Welcome back everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend and accomplished a lot. Let's get started. Friday: Was a good day at work, getting some big projects done for April Announcements and leaving work at 3:15. The weather was windy but 64 degrees, so I walked down to the mailbox and to my great happiness, my plates for the F150 had come. I then spent the rest of the afternoon working on the truck by charging the battery, filling all the tires with air and putting the plates on. The wife soon was off work, and we decided to go to a small local pub for fish sandwiches and conversation. Once we left the pub the air had changed drastically with a 20 degree drop in temps. We stopped for a scoop of ice cream and on the way home the high was only 41 degrees. Goodbye warm weather. Saturday: I got up around 6:45 to a dark, cold, cloudy day. I made coffee and stumbled into the workshop. The wake-up process was longer than normal but by noon, I was working on the layout. I fired up a podcast and after a few hours finally finished the DCC feeders then the DC line and had the servos drawing power. By evening, all I had to do was fine tune the turnouts. Sunday: Another 6:45am wake up and return to coffee. We didn't have much time before going to Grandmas, but whilst enjoying coffee, I found that .025 wire was just thick enough and with enough give to fully set the turnouts in the proper direction. I was able to set one turnout up and fully adjust to my liking when it was time to go. The party was good with a full house of relatives. A good time was had by all and soon Ang and I started the trek back home when she realized we needed yogurt. Well, as we did last weekend, we just ended up doing grocery shopping. Once home I called my dad and then realized it was 8:25pm and the weekend was over. So how about you? What did you accomplish this weekend? Let us know. We'll assemble again of Good Friday, March 29th to start the process all over again. Until then, have a great week, stay healthy and safe and as always... High Greens!
Hey All, After (mostly) finishing up my garage rewiring/new lights and attic storage decking project, I had some time Sunday to work on a few modeling projects. Good to be back after a week in DC for work. I am close to finishing up this resin gondola kit that Dave Husman sent me a while back. Dave also sent me the decals, which I hope that I have mostly right...still needs cut levers and air hoses. I also worked up a revised set of decals for this FRL car from c.1912... A few more edits and I'll get a professional set made by PDC. Hope you had a good one...back on the hamster wheel. -Bob T.
Good mornin to Y'all The last few days went well. Friday: Painted the H12-44 rails and other details - then clear coated them. Saturday: After getting our passport photos (For our renewal) - I added window glass and windshield wipers. Sunday: We filled out our passport renewal applications - ready for mailing. I put the H12-44's into service: Again - I want to thank: @jwaldo for the kick in the pants and inspiration. Thanks, - Y'all have a great week Wolf
Good morning and happy Easter week to all! The weekend was great. Both N.C. State men's and women's teams got their NCAA wins this weekend. Now on to the sweet 16 for the men. Women play tonight in the round of 32. Modeling-wise, didn't get all that wanted done. Spent time putting in a decoder for a Stewart F7. Then spent too much time putzin' around w/ the couplers. Finally ordered some new Stewart F7 adaptor kits from Kadee. Also spent time on the barn project as well as cutting a template for the plywood base at West Monterey. Also ordered a few more decoders to finish out 2 sets of Stewart F7 A-B-A arrangements. @SP-Wolf ... H12's are awesome. Have a great week all!!! From the decoder install:
'Acomplishments'? Not so much. I did get a vid done trying to list the various projects in each area of the layout. In doing so I make a longer list. Argh! A conversation with @BigJake helped clarify my thoughts. So, before dusk tonight I will be creating rough place holder structures for the industrial area and hopefully painting them white.
Morning all, my weekend went close to as expected with about the only train time being Friday evening. I got the decoder installed in the C44-9W and turned her loose on the layout. I turned my attention to the transformer model and got it about half way done. Did manage to get by the not so LHS on Saturday. They did not have the paint colors I was looking for but I did pick up a new DCC decoder while there. That will be next weekend project maybe. Sunday was mainly family stuff and just like that, it's Monday. Hope you all have a great week!
Good morning everyone, The Covid shots on Friday morning went smoothly. I had no side effects except for a bit of a sore arm. My wife had that too plus felt really exhausted by Friday evening. While the weather was still good on Friday, we got out a did some more yard work before my friend from the Ntrak group arrived with his new module. We glued the mounting blocks to the underside then while the glue was drying, I brought him up to date on the layout as much had been done on it since the last time his was over. Then we finished installing the wiring and connected the feeders which he had already installed. For the rest of the weekend, it was on and off rain. Did a little work on the structure I had planned to work on but mostly worked on getting things ready for the 5-day exhibit. Also entered a few more items in the N Scale database. Sorry no pictures this time.
