ModelRailroadForums.com is a free Model Railroad Discussion Forum and photo gallery. We cover all scales and sizes of model railroads. Online since 2002, it's one of the oldest and largest model railroad forums on the web. Whether you're a master model railroader or just getting started, you'll find something of interest here.
Good morning. It's 45° and partly cloudy with a 7 mph north wind. The high will be 64° and it will be sunny. Expecting a low tonight of 36°.
Sounds like things are busy on the KCS mainline this morning. I've heard more than half a dozen trains going through in the last couple of hours. I bet my parents poodles are going nuts! They bark at anything that sounds menacing or threatening and trains really set them off. Nothing going on for me at the moment. I'll be doing some cleanup work on the layout. It could stand a good dusting. I got a bit of a start last night when I started up my van to go to the fire station. It fired up and I heard a couple of bangs and a shrill scream. I cut it off and popped the hood and had a look to see if I could see what was wrong. For some reason a squirrel had climbed up onto the front of the engine and got caught by the fan when the engine started. Needless to say the last thing the critter saw was a bunch of spinning blades. Although it was dead as a brick the squirrel was still in one piece so cleanup was easy.
Good Morning All,
Say Flo, I'm feeling fairly hungry this morning so let me have some hot coffee, a couple of eggs, a turkey sausage paddy and some Hash-Browns. Keep the coffee coming if you would too, thanks!
It was a fairly cool morning with a temp of 47* under partially cloudy skies. it's supposed to reach 71* but not by the way it looks and the next couple of days are supposed to be rainy. I guess I better get up on the roof to see if there are any spots that need attention.
Today's projects were a Tyco UP 40' MoW gondola X159 and a Mantua 50' unlettered flatcar. Nothing major. Just converted them from truck mounted couplers to body mounted Kadee's.
As I recall from the Mantua cars I had in the, long ago past, I'm not even sure they offered a spot to mount a coupler pocket to them? I'd think that could get to be quite a job?
As I recall from the Mantua cars I had in the, long ago past, I'm not even sure they offered a spot to mount a coupler pocket to them? I'd think that could get to be quite a job?
Not a problem with this one. It has nice flat areas at each end just perfect for mounting a mounting a gear box. It looks like one of the later higher-end cars. It has wire stirrups and cut levers and the bottom is quite well detailed. The first photo shows the full bottom of the car and the second photo shows a close-up of the manufacturer's name.
I got to looking at the Tyco gondola I was working on today and I noticed it had 'Made in USA' on the bottom. I looked it up on the Tyco trains resource and it turns out it's a 1960's era Red Box offering (No. T310-H). This makes it one of the oldest pieces of rolling stock I have. Can't tell it by looking at it. It looks brand new.
Well it's time for me to call it a night. I'm just can't keep my eyes open, so I'll see y'all tomorrow.
Good morning. It's 34° and sunny. The high will be 67° and it will remain sunny. Wind NNW at 0.
Happy Veterans Day.
So far I have only one project lined up for today. An old Mantua gondola. This is the type that has the trucks that are half plastic and half metal with a small metal coupler pocket on the metal part. It should be an interesting conversion.
Last night I heard plenty of noise outside so I went out to investigate. It was my nephew and some of friends moving stuff from one truck to another. A while back he bought a used and neglected Chevrolet Silverado and rebuilt it to running condition, but he was never happy with it. He's a Ford man. So yesterday he came across a Ford F-150 4X4 that he liked and in talking to the owner discovered that he was interested in the Silverado. So they swapped. Now my nephew has two F-150 4X4's. The one he already had has a busted tranny that he plans on replacing when he can afford to.
I got the coupler conversion on the Mantua gondola done. It now has a pair of Kadee couplers in Kadee #242 draft gear boxes. This project immediately became more interesting than the norm when I discovered that the trucks were all metal and the bottom of the car is a thick metal plate. Cutting the coupler mount off the truck proved to be difficult so I simply grabbed it in a pair of pliers and bent it back and forth until it broke off. Next I drilled and tapped two holes in the metal bottom of the car then super glued the gear boxes in place. When they were dry I installed the couplers, put on the gear box covers and secured them in place with a screw for each box. After that it was a simple matter to put the trucks back on. A quick check with my Kadee coupler height gauge showed the coupler height to be dead on.
I had a broken up day with a funeral in the middle. The Boss's Father died a couple of weeks ago and then his Mother died eleven days later. Two funerals in two weeks. That's two too many for me. The only good thing about it was that his parents were married 68 years. Other than when he was in the service during WWII, the eleven days was the longest they had ever been apart. Kind of sweet actually.
I finished decaling my Berkshire and Consolidation for CNW. It's so nice to see CNW pulling my trains. Now I just need to find decals for CNW heavyweight passenger cars. All I can find are streamliner versions. I may just need to punt and call it close enough. That project will be more involved since they are Athearn BB lettered for Southern Pacific. I bought them because I wanted inexpensive passenger cars that weren't 85 feet long. They have new trucks and wheels but need to be repainted and lettered. That's a project for another day.
Well there, I filled a little empty space in the coffee shop.
This afternoons project was a bit tougher than most. I had a turnout fail after ten years of service so of course it would have to be replaced. I'd been putting it off for about a week but today I looked at it and decided it was time. The part that I was hesitant about is that it's located on the east side of the main part of the layout. For those who remember what the layout looks like that's to the left of the Shell station where there are such classics as a 55 Chevy, a 72 Gremlin, an Olds 442 and the infamous AMC Pacer. Well, the turnout is about one foot to the left of that scene. The whole scene drops out from the bottom leaving an access hole. Getting to that hole requires going under that side of the layout and standing up in the hole which puts the top of the layout at waist level. I managed to get to a standing position and leaning against the layout to use it for support. From there I used my Dremel to cut the rails and roadbed of the turnout then cut out some of the area around it then pried it up with a screwdriver. That was the easy part. Next I heated the soldered rail joints and pulled the cut rail stubs out with my pliers then vacuumed up the mess left behind. Now I had to prepare the new turnout. I cut the locking and index tabs off the ends of the roadbed then put it in place starting with the main and diverging tracks first. Those weren't too hard. To get the other end in I had to lift the end of the next piece of track and managed somehow to pop half of one the rails loose. Well, that means I had to replace that straight section too. No problem, It actually made getting the end of the turnout in place. Now all that remains is to securely anchor the new sections and solder the rail joiners then ballast those sections. That however is a project for another day. The new turnout is in, wired and tested and it works flawlessly.
This is the old turnout. The points are locked to the main route and will not move to the diverging route. They start to then snap back.
And here is the new turnout and adjoining straight section in place.
Maybe anchoring the pieces will be tomorrows project. That depends on how I feel tomorrow.
Good morning. It's 48° and partly cloudy. The high will be 71°. It will be partly cloudy.
Last night I reworked the jammed turnout I replaced yesterday and made it good for manual operation only. The action is a bit stiff but it locks in the position it's set to. I'll save it in case I need a turnout for a little-used spur sometime in the future. This morning I'll be cleaning up the mess left over from yesterday.
