Through-lines coming Through

Here's an update from the train room for March 2017. I'm very happy to report that my son, now 3 months old, really enjoys model trains. When he's upset, I run the trains for him, and he calms down every time. The combination of the train's motion and sounds have a lulling affect, and he's even fallen asleep a couple of times as the trains circle about in front of him.

Since my last post, I celebrated another birthday, and my parents and my parents-in-law all gifted me some nice railroad-related items. I received two nice posters of steam locomotive paintings, for the Northern Pacific and Great Northern railroads. I was also given several model railroad scenery supplies, including a bag of real coal. I also received an authentic chain for my railroad pocket watch. And, my wife gave me an evening with just the two of us, which meant a lot more to me than a thousand trains. Thank you to everybody for your generosity!

I've been running NP 0-6-0 for my son (well, for me too) and haven't had any problems until recently. I warmed it up one day, and there were no audible sounds from the speaker. This is the same issue I encountered last year, and took it to Caboose Hobbies in Denver to have it repaired. I've contacted The Caboose (new owner and location) to see if they have detailed records of what was specifically repaired last year, in hopes that I can duplicate it.

Over the past week, with help from my father and son, the train layout roster has been changed. We also performed a bit of inventory on the previous and new roster items. As of now, there are 97 items remaining to inventory. The theme of the roster is "through-lines", meaning that these trains are not run by local/regional railroads - they are "passing through". The locomotives in use are the only ones in the collection from their respective railroads. So, here's the new March-April 2017 roster for your review and entertainment:

On Track 1, the Blue Train makes its first-ever run this month. With the majority of its members hailing from the mostly-blue livery of Montana Rail Link, I developed this train simply because my bride likes the color. With last year's acquisition of the Union 76 tank car, this mixed freight now includes three scale-and-time-displaced cars with a locomotive and caboose. As more primarily-blue rolling stock is collected, they will be added to this special freight. This version of the Blue Train consists of the MRL SD9 (Lionel), a Needham Packing reefer (MTH), a Union 76 oil tank (K-Line), an MRL double-door boxcar (Lionel) and an MRL extended vision caboose (Lionel).

Track 2 hosts an all-dairy-related train. The Dairy Express is led by the MPC-era MKT NW2 (Lionel), a GN stock car (Petersen) a Borden milk tank car (Lionel), a Carnation reefer (K-Line), a Dairy Men reefer (Lionel) and an MKT extended vision caboose (Lionel). The NW2 is a single-motor unit and runs very well - it growls like a Postwar locomotive and was the first diesel model I had as a youngster.

On Track 3, reliable and mighty Mikado #4100 pulls mixed freight #408. A variety of goods and materials are in tow behind the Frisco 2-8-2 steam locomotive, built by Lionel in 1993. First, a CP log car (Lionel), followed by two recently acquired Lionel tankers with Philadelphia Quartz and Army liveries, a Midnight-Chief-inspired boxcar (#97191, K-Line), a Peacock reefer (K-Line), an Old Dutch reefer (K-Line), a GN hopper laden with coal (MTH), a CNW flatcar with semi trailer (called a "piggyback") (MTH), a late-80's MRR tank car (Lionel), an IC hopper (Williams) and a Frisco wood-sided caboose.

The ATSF boxcar has a brake-side coupler issue. It's opening at certain spots on the loop, but I haven't determined the cause yet. I thought the magnet was activating, but I've proved that isn't the issue. It only opens when it is coupled to another car, so weight and force, combined with certain sections of track are somehow causing it to malfunction. I'll keep troubleshooting, but for now I've placed the boxcar at the end of the train to prevent uncoupling problems.

Also, as I learned while holding my son, one should not shift the Frisco Mikado into forward from neutral at 25% power. I had gotten used to running the NP Switcher, which has a very gentle shift and can run smoothly at low speeds, but the 2-8-2 experienced extreme acceleration. The log car uncoupled from the tank car and both derailed. Of course, this happened at the inaccessible corner of the layout, so it took some ingenuity, while holding a baby, to pull the cars closer and re-rail them. No harm done, and everything is running again, but it was a small adventure to fix it.

