Welcome back everyone and welcome to 2023! I hope you had a good weekend and had a nice celebration ringing in the new year. Let's see how we all did. Saturday: As planned we got up and headed to Angela's Dads place to work on the Falcon. A large list of items was replaced and by the end of the day she was running again. We made a quick list of a few other items I wanted to replace before she was ready for the road and also noticed the Ang's car was showing the signs of a wheel bearing issue again. So, after the day we went and got a bite to eat and headed home with goals of another order for parts, this time for a Ford and a Dodge to be delivered in time for next Saturday. We had rung in the new year pretty quiet, just a kiss at midnight before we turned in. NEW YEARS DAY: We slept in until 9:00 amazed that the dogs let us sleep that long. I had intended to take down the Christmas lights and decorations, but Ang felt it would be a muddy mess with temps being warm with rain. Instead, I researched parts for the two cars and placed orders then cleaned up the shop and started on the garage. Not much done as we were pretty tired from Saturday. Monday: Did not sleep in as much fortunately. I set out to get all the outdoor Christmas decorations down and it was still a muddy mess. After about three hours, I had all the decorations cleaned and neatly packed into their plastic tubs ready for next year. Ang cleaned the house, and I cleaned the garage and workshop. I can start the new year with a clean workshop and layout room. That evening a good friend and fellow N scaler and his wife came over for a visit and we planned our NTrak activities for the year then capped the evening with a visit to the local Mexican restaurant for dinner. Before we knew it, the long weekend was over and for me, no real time off until Good Friday. NEW YEARS MODELING RESOLUTION: This will be the year I finish the principle trackwork on the HO layout and use some new techniques I learned for track painting and weathering. I also plan to do a bit more in the modular world by finishing my NTrak module for Galesburg this year as well as build a Module for FreeMo. It's looking like it is shaping up to be a busy model railroad year. So how about you? What did you do to ring in the New Year? What did you accomplish in the layout room? Let us know. also let us know if you have any New Year's Modeling Resolutions. It's always fun to see what areas in modeling you wish to progress in whether it be learning a new skill, seeing more layout, learning more about a prototype or finishing up a project, let us know. We'll assemble again on Friday the 6th as we ease back into a normal schedule and do it all over again. until then, have a great week, be safe, stay healthy and as always... High Greens!
Happy Tuesday to Y'all -- and.. Happy New Year!! So, - the weekend did not go as planned. Saturday: -- Our new double was delivered. The installation is stalled. As the new unit is about an inch and a half to tall. So, I spent the day modifying the cabinet so the new unit will fit. That is a success. So, now we have to wait another week for the installers to return to complete the installation. Sunday and Monday: Worked a bit on the FA's -- decaling is complete. Man, the Micro Scale red stripes are not like any other MS decal I have ever worked with. It took many, many, many applications of Solvaset to get them to lay down. (And -- not very well at that) - I'm going to live with it. If these were the first Micro Scale deals that I ever used -- I wouldn't want to use MS decals ever again. (The lettering decals went on as they are supposed to). Very strange. Y'all have a great week!! Wolf
We had a mundane weekend despite the holiday. Spent time tidying up things around the house. The big projects were seasoning a new cast iron Dutch oven and making New Year’s dinner. We watched the Philadelphia Mummers Parade Fancy Brigades perform/compete. It still amazes me the amount of effort that goes into their 4-minute performances. It is a combination of Mardi Grad and Broadway. I ran another coal drag. This time with my Athearn Genesis Western Maryland F3A’s. Afterwards I began checking and tuning up the coal hoppers I used in the last coal drag I ran. Checking is verifying coupler height, checking weight, and how well the car rolls. Tuning up is fixing any problems that arise from the checking. These cars are all Atlas and since they use Accumate couplers at the present I am not converting them to Kadee couplers since they have been performing well for me. I will eventually change them, but I have a big bunch of EZ-Mate and McHenry couplers to do first. Has anyone built one of the new Atlas Trainman kits? I pulled one out to look at later.
Good morning from cloudy, rainy and mild Northeast Ohio. Did not do as much as planned over the weekend but bowling went well both personally and team wise. Did not go to the club on Saturday but did manage to get some painting done. Over the rest of the weekend decaled a couple of cars and started assembling another 1937 AAR boxcar kit. Also spent a lot of time reading “Shattered Sword” a history of the battle of Midway told taking into account Japanese doctrine and tactics. Atlas Trainman kits are shake the box unless you have one of the ex-Branchline kits. Rick Jesionowski
Good morning all and welcome to 2023! Weekend went about as planned. (Still kept the decaling on the back-burner). The weekend was largely spent putting away Christmas decoration boxes with much time devoted to cleaning out the storage attic next to my work shop and getting it organized. Amazing what I threw out this weekend. New Years eve was also quiet as expected. We stayed home as planned and had a quiet evening w/ boiled lobsters and champagne for dinner. Modeling-wise, I did manage to finish the wiring adjustments under the layout and the 2 new PSX circuit breakers seem happy w/ the work. They are nicely performing now. Also, I had a new Rubbermaid cart arrive just before Christmas. I spent time this weekend reorganizing the maintenance carts. The 2 I had were getting crowded and too messy to work with. I now have one for scenery, one for miscellaneous layout work such as wiring and track maintenance, and the big one is where I keep heavier tools and hardware for bench and heavier work. They all roll under the layout for storage. Have a great week all!!!
Moved some stuff around on my work bench. Read a bit more of the new V&O book. Oh well. Another weekend gone by...
A NYE kiss means you will be kissing all year. Stuff not going as planned. I can relate. I am actually the mayor of mundane... I like to shake the box. I like "rollee carts". Reading counts. At last the cow has been installed. Looks like it has its Winter coat on to me. Apparently, the cow likes to visit with the chickens. Who knew? Anyway, across Logan Street is M&O shops yard. On the left edge of the pic is an old boxcar body used for a storage shed. Beyond that and out of focus are the main line and other tracks. (Two gons out of focus.) Beyond that is the freight house. All have a great short week!
Good morning all, Holiday and weekend went about as planned. Quiet celebration and lots of rain here. Got my serial staging circuit all drawn out and now just need to build it. Got all the wiring put in for that while running 4 different trains around the layout. The box for the modular layout's point to point circuit arrived last evening so that project is still in the mix. Made up my list of what I want to accomplish this year and hung it on the wall in the train room. So hopefully these will be some of the "Weekend Modeling Accomplishments" in 2023.
The weekend didn't all go as planned but it did go. I put one in progress project away for another time. Finished up converting a CMW truck to a more modern version, started a new little project of adding a wood deck to a bulkhead flat, and got some recent acquisitions sorted out. As for 2023 goals, I didn't put that together yet.
This week, describing my activities is easy because I (mostly) did one thing. Both Friday and Saturday I finally dove in, to convert an Athearn bluebix, DC locomotive to DCC. I've done repairs and improvements on some of mine, but this is my first full conversion end-to-end. I decided early on to use a strip of wire plugs from Micro-mark rather than pay for pre-made multi-pin plugs. But that translated into soldering wires on all those pins (not hard, but tedious), plus soldering all the other wiring connections. Then, there was heat shrink for all those solder joints. I got mostly done except for the headlight and tail light. I had a package of ten 3mm LEDs, with resistors, but, you guessed it, more soldering, which I did Monday before I went to our Scout troop meeting. I think I may put three LEDs in two circuits (with two in front) so that the headlights and the cab and number boards are all well lit. So, this week, I'll be soldering wires onto the LEDs, mounting them, and routing wire harnesses. I only pray that everything works when I'm done. Current progress: Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk
Hi all Y'all did a great job again. Very nice. I would like to contribute a little to this. 1. Track superelevation for Helix 2. Turnouts polarized (Atlas, ME) 3. DIGITRAX Chief bought 4. Atlas turnouts item #7 bought 5. Rapido N Centerbeam Car's preordered 6. Power Splitter for Chief preordered My wife will catapult me into space
IM gonna cheat a little bit and refer you to my Update in the Winter Layout Party for a peek at what I have been up to - - pretty most every free minute has been busy working on the layout https://www.trainboard.com/highball...inter-layout-party.147623/page-4#post-1249594 Have a great day! TIM
