Bill Tidler Jr.
Retired NS Signal Construction Gang Signalman
Good Morning...
Good Morning ! from Tipton IN.
Good Morning ! from Tipton IN.
The 30th Coffee Shoppe Dec 4th
- Thread starter leghome
- Start date
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kbkchooch
"retired" conductor
Morning Gang!
As I type with 1 hand and hold my coffee with the other, I find I have 27 pices of mail from the forum. Guess there was a traffic jam on the information highway last night.
Note to self: tell Al Gore to stop futzin with the works.
Not much planned for today. The house is cleaned, firewood is in.
Maybe I'll get the trailer turned around today. Its backed up to the back of the garage and I cant get in!! Theres a large case of stuff destined for ebay inside if I can get it out.
Or maybe not. Might just lay around with the cats all day. They seem to have the right idea at times
As I type with 1 hand and hold my coffee with the other, I find I have 27 pices of mail from the forum.
Guess there was a traffic jam on the information highway last night.Note to self: tell Al Gore to stop futzin with the works.
Not much planned for today. The house is cleaned, firewood is in.
Maybe I'll get the trailer turned around today. Its backed up to the back of the garage and I cant get in!!
Theres a large case of stuff destined for ebay inside if I can get it out.Or maybe not. Might just lay around with the cats all day. They seem to have the right idea at times
jeffrey-wimberly
Dr Frankendiesel
Good morning. It's 36° and sunny. The high will be 63°.
Nothing special planned for today. There's some clean-up work needing to be done on the layout so I'll probably be busy sorting things out and putting them away.
Nothing special planned for today. There's some clean-up work needing to be done on the layout so I'll probably be busy sorting things out and putting them away.
jeffrey-wimberly
Dr Frankendiesel
Earlier today I took a couple of locos back to my bedroom to place them back in the display rack. After I'd put them back in their places I spotted a Stewart F9 A-B set and realized I had forgotten their address. I looked on the bottom of both locos but it wasn't there. I usually write the address on the bottom. So I took them to the layout to put them on the program track. In short order I had the address on the display. I wrote it on the bottom of the A unit and realized that I'd forgotten what kind of decoders I put in them. I did remember that these locos are a pain to open so I the Zephyr do the investigating. A quick check came back with 101. That was easy enough. 101 is Bachmann. I do remember all the work I put into these to get them operational again. When I got them they both had motor problems and the B unit had a problem in one truck as well. Both have Kato type chassis. The A unit was easy to remotor as I had a good motor that was virtually a drop-in replacement. I put the motor in, tested for shorts then wired in a Bachmann decoder and checked to make sure the address was set at three. That will become clear later. The B unit required more work. So much so that I almost shelved it. However what's life without some adventure and adversity. The motor was useless junk. The front truck had a broken gear in the top of the tower. One side of the shaft was snapped completely off and the gear below it was missing some teeth. It wasn't hard to determine that the broken shaft had fallen down onto the other gear and jammed it and stripped those teeth off. That truck was junk and I didn't have a any spare Kato trucks. I also didn't have a motor to match the old one. It was time to get creative. With a little work and a lot of imagination I fit an Athearn motor into the chassis. As for the trucks, in for a penny - in for a pound. I cut out part of the frame to allow for the installation of a pair of Proto 2000 AAR trucks. Now I've had people tell me this is impossible. Well, it was impossible, until I did it. I'm not saying it was easy. It would have been far easier to slap in an Athearn chassis. But where's the fun in that? It took a lot of work, a lot off adjusting, a lot of cussing, but I finally got the trucks in and mounted so they turned freely and sat at the proper height. I put in Athearn worms and found a pair of shafts that fit. I don't remember what they came out of but they worked. So that was another Frankenstein I could chalk up. I wired everything up, checked for shorts then installed a Bachmann decoder and made sure it was set to three. I got two horn-hook couplers from the junk box and put one on the rear of the A unit and the other on the front of the B unit, coupled them together and wrapped the couplers with aluminum wire so they were permanently coupled. I then soldered wires to the pickups of the A units rear truck and ran the back to the B unit where I soldered them to the pickups of the front truck. The units were now hard-wired together. From there it was to the program track to set a new address. Now you know why I made sure both decoders were set to address three earlier. With the new address set I sent them off on a test run. The test run was successful so I put the shells on them then put them in the display rack and promptly forgot about them. The Stewart F9 shells are so much like the Athearn F7 shells that that's what I thought they were when I looked at them.
posse
Active Member
Good afternoon, haven't done much lately, been working nights every 3 days. It's better than working morning-night-moning-night....just don't get up early in the morning any more. I have been working on my Roundhouse shay and Rivarossi heisler. I was going to post a thread on them, but I have to go to work now.