And on Track 4, I've assembled the longest-yet version of the Northern Range heavyweight coach train. This time, its being pulled over Pennsylvania Railroad ROW, so the train is called the "Philly Phoenix" and is pulled by a big GG1 electric locomotive (Williams). The real-life prototype for this locomotive is nicknamed "Blackjack", and can be viewed at the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum. Behind my O-scale version of Blackjack is a troop car converted into an REA head-end car (Weaver), the Van Twiller combine (Lionel, first time on rails ever), the Willow River coach (Lionel), the Willow Valley coach (Lionel), the Willow Range coach (Lionel), the second Willow River coach (Lionel), the Highland Falls sleeper (Lionel), and the Granite Canyon coach (K-Line) takes up the rear.

The GG1 horn sputters frequently while pulling the Philly Phoenix. This can be prevented by holding down the Bell button on the controller. I think this is just a symptom of something fishy going on electronically with Track 4, as I’ve had problems with Whistle/Horn-Bell functionality in the past.

With my son around, the trains are all getting a lot more run time, which means more fun for everybody!

Have a blessed day, and keep those rails shiny!

Bday steam locomotive artwork

The Blue Train

Dairy Express

Frisco 2-8-2

"Chicaqo" piggyback

Santa Fe Blackbonnet paint scheme

Mike and Blackjack

Part of the Philly Phoenix

The Town of Red Stone

Howdy folks, there wasn’t any train activity this week, so today I’ll talk a bit about a town I’ll be building on the future train layout.

The train layout will be based on the mid-1950’s, and Red Stone will be a bustling western town of about 2,000 people. It will be an important railroad community, linking the fictional layout to big cities like Denver, Kansas City and San Francisco. The four chief railroads that will have operations in Red Stone will be the Santa Fe (ATSF), the Katy (MKT), the Rock Island (CRI&P) and the Frisco (SL&SF). The town will have plenty of through-passenger traffic, and will be located near oil fields, cattle ranches, crop fields and a military base, which will provide interesting freight traffic.

Generally, Red Stone will be south of the city of Silver Falls and west of Cedar Falls, a logging town. North of Red Stone will be a desert area with some interesting sandstone rock formations, and a small creek will run along the east side of the town. Several train tracks will be located along the south side of town, and that’s where a collection of railroad buildings will be found (station, sheds, water tower). East of these structures, at the end of McLintock Avenue, will be a church with a cemetery and a small park. Traveling north on Huskie Street will bring visitors to a variety of businesses including the Big Boy Bakery, Jackey Lowp’s Bar, and the Wall Pharmacy. There will also be several homes and a gas station near the corner of Huskie Street and Tamarack Road. North of town will be some bleachers where onlookers can view rodeos and other events near the sandstone rocks.

From a real-world standpoint, the Red Stone area will be located at the southwest corner of the future train layout, and will a 7x9 foot area, so it will be roughly the same size as the current train set I’m operating. Initial plans are shown in the pictures below. I hope everybody has a great day, and keep your rails shiny ~

Red Stone details

Red Stone showing Area divisions

Total Re-org and CMRM Part 1

Howdy readers – today’s long post details a lot of work done in the Train Room over the past few days, and Part 1 of my visit to the CMRM.

I devoted nearly 12 hours to the Train Room this week, and while most of the changes will be invisible to guests, it was an extremely fruitful week! I’ll start with the layout…

I set up the CTA 4-car “L” set on Track 3. From reading the manual, I decided to try out a fun feature that allows me to program the train to stop automatically at a set of stations that I decide. To program the train, I use the “whistle/horn” and “bell” buttons on the transformer. However, the Lionel ZW transformer I’ve been using to power the set since March 2014 is about 70 years old and doesn’t have these buttons. A ZW transformer has a whistle lever, but this doesn’t work that well for programming purposes. To get around this, Lionel manufactured separate buttons that can be wired between the transformer and the track to provide whistle/horn and bell functionality to any transformer. I had been using these separate buttons, but there are a few drawbacks. One, a ZW controls four trains, meaning I would need 8 buttons (4 trains x 2 buttons each) to get full sound capabilities on each track. Two, these buttons are about $20 each, and I have 3, so it would be kind of expensive to get an entire set for a ZW transformer. Three, I use some rather beefy 10 or 12 gauge wire to power the layout, but these buttons use tiny 18 gauge wire, so when the buttons are used, the power flow is decreased significantly. Four, since bringing the remainder of the collection back from Illinois, I now have my full complement of transformers available to me, some of which have built-in whistle/horn and bell functionality.

