Rainier Great Western Const Update

Not much to report from Tuesday, Rey brought a guest from the Boeing Model RR Club, so we spent a great deal of time talking about the RGW and what we have done on the layout. But there was some work done, Scott was able to soften up the ballast just before the Molzahn Bridge and superelevated the track. We were experiencing some negative SE there which was contributing to our operational issues. We'll see how it turns out next week.

As for me, I spent the evening reprogramming a couple of locos using JMRI.



During the tour, two locos in particular lost programming. One decided to go flat out, like full throttle, and ignore all throttle commands, the other would not respond to throttle commands at all. I figured it might have to do with conflicting consist info in the decoder, but that's just speculation. A simple factory reset and other minor adjustments and both were back to normal.

That's about it. I'll have more on the bridge next week. Until then, thanks for checking in.

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Here's a recap of our Tuesday work session. While Doug worked on scenery near the RGW headquarters in Renton, Scott and I tested the superelevation in the curve coming into the Molzahn Bridge.

The bottom line is we are thrilled with the outcome. You can clearly see the inward lean of the locomotive in this shot.



Here is a close up of the same shot.



We tested a short train of mixed content that included gondolas, 89ft flats and a couple of boxcars. It ran flawlessly in both directions, being pushed and pulled. All the cars exhibited inward lean as desired and the cars hit the bridge without any noticable tracking problems. A big win.

We discussed the exit of the bridge and decided it too could use more superelevation. So Scott loosened the ballast and worked his magic on the track. We'll test it next week, but a primer, it looks fantastic.

That's it for now, as always, thanks for checking in.

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Hello fellow modelers, in tonight's update we start with Scott's superelevation of the southern end of the Molzahn Bridge mainline. We discussed this effort last week, but here are some photos of the finished product.



In the photo above, RGW switcher #4 pushes a caboose across the bridge. You can easily see the improved SE. Here is another shot from the caboose end, coming towards you.



I'm really happy with the look created by the increase in the SE. The inward lean is distinctive. Furthermore, the tracking through the bridge at both ends looks to be flawless and that was the point all along. Here is the train as it crosses the bridge.



On another topic, Rey assigned each EB-1 its own unique address. You can see the 4 digit number (2040) just above the EB-1.



Later he changed CV 135 to a value of 4, which assists the circuit breaker with sound locomotives. The breakers were not resetting and we found out through research that CV135 needed reprogramming to work correctly with sound decoders. They seem to be working quite nicely after this change.

Finally, Scott, Doug and Rey ran our 737 cars around the layout to check clearance issues. It appears we may have to tweak the subroadbed in the helix for these cars to make it unimpeded. That should be fun. Any guesses who gets to crawl under the helix fascia? Hereby not looking forward to next Tuesday.

Until then, thanks for checking in.



RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Last night's work session consisted of one project, realigning the spacing of the helix levels to allow our tallest cars clearance and the subsequent ability to navigate the helix without being hindered.

To say this was a tough task is an understatement. For example, one adjustment on level one virtually guaranteed adjustment on all 6 of the levels. I was late to the party, so Rey drew the short straw and crawled into the helix to make the adjustments. Meanwhile Scott drew the assignment to run the locomotive pulling the 6 cars we used for the task. Turns out a double stack is 1/16th inch taller than a Boeing boxcar and 1/8th taller than an auto rack. Who knew.

Bottom line, it was nearly 1030 before we finished, but everything ran from top to bottom on both tracks without any clearance issues, so we will call the evening a success. One interesting outcome was the number of small knots in the bottom of the plywood substructure that required filing or removal. Didn't see that coming.

I'd have included pictures, but large men crammed into the helix didn't really strike me as interesting subject matter. Some things are best left to one's imagination. That's it for this week, thanks for checking in. M

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Welcome to yet another work party update on the RGW. Last night was our first full crew in 7 months. Ed has been battling a series of ailments since the holidays and last night was his first attempt to get out of the house where he wasn't heading to Dr appointments. I speculated his wife kicked him out, but that's for another day. We spent a lot of time catching up.

Once it was time to get to work, Rey and Scott completed the helix adjustments. While they were on to that, we adjusted our camera system to better pick up the status of the train. We use a two camera system from Harbor Freight. It's not top of the line but it works just fine for our needs.



We have marked all of the levels in two spots and each cam gives us a good view of 3 levels.





While they finished that up, Scott advised we needed more clearance at the lower helix tunnel portal. As you can see here in the after photo, we shaved a great deal off the inner walls using a combination of a rasp and a sanding sponge. You can actually see the original placement line marked on the homasote.



Our clearance is much better as you can see here. If you look close, you'll see the significant reshaping of the inner liner as it gets thinner as it gets closer to the homasote.



One final thing to do was reattach a sun shade on the SD60.



Not sure how it came off, but these items are very fragile, so who knows. Happy to say the matte medium worked wonders.



Well, that's all from last night. Hope you enjoyed the recap, until next week; thanks for checking in.

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Here's a short update from last night, Scott drew the short straw and got the job of continuing our ballast in Renton.