Wow, slow day at the office. I'm feeling a little better than yesterday, and tackled a few issues. First, the Eye Bee Emm is dead. Second, I was able to adapt the program to my 64 bit operating system, so now my laptop can program locomotives, and the company that provided the program has updated it so I can do a lot more customizing. These are good things, so maybe the death of the desktop was a blessing in disguise.
I was able to use the keyboard from the dead desktop to replace the espresso-flavored one on my wife's computer. I then spent several hours finding the bad sectors on the hard drive on my wife's laptop, and isolating them. I formed partitions around them, and used the space left as a smaller series of hard drives. This is only a stopgap solution, because once a hard disc starts to go, it is only a matter of time. I found out in looking for a replacement hard drive the floods in Thailand have caused a shortage of hard drives, and, of course, increased prices for what is available. Maybe what she has will last until I can save the cash for a new hard drive. Alternately, I can always get one online, they seem to be about half the price of local supplies. Hers is a high-speed, high capacity, high data rate disc. I can get smaller, slower ones for about $140, but hers is of course "special".
Anywho, I was able to program a pair of U18B'sand place them in service. They are sound equipped, and one of their sound boards had botched up files on it. Now they both sound the same, and run very well. They are now some of the better-sounding QSI equipped engines I have.
It's been a long day, and I'm still not entirely up to snuff, so I think I'll toddle off to bed.
Second, I was able to adapt the program to my 64 bit operating system, so now my laptop can program locomotives, and the company that provided the program has updated it so I can do a lot more customizing. These are good things, so maybe the death of the desktop was a blessing in disguise.I was able to use the keyboard from the dead desktop to replace the espresso-flavored one on my wife's computer. I then spent several hours finding the bad sectors on the hard drive on my wife's laptop, and isolating them. I formed partitions around them, and used the space left as a smaller series of hard drives. This is only a stopgap solution, because once a hard disc starts to go, it is only a matter of time. I found out in looking for a replacement hard drive the floods in Thailand have caused a shortage of hard drives, and, of course, increased prices for what is available. Maybe what she has will last until I can save the cash for a new hard drive. Alternately, I can always get one online, they seem to be about half the price of local supplies. Hers is a high-speed, high capacity, high data rate disc. I can get smaller, slower ones for about $140, but hers is of course "special".
Anywho, I was able to program a pair of U18B'sand place them in service. They are sound equipped, and one of their sound boards had botched up files on it. Now they both sound the same, and run very well. They are now some of the better-sounding QSI equipped engines I have.
It's been a long day, and I'm still not entirely up to snuff, so I think I'll toddle off to bed.
jeffrey-wimberly
Dr Frankendiesel
Time for me to call it a night. See y'all tomorrow.
Larry
Long Winded Old Fart
Got the 2 laptops tore down today. Took about 2 hrs. for both. Then I spent the rest of the day sorting out all of the parts that I've been putting in a 5 gal. bucket. before I started that I went to Dollar Tree & bought a mess of storage bowls w/lids for $8.00. 8 stacks w/a total of 40. Didn't realize how much stuff I had accumalated in the 3 or 4 weeks I was doing these computers & printers. Now, I've got to find an empty shelf to store all of them.
N
North Coast Railroad
Guest
West coast, still up. Had a few nice days....in the northwest that means cold mornings. The baby and chores have kept us busy. Good news is that all salvagable wood from the previous layout is salvaged. Hope to start benchwork in the next few weeks. Got warm, then the rain came. Raining now.
Bill Tidler Jr.