Did I get stuff done? Yes. Did I get train stuff done? Not so much. Friday, I did homework and, because I really hadn't gotten much done during the week, I did homework ALL day and still wasn't done at 9:00pm when I quit (but I did turn in what needed to be turned in). Saturday, I did more homework in the morning then my wife and I went to my parents' house and loaded up another (very) full 8 ft. pickup truck bed (and extended cab) full of stuff to sort for keeping and donating. We are discovering that many of Mom and Dad's "old" things that my siblings (and children) don't want are quite sell-able online. There is still much to do, but we are making progress slowly but surely. We still have no idea where we will store Dad's N-gauge layout between now and when we buy our retirement house but we have started seriously thinking about it. In the evening I did more homework. Sunday, I woke up before my alarm sometime after 4:00am and by 4:30 realized that I wasn't going back to sleep, so I just got up and got started and hour earlier than usual. It seemed like we had decent attendance for Palm Sunday. After church we had lunch and I headed out to the Sebring Model Railroad Club for a few hours, but by then I was so tired that we didn't do anything but talk (and there were several people running trains and we didn't want to disturb them by trying to climb on the benchwork to lay track). I headed home around 3:30pm and took a nap. After my nap was dinner, and after dinner was... not much. Even with a nap I couldn't get motivated to go to my workbench and do much of anything. There are, however, now several boxes of tools from Dad's workbench that need to be sorted and stored... somewhere. This week being Holy Week, I don't expect to get anything done as I will be at church for at least four days and five evenings. I don't expect to go to the train club on Easter Sunday, if for no other reason than I will just be an exhausted mess by that point. Have a great week everyone!
Not much to directly involve the trains. Most was sorting through other stuff and filing it to the big container that will be put to the curb on Thursday. Today it's start to go through and find all the tools I will need along with stuff ordered. Even with upcoming dangers it's worth it.
Good morning from mostly sunny and mild Northeast Ohio! Friday, applied dullcoat to the NYC Hopper car and then installed the trucks and couplers. Also took the wife for a visit with the Orthopedic Surgeon and then Physical Therapy in the morning so that shot the day until noon. In the evening we had the final night of bowling in the league and the results of the knockdown round did not affect the standings. Saturday, went to the club for the monthly meeting and then an op session, got assigned to the wharf job which I had never done before, managed to do it quickly, but incorrectly as I read the switch list in order and did not load the car barge first after unloading it, so they missed the sailing time!!! Later in the evening applied decals to the R70-20 Reefer and did some work on an Eastern Car Works H2 hopper car. Sunday, slept in late, but then made breakfast for all and started the laundry. Did some more work on the H2 Hopper, and redid some of the incorrect work on did on Saturday. Also finally managed to find the Nathan Horns to go on my GP7, now all I need to do is paint the handrails, trucks and frame then dullcoat and reassemble and it will be done. Rick Jesionowski
Nothing beats a well-functioning turnout. That P&R gon is the bomb! H12-44's now on the property! F7 A-B-A's = Power! Place holder structures sound very promising. Transformer model will be cool. New module sounds cool too. Woke up after 4:00 A.M.! Pesky time change! Up coming dangers. Ya' gotta' do what ya' gotta' do. "Missed the sailing time!!!" I'm afraid this will have to go on your permanent record. Last week and up to earlier today was work on Spanish tile roofing. Prototype number one was rejected. Prototype number two was rejected. We're going with number three. May be the best compromise (I hope). This week should see roof making completion and walls attached to main floor. Rain coming so inside I will be. If the sun comes out my current case of Spring fever may flare up. (I think I hear bluegills chirping in the distance.) Have a great week.
I didn't get as much accomplished over the weekend on train projects other than updating the Nexxt Throttle enclosure to add some text embedded in the surface for the buttons and adjusting the fitment for the battery and a USB port (charging) of the current prototypes. The one other non-train thing I got started was taxes, I need to fill in a few details to cut down my tax liability (>$10k) as a result of some stock sales last year. With any luck in the next day or two I'll complete the work I was intending to do over the weekend.