As you can see we have the entire Boeing plant to do and continue the mainline to the wall. Scott and I discussed the plant, I think I'm going to use either styrene or balsa to simulate buried track. Scott agreed to continue the mainline to the wall next week.

Doug and I worked on replacing trucks and wheels on a few pesky grain hoppers. Each of these came with super detailed features, but the roller bearing trucks won't function without the original wheels and the thin profile is just too problematic for my taste. So I swapped them out and Doug test ran them as I completed each one. His report was an enthusiastic . He made a full run both backward and forward without a single derail.




One note, I use a kadee reamer when I install trucks with new wheelsets. The improvement in performance is fabulous. I highly recommend one.

Well that's it for the update, until next week, thanks for checking in!

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Agreed. That little reamer often makes a HUGE difference.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

 

Enjoyable evening on the RGW last night. Scott continued his ballasting project along the front entry in Renton. He started by painting some surface areas before going back and laying ballast. Then he, Reynold and I discussed the plan to simulate paved surfaces along the Boeing tracks.

Doug decided to work the Edwards and Bradford lumber mill. We have never actually switched that area, so debugging was a key element of the process. We found a couple of glitches, but surprisingly few. Here he is pulling empties that will head back to the log yard, while empties to head in for loading await clearance.



I enjoyed working as conductor here. We had a few laughs and found what we needed to tweak. Also made notes on maximum car placements for each track.

Question, how do you know Reynold is working on cars? Simple, he leaves a trail of evidence everywhere...



Here he is testing wheel movement and clearance of our Boeing 737 flatcars. He had been freeing up wheelset movement on them most of the evening.



I think everyone had fun last night. I look forward to next week's progress. Until then, thanks for checking in!

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

I was recently on the pen, stopping at the railroad bridge park. Not far away was a bnsf gp40. So you probably would have lived that experience.

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Another red letter day on the RGW as we were graced by a visit from the Port of Catoosa's very own Dale Baker.



He and his bride are on a retirement railroad journey, having taken the Coast Starlight up north to Seattle. I was able to pick him up at the hotel and bring him down to the layout for a visit. We had a great time talking "shop" and our mutual histories in the hobby. We had a wonderful time. I appreciate your kind words about our layout.

Before getting him back to the hotel, we tried to access the decoder of a GP30 he purchased at a swap meet. Unfortunately the QSI decoder proved too pesky for the both of us. JMRI could not talk to it at all.



I cannot tell you how much fun this evening was. I very much appreciate your visit Dale and hope that the rest of your rail journey is as enjoyable as you are hoping it to be. Hope to visit the Port of Catoosa someday soon. Thanks again for the goodies.

Until next time, safe travels. M



RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Michael,

You are a most excellent host! I appreciate your taking time from your Friday evening to provide transportation and a wonderful evening! I sincerely hope some day I can return the favor to you. You have an open invitation to visit if you should find yourself in close proximity to Tulsa!

We got into Chicago almost 4 and a half hours late!

Take care my friend!
Dale

 

Here's the recap from last night's work (?) party on the RGW. As we left off last week, Doug was switching the lumber mill in Palmer. He started the evening by embarking on the local to get the loads to Renton Yard. Included in the consist was our recent hopper car addition thanks to a gift from Dale Baker.



The BN hopper is beautifully weathered with safety stripes and a little graffiti. We are excited to have it as part of the fleet.

As Doug got closer to Renton he had to hold short of the City.



Turns out the road crew had blue flagged the right-of-way....



Here we see the progress of the road crew, aka Scott. You can see him in the background making other improvements while the glue dries on the newly ballasted track.



Not sure when those blue flags will be pulled, but later we found out a new landform found its way in the Renton industrial area.



This is our next scene to finish. The Renton City Hall will go in next to the library and the elevated 405 freeway will extend from the wall to the fascia, bisecting the main and the Stoneway Concrete spur to the far left. This will take us a while to complete, but better start or it'll never get done.

Finally, we sought out Reynold, ultimately finding him in Maple Valley testing his work on an SD60's stubborn rear truck by running it through our smallest radius curve. I think, by his smile, he's pleased with the results.





Well, that's it from last night. I'm sure there will be more next week. Until then, thanks for checking in. M

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Hey there fellow modelers, I've been in Texas and Oklahoma the last 9 days so I missed last week altogether and arrived just about quitting time last night. Seems as though Scott has made a decent amount of progress on the Renton industrial area trackage.

Here is his work on the ballasted bridge over the Cedar River....



Meanwhile last night he put down the ballast on the Stoneway Concrete plant spur and painted the landform, prepping it for scenery.



Doug was dropping a couple of feeders in Maple Valley and the Renton Yard and Rey was finishing up his tweaks to the SD60. We ended up spending time in the crew lounge talking about my trip. It was good to be back, looking forward to next week.

Until then, thanks for checking in.



RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Here's an update from last evening's work session on the RGW. As I mentioned last week, Doug and I were testing areas that have yet to be put through their paces and we found a few that needed new feeders. Doug spent the evening soldering up those feeders using our new Yihua 926 soldering station. It's Amazon's highest rated variable temp gun.