Retired NS Signal Construction Gang Signalman
Good Morning...
Good Morning ! from Tipton IN.
Good Morning ! from Tipton IN.
jeffrey-wimberly
Dr Frankendiesel
Good morning. It's 38° and mostly cloudy. The high will be 70° and it will be partly sunny.
Today's project is to get the FP7's to the paint shop. They're long overdue. The road names need to be painted out and the L&A logo applied. Other than that there will be some more layout cleanup being done. Amazing how fast little things pile up.
Today's project is to get the FP7's to the paint shop. They're long overdue. The road names need to be painted out and the L&A logo applied. Other than that there will be some more layout cleanup being done. Amazing how fast little things pile up.
Trussrod
Well-Known Member
Good morning Guys,
It's about 50* here at 10:00Am the weather forecast says it was a low of 36* high of 65*? so I see how correct it is.
Not too much work has been done on the C&S West SL, I did get the sub-road bed [the Sound board] down to the curve leading over to the mine and where the upper main line will traverse Amalgamate hill and have two sections of track template cliped together in a S shape to figure out just where I need to start the curve on the upper line toward the front so the traverse isn't too close to the lower line below but far enough back to allow for a realistic drop-off which I envision to go into a Dry wash type of area with the lower curved line crossing this area on a One Bent High Trestle, maybe slightly higher?
On a different note I've been also helping another guy who lives 11 miles to the West of me in the town of Raymond layout his layout loosly recreating his area which had an old SP Spur Line run up to it around the turn of the Century, 1880's or there about, and was quite an active place as the same line had a spur of it that went to the adjacent town of Knowles which boasts the Largest Open Face Granite Quarry in the United States and is still operating.
He's gone to the local historian and they provided him with a map of the place showing the rail lines, just a main line in Raymond with a passing siding or two and a Turn-table [TT] that came off the main line as your entering town and before the Station and one of the freight houses as I know there was one I photographed considerably before the Station, at least I believe it was? It was a two story structure similar to the model I'm building on my layout but mine is not an exact duplication of it.
Well anyway the question arises as to the location of the TT as I definitely remember there being what most certainly appeared to be a TT at the end of the line which we, the folks and myself passed, indeed the road made a jog around, as we entered the little community from the East and this guys wife also thought the TT was up at the end of the line too which is only about 600 to 800 feet beyond where the old Station was.
I'm not sure which would make more sense as to the location of the TT??
Something else I just remembered about the track plan drawing my friend John had was that it definitely show what appeared to be an Ash pit just beyond the TT . In talking with another friend last night, who is quite knowledgable about the SP, he was somewhat stumped by the fact there was an Ash pit there when most of SP's branch line loco's as he recalls were Oil-fired he said. Although I did see a shot of what appeared to be a wood burner loco taken over at the Granite quary so it a little bit of a qwandry?
It's about 50* here at 10:00Am the weather forecast says it was a low of 36* high of 65*? so I see how correct it is.
Not too much work has been done on the C&S West SL, I did get the sub-road bed [the Sound board] down to the curve leading over to the mine and where the upper main line will traverse Amalgamate hill and have two sections of track template cliped together in a S shape to figure out just where I need to start the curve on the upper line toward the front so the traverse isn't too close to the lower line below but far enough back to allow for a realistic drop-off which I envision to go into a Dry wash type of area with the lower curved line crossing this area on a One Bent High Trestle, maybe slightly higher?
On a different note I've been also helping another guy who lives 11 miles to the West of me in the town of Raymond layout his layout loosly recreating his area which had an old SP Spur Line run up to it around the turn of the Century, 1880's or there about, and was quite an active place as the same line had a spur of it that went to the adjacent town of Knowles which boasts the Largest Open Face Granite Quarry in the United States and is still operating.
He's gone to the local historian and they provided him with a map of the place showing the rail lines, just a main line in Raymond with a passing siding or two and a Turn-table [TT] that came off the main line as your entering town and before the Station and one of the freight houses as I know there was one I photographed considerably before the Station, at least I believe it was? It was a two story structure similar to the model I'm building on my layout but mine is not an exact duplication of it.
