Mark's MT Railroads: Light Rail, Caboose Hobbies, and More...

Welcome to November y'all. Here you'll find details about my over-the-rails trip to a hobby shop in Denver, and you'll see what railroad-related adventures I've been having in Billings over the last week.

Continuing on from last week's post...
While staying in Lakewood, CO last month, my wife attended some training classes for work, which freed me up to pursue my own interests (trains) during the day. On the Wednesday of our trip, I dropped my wife off at her class, and proceeded back to our hotel on Union Blvd in Lakewood. I prepped a small backpack for the journey, and walked a few blocks east to the Regional Transportation District (RTD) Federal Center Station. This station allows for transfers between buses and light rail trains. Denver uses overhead catenary wires to power its commuter trains. It was another beautiful day, and I've shared several pictures of the journey at the end of this post. I started by riding the W line east to the Auraria West station. The W line is relatively new, and they are continuing to expand the line west into Golden. The track, bridges, crossings, and stations are all clean and safe and beautifully decorated. Each station along the W line seems to have a different "theme", and local artists were hired for each station to beautify them. The styles varied widely, but one commonality across the whole line was that each signal box had a mural painted on it. For those that aren't familiar with "signal boxes", these are typically located at road crossings or, as the name implies, near signals. They are usually silver in color, and vary in size, but for the most part they have a human-sized door on them, and look like a small, metal hut. On the W line, you won't find silver signal boxes - rather, you'll see very colorful murals, each with a different theme.

After a 30 minute ride, I arrived at the Auraria West station close to downtown Denver. This is a transfer station with access to all of the other lines. This station was clean, but was much more active than the stations on the W line, and it didn't have any art. But, it did have a nice view of Denver landmarks, like the football stadium, the university, the amusement park, and the skyline. For my next destination, either a C or E line train would work, so I took the first available, which was an E line train. After a 10 minute ride, I departed at the Alameda Station. This station is located behind a shopping center. I walked a few blocks east to the Caboose Hobbies store on Broadway street.

Caboose Hobbies is one of the largest train stores in the country, and is most likely the closest large store to Billings. They sell trains of all scales, and also have expansive sections of railroad media, model railroad scenery, and railroad miscellany for sale. I enjoyed seeing new and used trains up close, although they were all priced outside of my budget. Based on our conversation with Alan the previous day, I looked for specific items among the G-scale train section. I had planned to purchase some scale-sized people for my train set, and that is exactly what I did. They have a plethora of people for sale in all scales, and I took my time choosing 6 that would fit in with my 1950's era layout. I think the section of the store that impressed me the most was the scenery area. They have a few scenic'd model railroads on display, and a good selection of Thomas & Friends toys. They also have a large staff of folks to assist, and to top it off, they were having a special sale that I was able to take advantage of. It is a lot of fun to visit a big train store! Impressively, I was in and out in under an hour, and was back on my way to the Alameda Station before lunch.

The Alameda Station is located at the southern end of a large Union Pacific rail yard. South of the station is a very wide curve to the west, and since the end of the yard was devoid of parked trains, I had a great view of approaching and departing trains traversing the curve. I hopped on a C line train headed north, and snapped some photos of the downtown area and UP yard en route to Auraria West. While waiting at the next station, I saw several other trains pass through, dropping off and picking up passengers. Most of the people at this station were university students, headed to various parts of the city. I only saw two people taking advantage of the city's currently lax drug stance. An interesting train that came through was a short, two-car train labeled "Training Train" and was listed as out of service. An experienced conductor was riding with a trainee on their route. After a bit, a west bound W line train came along, and I began my trip back west. I viewed the opposite side of the tracks this time, and photographed some of the interesting art pieces along the way. I de-trained at Federal Center Station and grabbed some lunch on the way back to the hotel. It was a very fun experience and was more than appropriate for a trip to a train store! Check back next week for more tales of railfanning adventures along the Front Range of the Rockies ~

Now for some more local train news! Last Saturday (Halloween), I affixed my DIY cross buck to our backyard shed. It looks pretty neat, along with the existing Whistle sign post. On Sunday, I spied an EB CSX train in the Laurel yard, far from home. It was hauling several coal hoppers, and a variety of mixed freight. It had two engines at the head (the second had been painted recently), and no helper units. Occasionally I'll see CSX locomotives mixed with local liveries (BNSF or MRL), but I haven't seen a solely-CSX train around here, so it was worth noting. During the week, I made some more improvements to my train spreadsheet: based on Alan's advice, I sketched a revised garden railroad track plan, I improved the Abbreviations list, and I created topographic and signal maps for the O Scale layout of the future. Yesterday I (finally) finished repairs to the CBQ E8 A. A few weeks back I thought I had resolved the problem of a wire rubbing against the rear vertical motor while running. However, when I went to pick up the locomotive a few days ago, I discovered that I had neglected to re-fasten the shell to the frame and ended up relapsing the original problem! Yesterday, I caused further problems by accidentally breaking a soldered joint in the shell. So, I transported the engine to my work bench (the washing machine with an old t-shirt draped over it), and re-soldered the broken link. I then used electrical tape to affix the misbehaving wires to the shell. After a few tests on the track, I deemed the problem was finally solved, and I screwed the shell back to the frame. Last night I hung up a framed picture of the New York Central's 20th Century Limited passenger train in our stairwell. Amber had purchased this picture for me at an auction last spring, and now it has a nice spot on the wall. Finally, I finished up the night studying how to use a voltmeter to properly test the speaker on the NP 0-6-0. MTH provides a list of troubleshooting steps for Protosounds 2.0 locomotive issues. In this case, the steamer runs properly, and the lighting and smoke systems function. There are no sounds whatsoever. The first steps are basic - make sure the power is on; make sure the tender is connected to the loco; make sure the volume is turned up... The next step was to "reset" the locomotive to factory defaults. All modern locomotives with sound systems have a method for programming different features. This method differs based on the transformer you are using to operate the locomotive. To reset a Protosounds 2.0 locomotive with a Postwar ZW transformer and separate whistle and bell buttons, the method is this: 1) place the locomotive on the track and supply about 10V of power to it, 2) press the whistle button once, and then press the bell button five times, holding each button for about 1 second. This process is supposed to reset the engine. I have performed this a few times with the 0-6-0, and it hasn't resolved the problem. The next step is to measure the ohms resistance on the internal speaker inside the tender. MTH provides the exact measurements that it should be outputting, but I have never measured an ohm before, so I used wikihow to find out how. I hope to give this a shot over the next week and see what I can find!

Enough talk - how about some pics! Take care, and keep your rails shiny ~

The Federal Center Station. There is currently an EB W Line train in the station. In the foreground is some art, and you can see some of the signal boxes painted with murals as well. In the background you can see the Denver skyline and smog.