Meanwhile Rey was spotted tweaking the curve into the Molzahn Bridge. He also finalized his upgrade on the SD60 front truck.



Scott added another landform in Renton, this will ultimately be the home of Renton City Hall.





The City Hall building will be another flat, only it will have some depth as it follows the curve of the backdrop. The freeway (I-405) runs right behind the building as you see it in this photo, so we are modeling the opposite side. You can actually see cars just to the right of the flags. Our version of 405 runs over the mainline and the Stoneway spur with stantions between the two tracks.

I knew Scott would use the evening to continue his ballast work and I had promised I would get the turnout done for him in advance, so I came in beforehand and put down ballast on the turnout. As I started working that in, I realized there was no homasote edge to the roadbed. So I found an old scrap, cut off the edging and put it in place to complete the look.



I'll get that ballast tacked down this weekend. Going to use matte medium for the first time as recommended by the guru himself, Boomer Diorama.

Along the way we had a good chat about guys we know in the hobby and what their latest "stories" were. The social aspect of this hobby is easily one of my favorites. Until next week, thanks for checking in.



RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

The social aspectof this hobby is easily one of my favorites.

Amen Michael! Amen!

 

Here's this weeks RGW update, we start with Doug and Scott doing testing in Maple Valley. We wired the frog to route power in the turnout and here they are testing that feature. Very pleased with the results.



Meanwhile, Rey was putting the finishing touches on his work in Black Diamond. Here we have RGW #4 and caboose #1 hauling a 737 across the Molzahn Bridge.




Finally a quick follow up to this weekend, I was able to glue down the ballast for the #4 turnout in Renton. Meanwhile Scott added some under deck supports to the new landforms and painted all the exposed surfaces a basic brown.



Once he completes the ballast, we'll come back and add real dirt, and a ton of scenery to this area. That's it for this week, as always, thanks for checking in.



RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

After a week off, it was time to get back to it. Scott was again spending his evening with ballast and landforms in Renton. He filled most of the bare areas with foam, then completed the ballast to the final turnout before the track goes into the tunnel.



Doug was in the back 40 putting down static grass. He was employing a method we got from Boomer Diorama, where you put a blob of glue in a spot you select, then pinch the bottom third of the grass and "stab" it into the glue. After a few minutes you can tease the grass into any shape you desire. I plan on documenting this more in the near future. So no pictures just yet.

As for me, I spent the evening making modifications to Athearn SD70M 4526.



There's quite a background story to this unit. I'd had it in storage for a fairly long time and decided to have a guy in Cali put in a decoder for me. After several weeks, I asked him for an update, he said he'd done nothing to it, then said he started but got sidetracked. By then I was frustrated anyway, so I asked him to send it back. When it arrived, the lighting had been changed, but didn't work, the decoder he installed was not sound, as requested and the cab windows were ruined by what looked like fingerprints with glue on them.

Too make a long story short, he had started work on it, never finished, then lost the cab, because in his words, my daughter, who's 3, took the cab and I couldn't find it. He had no idea what happened to the windows, but about a week later I received a package with a brand new cab in it. It still makes no sense.

Anyway, tonight I swapped out and modified the couplers, including the coupler pocket. Then I took the "new" cab off, wired in a new LED light and sealed it all back up. I may go back in and tweak the light a bit, but for now it's a significant upgrade.

That was it for this week. Next week I'll be in AZ working on the benchwork for my layout there. I'll take some pics and show those once I get back. Until then, enjoy yourselves and thanks for checking in.

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Well that sucks on your Uncle Pete unit

 

After a week in Arizona, we got back at it last night. Doug was busy in Maple Valley detailing a small scene. This includes a small wooden building, reminiscent of a similar old structure that used to be near the Maple Valley junction along the Milwaukee Road.



Doug is presently adding MiniNatur flowers to the scene.



They will be a buffer on the road side of the structure.



As we have noted in the past, Rey loves working on cars. So last night's effort was no surprise. He found a hopper that was sorely in need of attention. Meanwhile, you can see Scott in the background painting the last few visible pieces of foam and plywood.



As for me, I was roaming and helping where needed, but I decided to add an assist to Scott by filling in some of the open substructure areas with dirt and ground foam.



Before the night was over I had completed about 6 feet of exposed area along this stretch. It really makes a difference.

As for Arizona, I never got to start the new layout build because of an unexpected turn of events. We knew our HVAC was on its last legs, so we pulled the trigger on a new one. Once I made that call I decided to put a mini-split in the garage. Here you can see why, taken at 7pm.



The mini-split is a flush mount in the garage roof. The compressor sits just outside the garage.





This picture was taken before the bracing was added. After 90 minutes of running it, here was the result...



I have no doubt I can get it much lower, but no sense wasting the energy since we were leaving early the next morning. I'm looking forward to the next trip down.

Well, that's it for now. Hope all is well with each of you. Until next week, thanks for checking in.

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD