I hope you all had a great weekend, it's now time to go back to our day jobs but before we do, let's hear how our weekend was. Saturday: Was a great day. I got up early and finished switch lists for three days of switching, June 24th, 25th and 26th of 1977. I had spent so much time on my new BN units that I felt like keeping all the Cascade Green from Railroad Days on the layout. My first crew showed up around noon, Dave Hawkeye, (TB member PPUIN) was part of the first trick along with Steve Zink (Zinker), another TB member. and we went through the first list before breaking for brats and hot dogs and plenty of bull session. David stayed until 4:00 before he had to make the 2 hour trip back home. Mrs. Zinker showed up and got along famously with Angela while Steve and I played with more trains. Soon, Tom, the owner of my "not so local hobby shop" showed up and we ran a second switch list. We could tell that Tom had worked for the prototype as he was able to spot cars with ease. We then broke for more brats, hamburgers and hot dogs and relaxed until midnight in the back yard with the fire pit and a beautiful full moon. Sunday: Was more relaxed and unfortunately, more humid. Angela and I went to a local car show and saw my boss and his perfectly restored 1973 Gran Torino as well as his mom's beautiful all original 1967 Mustang. Of course I geeked out at the few beautiful Jeep and MOPAR vehicles before leaving to take care of domestic duties. The rest of the day, I spent in reflection. The guys certainly enjoy coming over to run operations on the City Job so they don't want me to stop with the operations. I'm still not happy about the module construction, mainly the weight, so I sat down and started to work on V.2 which will be made of light plywood. If I decide to continue with the project, I plan to completely rebuild module 2 which has had its share of night mares. Part of me is trying to decide if another direction would be worth it as my partner is thinking about going a different route and while my move has been put on hold, I will be moving to New Hampshire at some point in the not too distant future. In the end however, it was a great weekend. We've decided to run another operations session in September in conjunction with the Decatur Train Fair and the Monticello Railroad Days event. So how about you? What did you accomplish this past weekend? Let us know. We'll do it again starting on Friday the 14th. Until then, stay cool, have a great week and... High Greens!
Went to the Pomona train show on Saturday and did some shopping! That was fun but very hot up there. Also got some work done on my locomotive facility and car shop at the ends of my yard.... track down and wired up on one end, just need the wiring to be connected to the rest of the layout. The other end I need to finish the track and install feeders. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Saturday was a wonderful day - spent it with my Wife and Granddaughter - no MRRing. Sunday - After breakfast and grocery shopping, I managed to add some oily black the whisker tracks of my turntable. That's about it -- it was to blazing hot to get anymore accomplished. This is a rough time of year for MRRing. Hope ya'll had a great weekend, Wolf
Awhile back, I bought a nice FP45 cheap on eBay with a DCC unit and the like in it - when I got it, it was so badly packed as to be in pieces, and the paint was atrocious anyhow. A dull brown with some really hideous decals - looked like it might have started out life as an Amtrak unit. Anyhow, for some reason that caught my eye this week and I decided to see if it could be rescued - at least it would be more painting practice. Still have quite a bit of touch up to do, but here's the results before touch up, decals and weathering ..
Late Friday it became apparent "office work" would rule my weekend. Came into the office most of the day Saturday so didn't get anything done on the layout. Sunday, I got 7 Tortoise machines installed and mechanically adjust/working. No wiring installed yet, I'm still contemplating how I want to do control panels around the layout. I have 7 more machines to be installed and I'll be "caught up" w/ the track/turnouts I have in sofar.
While doing periodic exercise for locos to keep them limber, had to do general wheel cleaning for some locos - it's a clue when they slow down and stall on even clean track (said track cleaning performed first). Other than that, general puttering about. I would spend more time outside but it just won't stop raining!
Hey Mike, what do you use for cleaning wheels? I'm using DCC and I worry about the possibility of shorting the frame or the brush or something and killing my DCC controllers. Is that something I need to worry about, or am I just being paranoid? .
I have a 2-foot piece of track nailed to a same-length 2x4, with an old handkerchief draped over one half of it. I soak that in contact cleaner (plastic safe) and run one truck at a time over the soaked handkerchief (wheels spinning). No shorts, nothing in there to kill any sensitive electronics.