So, I decided to make a big change in the layout power supply configuration. I swapped out the 250W Lionel ZW transformer with two 270W MRC transformers. This improves things significantly, and solves the whole whistle/horn and bell button issue. It also means that 2 tracks get to share 270W instead of 4 tracks sharing 250W, so train performance will improve overall. The MRC transformers are controlled by wired remotes. These remotes provide some handy added functionality as well – they have a “brake” button that smoothly slows down the train, and a “stop” button to be used in case of a problem that immediately kills power to both tracks. While I prefer operating a ZW to a wired remote, I am so far pleased with the results.

Anyway, back to the “L” cars… After hooking up the MRC transformers, I began programming the CTA set to stop at specific spots on the track and announce specific stations in an order of my choosing. I followed the manual, and after several attempts I got the train programmed. Even with buttons for the horn and bell functions, it is difficult to get the timing just right. When the train is running, I can send it a command to enter “auto mode”, and it will run and stop indefinitely without any prompting from me. It’s a neat feature for an “L” train!

I set up The Canadian on Track 4, which consists of 3 F3 locomotives and 6 streamlined passenger cars. For more details on this train, please see my December 5, 2013 blog post. This is the first time I’ve run this set in Montana, and it looks really sharp. And now I can operate the horn and bell a lot more effectively with the MRC transformer.

I ran all four trains and found that the extra-long CNW Trainmaster will bump trains on Track 3 when it is rolling on Track 2. So, I’ll just run 3 trains at a time, which is fine and slightly less noisy. Also, I discovered that CP Coach 111 has a low magnet on one of its couplers that occasionally strikes a track joint on the west side of Track 4, which needs some fixing. Later in the week, I opened up CP Coach 111 to check for problems with the truck. While I didn’t see any problems, I was pleasantly surprised by the car’s construction. I’ve never had need to open one of MTH’s passenger cars, but they are well built, especially compared to earlier car designs from other manufacturers. I ran the car with the low magnet at the rear and didn’t have any problems after 10 loops.

In preparation for the Christmas season, I set up the O-scale nativity set that my wife gave me. It looks pretty good with some rocks in the background. It is a neat feature that helps us remember what Christmas is all about!

Also in “above layout” news, I’ve hung up two more artifacts: a PRR can and an MRL crossing post license. I’ve also had some correspondence with the MTH Service Dept regarding the NP 0-6-0 sound problem. I also gave the room a good dusting. Last night I vacuumed the floor and some surfaces.

Now for “under layout” news… I spent a lot of Saturday sorting and organizing all of the non-train tubs. Meaning, the scenery, figures, vehicles, track, transformers, accessories, buildings, electronics, non-O-gauge trains, and a plethora of other items were removed and then replaced into new homes for storage. I found a few things I had been missing, and threw out some un-needed boxes and miscellany. Another big project was the completion of my “every train needs a box” initiative, which started and ended on Saturday. I have four specially designed padded corrugated boxes made for storing/transporting O gauge trains. These boxes now contain all of my trains that don’t have their original box anymore, and each box has a category: Post War Engines, Post War Freight, Modern Engines, and Modern Rolling Stock. After sorting everything, I reorganized the under-table area and the locomotive closet. The under-table area is now in a “U”-shaped storage formation, with the tubs/boxes that I access most often in front and on top. The tubs at the bottom of the locomotive closet contain items that I most likely will not need to access until the layout of the future is being built.

To help keep track of which “train box” contains which train, I’ve added a Location column to my inventory spreadsheet, so I can quickly see where a train is located in the train room. For example, if the field shows “TB1”, then I know that it is located in “Train Box 1”.


