What trains did you run today?


kjd

kjd

Go make something!
I don't know about you all but I've been very much enjoying the time off from the usual crazy. I actually just sat and thought about one thing for something like five minutes straight. Anyway, I've been spending some time working on the trains. I finished the first cars I ever bought, some Keystone metal kits for Climax log cars. 'Only took 35 years. I've also been operating, as much as it is, on my little railroad. Here are a couple trains I ran today.

First is an SD40-2 sandwich on GP39Es. The '39Es are rebuilt GP30s, a thing BN did in the early 1990s. The '40-2 is a Scale Trains I added some detail and decals to.
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The second is an old Proto 2000 SD9 with TCS WOW Sound. I still need to figure out some SD7 style handrails and it had ditchlights in the era I model.
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What did you run today? Photos or it didn't happen!
 
I'm going back to all Digitrax systems after a failed attempt to integrate an ESU system into the existing signal control boards.
Had to do some tidying up around the basement before installing a couple of boosters. I usually put a couple of trains in motion while I'm working so I found an idle Challanger and my Daylight Special was sitting on the mainline. Off they went in one direction. MUd a UP SD70Ace with a NS SD60 and linked up about 40 feet of intermodal wells and spines going in the opposite direction from the Challenger. It really takes me a bit longer to get work done while having to stop and watch trains pass every once in a while.
 
I ran UP ghost unit.
 

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Today was another coal train with 3 SD70MACs and an SD60. I tinted the windows on the 70MACs with Tamiya Smoke transparent color paint.
9598--329.jpg


It's nice it is always sunny in my garage, unlike the deluge outside. It's also still 1996 in my garage and the troubles of the day are what happened to the blue dress and not are we all going to die, or even worse, run out of toilet paper.
 
Here's one from yesterday. I was saying how it's rainy outside and sunny inside. Well at the moment it is raining and sunny outside and (via Photoshop) foggy in the garage. GATX 7357 and BN 4106 are on the point of an empty grainer.
7357--330.jpg
 
James, that crusty CNW hopper looks especially tired next to the freshly painted switcher and perfect ballast.

After running the above grain train for a bit, I heard the dreaded thumping coming from 4106 indicating at least one of the axle gears is cracked. I looked at the locomotive and realized I had first finished that model in April of 1996 so it should be done with college by now and well into grad school. Anyway, I could turn the wheels independently on 3 of the four axles. I spent the morning taking it apart and cleaning the drive and replacing the axle gears.

I had never put lights in it because it is a B unit and never leads. It had a DH120 decoder in it that is probably old enough to drink. I picked out a resistor I thought would work and used it to test the LED on the headlight output. I looked about right so wired up the lights, made some lenses, drilled out the headlight castings and installed the lenses and lights and packed the wire into the shell.

When I set it on the track, I couldn't control the front headlight, it was just on. Then I remembered this particular decoder used to be in a GP38-2 that did have lights so had I swapped it into a B unit without lights when the light circuit failed. Except now the B unit did have lights. I swapped the defective decoder with one from another B unit without lights (that never leads) and wrote on the decoder the light circuit doesn't work.

I set it on the track again and turned on the lights. They were very bright. As in now the shell glows bright. Glows through the black bright. I realized I had tested the setup on the function output that didn't work properly and with full voltage they were quite bright. Fortunately it's a B unit that never leads.

And then it was time for dinner.
 
kjd said:
James, that crusty CNW hopper looks especially tired next to the freshly painted switcher and perfect ballast.

After running the above grain train for a bit, I heard the dreaded thumping coming from 4106 indicating at least one of the axle gears is cracked. I looked at the locomotive and realized I had first finished that model in April of 1996 so it should be done with college by now and well into grad school. Anyway, I could turn the wheels independently on 3 of the four axles. I spent the morning taking it apart and cleaning the drive and replacing the axle gears.

I had never put lights in it because it is a B unit and never leads. It had a DH120 decoder in it that is probably old enough to drink. I picked out a resistor I thought would work and used it to test the LED on the headlight output. I looked about right so wired up the lights, made some lenses, drilled out the headlight castings and installed the lenses and lights and packed the wire into the shell.

When I set it on the track, I couldn't control the front headlight, it was just on. Then I remembered this particular decoder used to be in a GP38-2 that did have lights so had I swapped it into a B unit without lights when the light circuit failed. Except now the B unit did have lights. I swapped the defective decoder with one from another B unit without lights (that never leads) and wrote on the decoder the light circuit doesn't work.

I set it on the track again and turned on the lights. They were very bright. As in now the shell glows bright. Glows through the black bright. I realized I had tested the setup on the function output that didn't work properly and with full voltage they were quite bright. Fortunately it's a B unit that never leads.

And then it was time for dinner.
Click to expand...

Don't worry that switcher is scheduled for a bit of a make over. It will be primed to grime!;):p
 
A photo for day 20 of the new normal. What do you get when you combine a shark, a twinkie, a skybox and storm light?
8527--402.jpg


This is actually 3 photos, the dramatic sky was over Elliot Bay in Seattle, the hills and windmills are from eastern Washington and the train was in my garage. The 8527 and 4077 are Athearn powered RailPower. The 8527 has been in service 10 years longer than the real LMX B39-8Es worked for BN/BNSF.
 
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