Until then have a great week and... ​High Greens!
The winding road did call, and I got out for a bike ride on Saturday, which was very pleasant. Not so since then, as it's gone back to being unseasonably cold. I continued working on the MOW tank car. It's one of those things I can do in little breaks between the wife's agenda. I mounted the trucks and measured the coupler height, and installed shims to get it right. I installed some brake components and lines, and got the tank and the frame painted, and made up some decals. I hope to get the decals on today.
Got in some modeling, including a complete tear-down, cleaning and rebuild of my original Model Power sharknose from Christmas 1973 - the one that got a 10-year-old boy hooked on trains. I was running it and after a bit it started to slow down, slower, slower, almost stopped. Open up the trucks, remove the wheels, cleaned out the gear boxes and relubed them, cleaned the wheels, lubed all the motor and worm gear bearings, closed up, and tada! Runs like 1973 again. And I finished this bugger: It was an undecorated Atlas GP7 before I had my way with it.
I accomplished quite a bit of the weekend: *Relettered a Bachmann 2-6-0 Mogul to Chicopee Road #179 *Applied Numberboards and sealed GP30 #3207 *Fixed a decal error on GP9 #2153 *Completed all striping and decals on F7B #1380, still awaits MU hoses, but otherwise good to go. *Diagnosed a rear driver out of quarter on a Bachmann 2-8-0 (that will be Chicopee Road 390). *Decals applied on a boxcar to use as an adaptor car between my Sergent-equipped power and Kadee-equipped cars during visits to other layouts. *Adjusted turnout leading to the coal truck dump for proper closure. Still snags something underneath since it closes fine with some finger pressure. I have so much piled on my work bench. I need to refocus and get the 6-pack of Tichy hoppers done. I stopped a couple months ago because I didn't like the drop-style grabs included with the car. Came to find out that was the norm on most Panel-Side prototypes, so I'll go ahead and use them.