Well anyway the question arises as to the location of the TT as I definitely remember there being what most certainly appeared to be a TT at the end of the line which we, the folks and myself passed, indeed the road made a jog around, as we entered the little community from the East and this guys wife also thought the TT was up at the end of the line too which is only about 600 to 800 feet beyond where the old Station was.
I'm not sure which would make more sense as to the location of the TT??
Something else I just remembered about the track plan drawing my friend John had was that it definitely show what appeared to be an Ash pit just beyond the TT . In talking with another friend last night, who is quite knowledgable about the SP, he was somewhat stumped by the fact there was an Ash pit there when most of SP's branch line loco's as he recalls were Oil-fired he said. Although I did see a shot of what appeared to be a wood burner loco taken over at the Granite quary so it a little bit of a qwandry?
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Trussrod
Well-Known Member
Good Morning ! from Tipton IN.
Say Bill,
Looks like your giving Flo's place a run for her money?? LoL
I can remember those dinners well from back in Massachusetts, they had them in a number of locations. They were very enjoyable indeed!
Thanks for the new shot.
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jeffrey-wimberly
Dr Frankendiesel
Got both FP7's patched.
Larry
Long Winded Old Fart
Beautiful Windy day. Started out at 40* this morning at 7am & got up to about 78*. If you were in the sun it was really nice. If you were in the wind & the shade it was to cool for a shortsleeve shirt.
Took the puter parts back to the store this morning & he had a big pile of Motherboards for me to strip. About 150 of'm. He also gave me a big printer & 2 old Monitors to strip. That printer had a zillion screws. If anyone ever needs some tiny screws, let me know. I got'em.
Tomorrow will start tareing those Motherboards apart. When I get done w/those, plus all the other stuff that I took off all the other boards I will have a lifetime supply of parts for my railroad & everyone else on the forum.
Took the puter parts back to the store this morning & he had a big pile of Motherboards for me to strip. About 150 of'm. He also gave me a big printer & 2 old Monitors to strip. That printer had a zillion screws. If anyone ever needs some tiny screws, let me know. I got'em.
Tomorrow will start tareing those Motherboards apart. When I get done w/those, plus all the other stuff that I took off all the other boards I will have a lifetime supply of parts for my railroad & everyone else on the forum.
jeffrey-wimberly
Dr Frankendiesel
Getting a big spare parts base built up, eh Larry. I kept an old IBM XT going like that well into the 90's. Then I bit the bullet and got a 486 DX4/100.
jeffrey-wimberly
Dr Frankendiesel
jeffrey-wimberly
Dr Frankendiesel
Time for me to call it a night. Got an appointment with the foot doc in the morning.
kbkchooch
"retired" conductor
Hi gang! Just got in from a local auction featuring the second half of a large estate of trains. Wow, this guy had tons of stuff, and the auction gods were kind!!
I got,
1 Spectrum CSX GP30 (still sealed in box)
1 Atlas D&H U23B (never unpacked)
1 Atlas RS3 in Pennsy (run , but like new)
1 Lima Alco C420 (soon to be repainted, Monon, yech)
5 Spectrum passenger cars 4 still sealed
1 Atlas WM 60 ft Auto Parts Car
1 Concor C&O 60' boxcar
1 POS Tyco car (hey, it was mixed in the Spectrum lot)
2 Penn Line itty bitty diesel critters
1 NJ International brass WM caboose.
including tax and a 10% buyers premium, I spent $265.00
I think I did pretty well
I got,
1 Spectrum CSX GP30 (still sealed in box)
1 Atlas D&H U23B (never unpacked)
1 Atlas RS3 in Pennsy (run , but like new)
1 Lima Alco C420 (soon to be repainted, Monon, yech)
5 Spectrum passenger cars 4 still sealed
1 Atlas WM 60 ft Auto Parts Car
1 Concor C&O 60' boxcar
1 POS Tyco car (hey, it was mixed in the Spectrum lot)
2 Penn Line itty bitty diesel critters
1 NJ International brass WM caboose.
including tax and a 10% buyers premium, I spent $265.00
I think I did pretty well
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jeffrey-wimberly
Dr Frankendiesel
Nice haul!
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