11 train order finished! A couple others added in for fun as well. This weekend was busy for the Cascade Southern Shops. So 7 Scale Trains engines needed programming and one needed to be reassembled as the owner tried to work on it and lost confidence in the reassembly. 2. BLI Stealth engines had decoders in them already but they were no go. Lights would come on but no motor action. Reset decoder to factory and still nothing. Loaded a new profile (ESU Decoder) and no joy again. New decoder and all is well. Odd that both engines were the same. Oh well. The Kato engine needed some resetting as well as contact improvements. And the best one was the Athearn engine. Lights worked but no go. So I popped the shell and the decoder stuck to the shell. It had come dislodged from the frame and lost motor contacts. Next I revisited the Kato I couldn’t get working the other day. It would read but no motor no lights, but the lights would flicker and the motor would jerk when reading. So I improved the contact points again then reset the decoder and it worked. I tried looking to see if a consist was set in the decoder, but it had a consist address of 0. So I dunno. It was just odd but the engine runs now. And last on the today list is an installation of ESU Sound decoders into 2 Kato E8s. Some milling, and gluing the speaker into the baffles and then to the frame and a bit of programming and we are good to go. The speaker is a really tiny Soundtraxx unit that has amazing sound, the decoders are ESU. Here is the failed then succeeded engine. Its owner got to operate the real engine on the main when the engineer got sick on the route. He was a conductor at the time. Unmilled frames from Kato E8s Milled Frames. And the engine getting the sound file loaded.
This car and I had a disagreement of where it wanted to sit and now it's on the workbench to have the load and loading straps fixed.
Finished painting more of the interior detail. More images and info (HERE) and or on TrainBoard (HERE ). Also got print files up on my thingiverse account. . . . You can find the print files on my thingiverse.com account ( HERE ). Sumner
Since painting and lettering roughly 10 cars at the same time does not seem to be enough for me I decided to start that repainting project that was sitting in a drawer for a few weeks. Atlas CSX GP40-2 to be repainted and lettered for the Southern Pacific. Need to add sunshades and snowplows, before coating the shells with clear gloss varnish.
I would really love to, but there are two main problems: I'm not sure I can do such a fine job without messing up the entire shell SP light packages are quite hard to find, especially without paying an insanely high shipping cost (I'm in Italy) Yesterday I was searching eBay for some SP lights, but to no avail.
I finally found a couple hours to fire up the airbrush, and painted my U30C and the (ex-)ATSF boxcar that I accidentally un-painted a while back. Now they're sitting and waiting for the largest, most obnoxious decals to dry: Meanwhile, I've reaffirmed my commitment to rusty roofs: The astute observer will note the Arnold S-2 and Atlas GP35. They've been stripped, but both of them need major driveline repairs. Luckily the parts are on their way.
@MK It was a JnJ Trains part from eBay. It wasn't the exact step, but it was the only one could find. I filed inside the shell to make a small recess for the step. Then I bent the step in a s shape so that the ladder would be flush with the outside of the shell. Painted it and then super glue it into the shell.
Printed this over the weekend - hope to break out the airbrush in the next few days while I continue to experiment with this thing. Might also design a chassis since the one I had in mind didn't quite work out. Cheers -Mike
I started working on the Kiddie layout some more. While the kids don’t seem to mind the flat world, I think they will like it better as a real layout and not just some track laid out on a piece of foam. So I decided to use some buildings I had laying around and found a place for them, and also set up where the road is going to be. I need to make some hills and other terrain as well… stay tuned.
Not on my workbench but on Rickard5 & Daniel The Pinstriper's work bench. More on Trainboard (HERE). Sumner