As predicated Saturday was pretty much a wash out. I limited the running to the post office and the produce store. It was nasty driving with many roads nearly half covered in runoff. The rain did stop around 5 PM but everything was soaked. We did some minor things around the house including some laundry and organizing. I have some bins to put away in storage and a couple of empty ones that could be used for trains. Sunday was bright and sunny and on the mild side. My wife and I decided to spend a couple of hours driving around Valley Forge Park. We were pleasantly surprised at the amount of work the National Park Service has done since last fall. They refurbished a number of soldiers’ quarters and clean out numerous dead trees from the manicured areas. They also improved many of the roads and walking trails. After our galivanting through the park we hit PetSmart and the grocery store on the way home. On the layout I added the abutments to the thru girder bridge and hogged out the foam so the bridge would fit. I cleaned up the mess. I used a few strips of my wife two-sided tape to attach the rails to both bridges. This held the bridges in place so I could place shims under them to make the bridge decks at the proper elevation. Lastly, I ran some test trains across them. After work today I need to run to the pharmacy and grab a couple of things for my wife. Unfortunately, it does not include Mounjaro for my wife. She is currently out of it. We have been trying to get it for eight weeks. It is out of stock everywhere thanks to doctors and celebrities using it off label for weight loss and not diabetes. (Sorry for the rant.)
Multiple snowfalls over the weekend, which always disrupts the modeling. Nothing too much, just an inch or 2 each time, but enough to have to go out and remove it. But I did get done what I wanted for the weekend. I received my Rapido caboose..........it arrived without batteries (which is the way they come, not a problem) and as I installed the batteries, it reminded me that I hadn't checked the lights or batteries in any of my Rapido passenger cars for a LONG time. So I dug all the cars out and checked/replaced those. On 2 cars, the metal plate that the positive side of the batteries contact fell off, so repair of those will go on an upcoming "to do" list. But things continued to snowball, and doing the passenger cars reminded me I had a pile of brand new FVM lighting kits on the shelf in a cupboard. I had bought them to light a 1947 set of cars FVM was supposed to put out that never made it before they went under, and I don't know that Scale Trains will ever resurrect the project, so I decided I needed to find a home for them. The only complete train I had was my 1935 Hiawatha, so I put the kits into an express car, a tap car, 5 coaches, a parlor car, and a beavertail observation car. I have to say it's the best lighted train I have.......bright enough without being too bright, and very evenly lit. Wish I'd remembered the kits earlier.
Those H12s are gorgeous. I'm going to have to inspire you more often, the results are worth the effort! Those switcher stripes are my nightmare, and you've done them flawlessly. Twice. Saturday I mainly manned the club's N and Z displays at the local train show. The Z display is brand new and still very much a work in progress; visitors got to see almost as much re-railing as running, but when the trains are that small both feats are impressive . The N scale layout has had its trackwork kinks worked out, and I got a solid 8 hours of smooth running:
Much less snow than expected on Saturday, most of it fell east and south, the opposite of where I was going. Ottawa! The OVAR club's annual model train event/flea market was well worth the trip 2-1/2 hours each way. I scored two essentially undecorated RS3s (now I have seven of them!), an undecorated FB2 dummy, and a CN GP7 with a GP9 road number (which I promptly changed to a GP7 number, 4803). Another catch is a one-of-a-kind custom-lettered boxcar. Also, a 2024 edition of the Canadian Trackside Guide, the Canadian railfan's reference (I have back issues from 2008 onward). Best of all, some nice conversations with other modelers and railfans. Well, OK, it's a tossup between the trains and the conversations...
I did not post any expectations, but if you will allow, here are 3 accomplishments for the weekend. A lot of work to do on each one. 1st - the Crown Royal NASCAR hauler : 2nd - Earnhardt Sr. NASCAR hauler tractor : 3rd - Day cab tractor for my Chevron 9200 gallon tanker trailer : Note lower left of image, that is a rear view mirror for mounting on the curbside of the radiator grill. I must quit on trucks and get to work on "trains". Be well !
Made some progress. Between walks, picking dandelions (A personal obsession!), a few soccer matches (1 win, 2 losses), and an unexpected breakfast out on Sunday there was some modeling done. I tinkered with the placement of domes on my boiler prototype. The sand domes are oversized for my model, but good position holders for now. The steam dome and stack are a bit too small. As to placement, it is close. The last question was how the boiler would sit on the chassis and line up with the steam pipes and cylinders. That answer would set the stack location. I moved on to the next step: milling out the boiler. This is as far as I got Sunday evening. Learned a few things from the exercise. I should have taken better pictures the last time I saw the prototype in Boise. I need to make a simplified replica of the Mikado mechanism to use as a measurement tool when milling. My cutting order could be better. Finishing this will yield information I need to make the next, improved version. Onward! It is time for our monthly trip to my mother-in-law's house. This will give me some time away to ponder how to best proceed. I should have more to share in a couple weeks. Stay safe,
Train show on Saturday morning and railfanning on Saturday afternoon made for a good day. I didn't find anything I needed at the show, but picked up a few business cards from Sellers that had used Kato Amtrak F-40s for sale. I'll likely want one someday. Tackled some home fix-it projects after church on Sunday, so made zero progress on N Scale tree production.