And now, back to Colorado...

On the second Saturday of our trip, my wife attended a shopping event in Loveland, CO, and I headed to Greeley. The Colorado Model Railroad Museum is located there in a 15,000 sqft steel building. I had a delightful visit! The museum contains a very large HO layout, a Thomas-themed O gauge layout, a wooden trainset for little kids, a real caboose, a Lionel collection, a large collection of railroadania, and a gift shop. I was there for about 3 hours, but easily could have spent the entire day. There were folks of all ages there to visit, and there were over a dozen staff members or volunteers onsite as well. I took a lot of pictures and video, and got some good ideas for layout details, as well as building construction ideas. I also purchased a Lionel Yule Marble flat car to commemorate the trip, and serve as a birthday present to myself in a few months J

The full-size caboose is a restored Colorado & Southern (CB&Q) rear-cupola wooden model. It sits on rails and ties inside the building. The interior is open for inspection, and is fully outfitted with authentic, period details (including the linens on the bed).

The O gauge layout, although rather small, is very impressive. It is basically a maze of interconnected track loops, and is covered with modern and historic operating accessories. There are 6 trains on the track, which consist of a Thomas-style locomotive and a caboose. There are buttons all around the perimeter of the layout which activate the multitude of accessories, and control the whistle sounds on the locomotives as well. The most impressive part of the layout is the control system, which is housed in a large set of processors on the wall. The system insures that the trains do not run into each other using a rather complicated set of blocking. The trains also run very fast, so they look sort of like a swarm of bees zipping in every direction when in motion.

The Lionel collection consists of about 200 Post War pieces in a glass display case. They also have some Post War transformers, accessories, and advertising on display.

The railroadania collection is spread throughout the entire facility, and consists of nearly 1,000 artifacts ranging from full-size semaphores to vintage time schedules. If time allowed, I would have spent more time studying these items. Highlights include a collection of 40 Pullman seat cloths from various railroads, over 100 time schedules from various railroads in a custom-built wooden rack, which visitors can read, railroad signage and uniforms, one of the most complete railroad lantern collections I’ve ever seen, 100’s of railroad switch keys in a glass case, and a pair of seats from a MRR Olympian Hiawatha passenger car. Wow!

The gift shop had mostly touristy items. However, there were a few custom model railroad cars for sale (including the Yule Marble car I purchased), and several DVD’s produced in house about layout construction and scenery. These looked pretty interesting!

But, the unopposed star of the museum is the massive HO layout, which I will talk about next week in the Thanksgiving post! Until then, have a jolly time, and keep all of your rails shiny ~

The November-December Roster: MKT NW2 Grain Train, CNW Trainmaster Fast Reefer Freight, CTA 6200-series “L” cars, CP F3 ABA The Canadian

The Canadian

CNW reefer freight

The CTA 6200-series set

PRR can

Under-layout view

Train box for PW Freight cars

The model railroad nativity set

Lionel display at the CMRM

Passenger car towel display at the CMRM

Railroad time tables display at the CMRM

Part of the railroad lantern collection at the CMRM

O gauge layout at the CMRM, notice the control system on the wall

C&S caboose inside the CMRM

MPC Diesels and Front Range Curves

Welcome back to rail-land ~

This was a fruitful week in the Train Room. I also did some more planning for future expansion. And, I’ve detailed some more of my train adventures from our trip to Denver last month.

In the Train Room, I used the voltmeter to measure the ohm resistance in the speaker on the NP 0-6-0. The measurement showed approximately 16 ohms, which is exactly what a healthy speaker should show. According to MTH’s ProtoSounds 2.0 troubleshooting guide, either the chip needs to be reprogrammed, or the board needs to be replaced! Bleh! I emailed the MTH Customer Service team to see if they could provide any other insight.

