I hope you all had a good long weekend and maybe got some things off your list at the same time. Surprisingly I was able to get a fair amount done. With Graduation, Soccer and a Graduation Party in the weekend, I was still able to sneak a few hours in. I mainly worked on my T-Trak module for Galesburg RR Days. I got the street glued down and started work on a DPM building, Roadkill Cafe. The building has an interior that I'll install and I'm going to look for some lighting. The layout just got some track cleaning done and trains were run. Work on Sunday was done in preparation for Galesburg RR Days in hopes of doing some railfaning. So how about you? Any module or layout work? Detailing or scratch building projects? How about shows? Let us know what you accomplished below with any pictures you might have. We'll do it again this Friday, June 1st. High Greens!
I decided to just run some trains for a while. I started up the short freight headed by a Bachmann 2-6-0, a really nice sound-equipped engine for a true "value" price. It moved out nicely, but then began to stutter and stall. I pushed it along, and it would run and stall, repeatedly. Annoying, so I parked it on a passing siding, lined the turnouts the other way, and opened the throttle on a coal drag headed by a pair of MU'd geeps. They ran fine, until they got over to the same part of the layout as the 2-6-0, and then they exhibited the same behavior. It was pollen. I've never had that problem before, but the trains were stalling over by the windows. After a while, I just kept running the diesels, and then the steamer was fine. It looks like the CMX machine is about to get another workout. Rain today should settle out the pollen and give both the trains and my lungs a break. I found the culprit on my derailments - just a loose section of track I had to glue back in place. Then I did a bit of structure work, before bowing to reality and heading off to the hardware store to fix the kitchen faucet. Drosophila Melanogaster, for those not into biology, is the latin name for the common fruit fly. This building is the back half of the Walthers Centennial Mills background building kit. The kit came with both a front and back wall, plus a pair of short side walls. I used one side wall on each of the two structures I ended up with, and mounted them at an angle. All the windows and doors and the overhang were all in the kit. Pretty good value.
I started assembling my rolling mill last weekend and I took a few shots of the assembly. I assembled the walls and weathered the interior sides before gluing all the sections together. The kit has been modified a fair amount, as is it actually two Walthers kits end to end and then cut down to only 2 bays instead of three to fit everything on the 18" shelf. This weekend I got all of the walls glued up and attached to the base. The interior has be completely weathered. I still need to to install the ventilation roof and fans and heavily weather the exterior. Rock Island 50' covered gondola loaded and ready to be pulled out to the yard track for the G&OM to pickup. I also assembled, modified and painted an old Roundhouse Harriman Coach kit. I "plated over" all of the windows to make it a multipurpose tool car/spacer car. Didn't get any pictures of it. I ha a couple cans of Rustoleum Camouflage Flat Foliage Green that I ended up using as the color and it turned out excellent, pretty darn close to Pullman Green, IMO.
This was a "fix it" weekend on the JACALAR. Had a bank of my panel indicator lights for switch control go out a couple weeks ago, so decided to trouble shoot (the buttons were still controlling just fine). Had to replace one of my TeamDigital SRC-16s. Then, while working to program the replacement board, the programming track output wasn't getting read by anything! Worked fine when I plugged cables directly into the command station, but no signal at the programming track, or my external plugs (for programming items which don't sit on a track). So, trouble shot that, all under layout, of course, and found wire that had gotten pulled out of terminal strip. After that (everything now working correctly again), decided no other "accomplishments" except running. Multiple trains, running for hours! Very relaxing
Hole-y Control Panel!!! I completed the rewire of my yard with a DCC bus, more feeders, and removed the cab control rotary switches. The toggle switch in the middle of the yard controls power to the district. I will be purchasing a circuit breaker in the future. Remaining knobs are for a portion of the main line which will be the next power district. Hopefully it won't take over two years to do that! Anyone need some rotary switches? George V
Well this weekend was a successfull one for me. I was able to install a sound decoder in my tunnel motor. The lights did not work so I had to hardwire them directly to the pickup feeds on the engine. That is ok since I am not much into controlling the lights anyway. My AC6000 FINALLY arrived today. It runs great on the 18' curves. It runs smoothly. Boy is it loud!!. Did not get to replacing the couplers with a drawbar on my F-7 AB set though. Overall, it was a good weekend. It is actually nice to post my accomplishments for a change, here, on this thread. P.S. I was showing off my new engine to my wife. You know she actually asked me "since you have the new engine, does that mean you don't need any more?" SILLY WOMAN!!
I put the rest of the detail parts back on my RS-11 (ex CV 3603, now DW&P 3603) and plan to get some olive green craft paint to paint the handrails a proper color (not that bright green!). Not much cussing this time around...:closedmouth:
I didn't do any modeling this weekend. I did some train watching on my trip upstate to Delhi NY along CSX's west shore line.
I worked a bit on my project of turning a mostly useless Bachmann white box 0-4-0 into something useful. I got lighting installed, involving a modification to the weight in the boiler shell, and modified the motor mounting area to A) not bind up while running and B) accept a wired decoder. I then started building the permanently attached "brakeman's hack" based on a Bachmann slope-back tender shell, to both give me room for all that circuitry and to provide four more wheels' worth of pick-up. The thread can be seen here in the N Scale Steamers group. Adam
