Good bye and Hello

Happy Train Day 2022 to all. It's been a long time, and there have been plenty of long trains that have passed in the meantime. I'll fill in some missing railroad-related adventures in future posts, but the most important events in the past 29 months involved a good bye and a hello.

Just before Labor Day 2020 I got a call from my Uncle Bill Monteleone, a great man and model railroader. He has always been a part of my enjoyment of this hobby and my interest in trains in general. We had a wonderful conversation, about family and trains. When we finally said “good bye”, I had no idea it would be our last good bye. He passed away about two weeks later. Maybe some future posts will relate some of our train tales; until then:

Here's a toast to Uncle William, may his name forever stand

And always be respected by folks throughout the land

For when his mortal race had run and the curtain around him fall

We carried him home to Glory on the Wabash Cannonball

And five months later I said a loving hello to my son Maverick (“Ricky”) Zephyr, who arrived in February 2021. He's exploring everything now, including trains, along with his older brothers Wesley Hudson and Cody Selkirk. So, much of my model railroading quests of late have occurred with Ricky in a baby carrier on my back (Lille Baby – a fantastic product for new moms and dads). Perhaps he is absorbing lots of railroad experience... in addition to locomotive oil, grease, and smoke fluid...

Anyway, in celebration of Train Day the boys and I watched some steam locomotive videos on YouTube, and later Ricky and I repaired a diesel locomotive, and now we have a fully functional roster again. I also did some initial research on replacement diesel truck side frames.

Young Railroaders

I've had a used Canadian Pacific GP9 in storage for some time, but hadn't had the opportunity to run it until now. After initial lubrication, it would run smoothly at first, but then behave strangely – slowing down and speeding up on its own, and eventually slowly coming to a full stop. And regardless of what speed it was running, the rear pickup roller would spark more than any Post War Lionel locomotive I've seen! This is a dual motor model 206, road number 8488 manufactured by Williams. I performed some basic troubleshooting steps before poking around with anything. I overturned the locomotive and placed it on some fabric, then connected leads from a transformer to the rear pickup roller and one wheel. This powered both motors without all the sparking that was present when the unit was on rails. For another test, I put masking tape over the rear pickup roller and applied power with it on the track. This resulted in no power at all to the locomotive, which told me something was amiss with the front pickup roller. I removed the shell, and thankfully this is one of those times when the problem was immediately apparent. An important-looking red wire near the front motor was attached to * nothing *. I could see where it was originally attached to a crimp-style connector, but the front truck had likely been swung too far to the engineer's side at some point, which broke the wire. So, I removed the old crimp-style connection, found a new one, and attached it to the important-looking red wire. After re-affixing everything I ran the shell-less locomotive on some test runs around Track 1 with great success. I reattached the shell, and was able to run the all-CP freight train continuously at a relatively slow speed. So, a bit of time and ingenuity netted me another fully functional Geep on Train Day – not bad!

Seems like that important-looking red wire should be connected to something...

A shell-less test run

Back on track

I have a different used diesel locomotive set that is in need of several replacement truck side frames. The set seems to run perfectly – it just needs a couple cosmetic parts to complete it. This is an MTH Premier FT set, and currently there are no parts for this listed on MTH's (new) parts website, and I have a feeling that even if they were listed, they would be out of stock. So, I've started looking at other potential ways to get decent looking truck side frames for this locomotive set. I have seen various Post War Lionel truck side frames for sale on eBay, and they are plentiful. Perhaps one of these parts would be close in style to the ones I need? I inspected one of my existing truck side frames, and compared it visually to the many Post War styles online. I found that replacement truck side frames for a Lionel 2343 may be built in such a way that one could be augmented for my purposes. I then referenced my big Post War Lionel Repair & Service book, to see what would be involved in removing a side frame from one of my PW locomotives for comparison. While there was lots of good information to be found, none of it was overly helpful for this particular quest. I believe a bit more online searching will give me the answers I need.

Truck Side Frame Research

Okay, lets get to my current fully ARMED and OPERATIONAL roster!

On Track 1 is an all-Canadian Pacific freight headed by the Williams GP9 mentioned earlier, sporting the handsome grey/maroon paint scheme. The freight cars are a Lionel single-dome black “water only” tank car, an MTH grey/maroon boxcar, and an MTH red bay window caboose. This is the first run for all four members of this train.

On Track 2 is an all-Chicago Northwestern freight train, headed by Lionel 4-6-0 “Ten-wheeler” #361. This loco had a guest appearance at church last year – I'll get to that in a future post. The rolling stock on this train features a K-Line yellow/green woodside reefer, an Atlas brown outside-braced boxcar, and MTH green hopper with coal load, an MTH boxcar in boxcar-red sporting the “Challengers” motto, and a sporty yellow/green bay window caboose. This is the first appearance for all of these cars except the reefer and the hopper.

On Track 3 is another Chicago Northwestern-helmed freight, but this time all the freight cars are reefers of various small-to-large companies. Oddly, but by popular request from my boys, it is also headed by a CNW rotary snow plow. This MTH yellow operating plow has seen plenty of action on this layout, but it is always a crowd pleaser and is genuinely fun to run. The locomotive is a Lionel 8056 Fairbanks Morse Train Master, which I've had since high school. Ever the trend setter, I posed with this locomotive in my senior pictures! Anyway, the motors in this loco can growl along with the best of any of its older Post War brethren, and it is strangely refreshing to send this one around the loop surrounded by more technologically advanced steam locomotive models on neighboring tracks. Following the Train Master is a colorful assortment of reefers: K-Line white/blue Rath's Blackhawk Ham, Atlas grey/brown Marty Cheese from Monroe Wisconsin (relatively close to where I grew up in Illinois), MTH yellow/brown Lakeshire Cheese from Plymouth Wisconsin, K-Line McLhaney Creamery from the breezy plains of Texas, Lionel green A&P milk car based in West Bend Wisconsin, K-Line red/yellow Black Hills Packing from Rapid City South Dakota, and the reliable MTH yellow/green CNW center cupola caboose. This is the first run for all of the reefers.

Track 4 is a shay-powered caboose train. You may find a real-life version of this train at the Illinois Railway Museum on steam days throughout the summer season. Powering this tourist train is Lionel Elk River 3-truck shay #12. Shays are fascinating and fun to watch and experience. This Lionel model does a pretty good job of capturing the motions and sound of real shays, and the resulting ultra-slow speed operation is strangely peaceful, despite the cacophony of motion required in the engine's gears to make it happen! The six cabeese in the train comprise some old favorites and some first-time runs. It starts with a K-Line orange woodsided Milwaukee Road rear cupola, followed by an MTH Tuscan N-8 Pennsylvania Railroad cabin car, then a K-Line red woodsided Illinois Central rear cupola, then an MTH blue/white Electro-Motive extended vision, followed by a K-Line silver Chicago Burlington & Quincy offset cupola, and finally an MTH red Great Northern extended vision.

Shays look fascinating 

Until next time, here's another toast to Uncle Bill, and keep your rails shiny