To begin prepping for the Christmas season, I’ve put away the current projects, and will take them out again next year. So, the NP 0-6-0 and Electroliner were reassembled and stored safely in their boxes, and the rest of the roster was stored as well (The Bozeman Zephyr, CSS Interurbans, the NP freight train, and the UP Postwar train). While storing the Postwar searchlight car, the light housing fell and cracked. Thankfully, this was already a replacement housing, and more replacements are readily available. I’ve added this to the Engine House spreadsheet. As I put these trains away, I also inventoried them in the spreadsheet.

On Sunday, I got out all of the trains for the Nov/Dec roster. I also did some general straightening of the room, and changed all of the calendars to November. On Monday, I set up Track 1 with the MKT NW2 leading 4 CNW ore (grain) cars and an MKT caboose. The MKT engine is the first diesel locomotive we had on our train set when I was a kid. My father bought it at the Brass Whistle train store in Rockford, IL. For many years, this was the "ol' reliable" engine for moving freight. I also moved the portable fireplace, and in its place stacked 3 tubs of trains. On Tuesday I did some rearranging under the train table, to place frequently accessed tubs on top of infrequently accessed ones. I also set up Track 2 with the CNW Trainmaster pulling 5 reefers (MRR, GN, CNW, Dairy Men’s, NP) and a CNW caboose. I also lubricated the MKT NW2 and CNW Trainmaster. Both of these diesels were manufactured by “Lionel” during the 1970-1986 “MPC” era. MPC (Model Products Corporation) was a subsidiary of General Mills, and owned the Lionel rights during this time. These engines are 35-40 years old, and after some lubricating, they are running very well! As I set up these trains, I also inventoried them in the spreadsheet.

I also had fun planning out some options for the train building of the future. After dealing with a lot of boxing and unboxing trains recently, I’d like to one day have all of the trains on display or running on the layout. This means that I have to plan for sufficient wall/shelving space in the new building, so I did some preliminary calculating and wall-layout planning.

So, back to my Denver train-doings… On the Thursday of our trip, after dropping my bride off at training for the day, I drove north of Golden on Highway 93, and turned left towards the mountains on Highway 72. After two miles, I turned into a residential area on Blue Mountain Drive. This road took me to the top of a foothill, and I had views facing east towards Denver. I parked along the side of the road, and walked over to the edge of the hill. I was able to tracks below me, which traveled through a variety of curves. I arrived just in time to photograph and film a BNSF EB mixed freight coming down the mountains and entering the curves. Like the BNSF trains that travel through Billings, this one had engines on the front end and a few more at the back. It took it about 10 minutes to navigate the wandering track path, and I was able to view it the whole time. A few moments after the BNSF cleared, a waiting UP WB mixed freight powered up and began climbing the hill. The UP was headed by 5 locomotives, and had 1 helper locomotive located in the middle of the train. I watched the train wrap around itself as it continued up the hill. While watching the trains, a local resident came by as she was walking her dogs. She didn’t seem too surprised to see a railfan here, and she provided some interesting information about the curve the trains were traveling through below. Along the eastern side of the curve, on the west side of the track, a string of hopper cars were buried in the ground and filled with dirt. Trees were planted behind them. The trees and buried cars create a type of snow/wind fence, as this curve is in the direct path of any inclement weather coming off the mountains. The buried cars are somewhat visible from Highway 72. After the UP train went out of sight, I drove down the mountain road and met the train at the crossing. It continued through another curve around Coal Creek Peak while I headed back east. After another hour or two of climbing and curving, the train would arrive at the Moffat Tunnel and traverse the Continental Divide.

Meanwhile, I went back to Golden and drove through the Coors Brewery/Manufacturing plant. I drove through the entire facility and saw many interesting rail operations and equipment used at the beer-producing plant. Coors has their own fleet of locomotives, and a lot of freight cars get shuffled about all day long. There are also semi-frequent BNSF trains making deliveries to the plant. After returning to Lakewood, I visited Jenny’s Junk Emporium, which is a consignment shop that specializes in railroad and model railroad items. They had a lot of railroad artifacts and media, and trains of all scales, including quite a few G-Scale items. The prices were rather restrictive, so I just enjoyed looking. So, this was another fun morning of train-related activities! Next week I’ll conclude with a review of my visit to the Colorado Model Railroad Museum.

