Corked

This week saw new visitors to the Train Room, and the start and completion of a rather substantial track project.

My folks visited the house for the first time over the weekend, and my in-laws also visited on Memorial Day. We also had a couple of guest engineers.

My parents took the Amtrak Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle, and later from Seattle to Essex, Essex to Havre, and finally from Havre back to Chicago. They had fun, but it was a lot of Amtrak in a short amount of time. While in Essex, they stayed at the Izaak Walton Inn, which is a must-visit place for any railfan (www.izaakwaltoninn.com). They got me a neat tin sign for the train room too.

Head to Essex, MT and enjoy this place!

Over the weekend I purchased rolls of cork from the hobby supply store. Cork is placed under the track for a few reasons. It softens the ride for the trains, which lessens overall vibration and lengthens the life of locomotives and rolling stock. It decreases the loudness of the trains when running on the table. It is also used when adding ballast to the tracks for scenery purposes.

For this Layout, since it is not being scenic'd, I only require the cork under the already existing metal ties of the track. My wife and my mother both graciously helped cut the 300 pieces of cork required for this project on Saturday. They also cut a special piece of cork for the 45-degree cross-over track. My assistants also carefully removed all of the trains from the track and parked them on the floor for the project to proceed. My bride ran the trains around the track with the ZW to accomplish this.

Amber at the throttle!

On Sunday I installed cork on all of Track 1, and some of Track 2 and 3.

On Memorial Day, the trains were run for our guests (my brother-in-law helped me replace the trains on the track for the demonstration.) My mother, with some instruction from me, operated all four trains with the ZW transformer.

Yesterday I completed the cork installation and ran all trains successfully. Thank you very much to my helpers Amber and Joyce who made it possible to complete 100% of the track work in just a few days!

Joyce sends the trolley around Track 2

Cork installation in process

Also a very happy shout-out to the Steam Department at the Illinois Railway Museum (www.irm.org), for the successful running of the Frisco 2-10-0 locomotive for the first time in 10 years! It has undergone a complete refit. It is wonderful to see the engine running again - we watched it on the webcams on Memorial Day.

So, from the Midwest to the Pacific, and everywhere between, keep your rails shiny ~

Cork complete!

Semi-Success

Welcome back ~

This week resulted in some mixed results for the Granite Canyon. This is a K-Line Heavyweights series passenger car I purchased at an auction several months ago. Upon opening it, I found that one of the trucks had come apart at a weak spot. Later research found that a very large number of these passenger cars suffer from a similar problem. After finding that soldering would not work, I tried using some super glue instead. In the process of fixing it, the other side of the truck fell off, and one end of the piece snapped off as well. Nevertheless, I rejoined everything with the super glue, and it ended up being rather stable.
 

Trying a super glue solution

Super glue seems to have worked

 Next, I reattached and enhanced the wiring as needed, running from the wheels and roller pickup to two lights on the car frame. I used a combination of solder and twist joints for this, and got all of the lights to work on the track.
 

Lights on!

 I manually tested the wheels, and reattached the shell. When I tried connecting the car coupler to the C&NW E4 Hudson, I noted sparks and electrical arcs emanating from the coupler! I have not encountered this before, but noted that it is probably bad. Some more fiddling did not resolve the problem, so I looked for an easy way to deactivate the roller pickups under the car. Surprisingly, they are designed to toggle up inside the truck frame and rest there. Basically, it is a toggle function to easily turn the interior car power on or off. After doing this, the car operated fine, although without lighting. I ran the car around Track 4 behind the Hudson about 20 times with no incident, so I concluded that the rebuilt truck itself is working properly. So, welcome to the Northern Range, Granite Canyon ~

Granite Canyon behind the E4

In real-train activities this week, I happened across a maintenance train that was placing ties alongside the track across the street from my office. I was taking a lunch stroll, and noticed an MRL locomotive heading EB at a very slow rate. After a while the reason for the slow speed became apparent. The train consisted of about 10 gondolas filled with new railroad ties. Riding the train was a special crane contraption that was picking up the ties and placing them alongside the track as the train slowly advanced. The crane has the ability to ride along the rims of the gondola cars, and has wheels spaced so that it can "jump" between cars while the train is in operation. My bride and I had seen this train sitting on a siding in Laurel this past Sunday, and it was neat to see it in action yesterday.

Tie placing train

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, and until next time, keep your rails shiny ~

National Train Day 2014

Greetings again!

I hope you all had a fun National Train Day on Saturday. To celebrate, I finished the under-table wiring. I soldered the final 2 connections, connected all wiring loops, drilled holes for main lead access to transformer, and cut transformer leads to length. I tested the E4, and it now has more consistent power around the track, and while activating the whistle.

On Sunday, I bought 10-gauge wire loop connectors. On Tuesday, I crimped the connectors to the feed wires by the transformer, and connected Track 3 and tested it successfully.

On Wednesday, I connected Tracks 1,2 and 4 to the ZW. And, earlier today, I experimented on repairing Granite Canyon truck with super glue.

Main leads from under the table

All 4 pairs of leads are connected

Amber's Graduation Party

Hello, thank you for checking in. This past week was a lot of fun! My bride graduated from college (again) this week, and we had lots of friends and colleagues come to an open house.

Very late Saturday night I completed some connections for Tracks 1 and 2. I spent an hour troubleshooting a short caused by two wires that were touching from one of the leads under the table on Track 1 (grrr). The good thing that came out of this is that I discovered that the ZW circuit breaker works successfully. While testing the trains, I found that the ZW right-hand controllers are sticky (moving Track 2 or Track 4 slider causes the other to move as well). Also this week, Amber finished sewing and installing a table skirt. It looks really snappy and fits in well with the room (especially the floor color.) I cleaned the Train Room floor, and placed the metal green chest on the floor for kids to stand on to view the trains. I placed signs in the stairwell and the Train Room for visitors. These signs directed people to the room, warned them not to touch the trains, and provided some brief information about the layout (and this blog.)

On the big day, I hosted approximately 20 visitors to Train Room. This is the largest number of guests to date. Track 1 was a short train led by the  C&NW 0-8-0, Track 2 sported the Trolley, Track 3 ran the "blue" train led by the MRL SD9, and the Northern Range graced Track 4 headed by the C&NW E4. There was lots of fun for all, and it was very loud! The equipment ran splendidly, and the room did its job well too.

On Tuesday I made 3 more connections under the table - 2 for Track 4, and 1 for Track 3.

Have a great week, and keep your rails shiny ~

4 Trains running with the ZW - note my wife's spiffy table skirt in place too

Your host poses for a pic while at the helm

Grad Prep

Hello all. This week was mostly devoted to prepping for my bride's upcoming graduation and party. But, I did spend a few hours crawling around on top and beneath the train table. The electrical schema I'm trying on this layout requires several feeder wires on each track loop. This translates to a track wire, about 5" long, which is soldered to the track. The other end is fed down a hole in the table to main power lines for each track loop. The main wires need to be stripped, and then joined to the feeders. This connection is covered with electrical tape. In total, there are about 40 of these feeder wires and corresponding connections. And yes, it does take a bit of time to do each one while bent over on top of the table... But, the project has gone relatively smoothly thus far.

A completed solder connection on Track 4

Note the shiny feeder wires hanging down

Other projects which took some time away from the railroad were the completion of the concrete wall rebuild, new baseboard trim for the living room, a railing for the interior stairs, yard maintenance, and helping my wife prep for her final week of school.

Next week will prove to have some more interesting content! Here is a hint:

A hint...

Keep yer rails shiny in the meantime!