My Train goals for the coming week are: setup/inventory/lubricate trains on Tracks 3 & 4, finish reorganizing the tubs under the table, repack the “Train Boxes”, and make sure ALL of the tubs are labeled.

Until then, enjoy some more photos, and keep those rails shiny ~

BNSF train headed down the hill through the S curve

UP train headed up the hill towards the curves

UP train approaching the buried hopper cars

The mid-train helper engine

The UP WB train continues past Coal Creek Peak

Coors locomotive C997 awaiting orders

Another Coors engine parked in a siding

An intricate layout of tracks supporting the Coors plant

Testing the NP 0-6-0 speaker with a voltmeter

The MKT NW2 and the CNW Trainmaster pull their consists around Tracks 1 and 2

The first diesel train I ever operated (back in the 1980's)

June Roster Details

Greetings ~

Last Thursday I ran the bare Rock Island 5100 forward and reverse without problems. I reattached the shell and hooked it up to its tender and a 4-car train. It ran fine in reverse, but spun on the curves  when going forward. I removed the shell and tightened the motor mount screws one half-turn. I ran it without the shell in both directions with a load. So, I reattached the shell and tested it again with
success! The track power has to be pretty high for it to run, but it makes it around Track 3 now.

I used a water/dish soap mix to clean off the tops of the four original Rocky Mountain Rocket cars successfully. They had gotten dirtied when resting on a display shelf back in Illinois.

On Father's Day the Gamsbys and Seemans came to visit the new train roster. During the run, I found that one of the couplers on the caboose train will open occasionally, and the Rocky Mountain Rocket is having some trouble sounding the horn.

For the remainder of the week I continued to seek assistance with selling Cal's Post War collection, and did some planning of future train-related plans for our backyard.

So, for blog content this week, I will elaborate on the June roster lineup.

The doodlebugs on Track 1 will receive some more attention in coming weeks with the next Future Passenger Train entry. For now I'll say that they are reliable runners, but look odd on the curve-intensive Track 1. I wouldn't suggest walking between the cars during most of their curvy course!

The caboose train is simple fun. At the head is a Williams Illinois Central GP9 diesel locomotive, painted in the "black with white details" freight scheme. The thing I like the most about this paint scheme is that it includes the signature green diamond logo. The engine is a very good runner, and requires little track power to move smoothly. The first caboose is a scale Lionel Northern Pacific woodsided model, followed by a Lionel Chicago & Northwestern red bay window caboose, followed by a scale Lionel Montana Rail Link caboose, followed by another MTH C&NW red bay window caboose, followed by a scale Lionel Missouri, Kansas and Texas green caboose, trailed by a Lionel C&NW green and yellow bay window caboose. The Lionel C&NW red bay window seems to have a troublesome coupler that opens on its own. This train makes a unique sound when running, since all of the cabeese are roughly the same length as the track pieces, so they all seem to pass over a track joint at the same time. This results in a very pronounced repeating "CLACK" as the train runs on Track 2.

June's entry on Track 3 has received a lot of publicity already: the Fast Reefer Freight led by the Lionel Rock Island 4-8-4 steam locomotive. Behind the reliably smoking engine are a line of all-Lionel scale freight cars. The first is a red Swift reefer, carrying bacon. The second is a gray Canadian National reefer, transporting a mixture of cold foods. The third reefer is an orange Pacific Fruit Express car, carrying apples. The caboose is a handsome wood-sided Rock Island model.

And June's flagship on Track 4 is the Rocky Mountain Rocket, which was detailed in last week's entry. The car tops have been cleaned, and I will address the E8's horn issues this week. The mars light on the lead locomotive is a nice touch! The locomotives are from Williams, and the aluminum cars are from K-Line. The cars were originally part of a K-Line Club membership set, and I picked up a second diner later. The "newer" diner is populated with passengers, but the rest of the cars are people-less.

Till next time, keep those rails shiny ~

The shell-less 5100 pulling a freight

The June roster

Rock Island car before cleaning

Rock Island car after cleaning

A track signal near my office, with Sacrifice Cliff in the background