Illinois Trains 2015 Part Two

On Thursday, July 2nd, 2015, a crew of six began dismantling the Springdale, Cedar Ridge & Geronimo City O-scale model railroad. The layout had its beginnings in the late 1980's, but major work occurred from 1995-2007. It began with O27 track and radiuses, and as the layout was expanded, larger radius and heavier-classed track was added. It was fully scenic'd, and had several distinct areas connected by railroads. There was an industrial area with engine house, a small classification yard, a two-level city area (Springdale) and a church on a hill. Springdale was served by a trolley which traversed a handmade trestle over the valley. Beyond the city was a large farm area, which flowed into a forested area and the small town of Cedar Ridge. A lake and large mountain added to the allure of this area, and was supported by a campground for visitors. Cedar Ridge also hosted lumber and mining operations. The next area was Geronimo City, with a large passenger station and city park among the town. Outside of town was a desert with large, natural sandstone monuments for the trains to navigate through and around. This was all powered by various transformers and a network of wires. Scenic murals were placed along the basement walls to give the train set a sense of depth. The layout, which took many years to build and develop was designed, constructed, financed, populated, scenic'd, and maintained by myself and my father, mother, and occasionally, sister. It was a lot of fun to build and operate, and was viewed by many visitors over the years. A big thank you to my folks for allowing me to use about half of their basement for the train set for a few decades!

SDCR&GC Railroad (well, half of it at least)

On the first deconstruction day, the crew consisted of my bride, parents, my uncle and aunt, and myself. Day 1 involved removing everything from the layout that I plan to re-use on future layouts. The following Sunday, we dismantled the tables and murals and transported them outside, where I gave them to another family that is starting their own train layouts. It was sad to see it go, but that is an inherent part of this hobby. The remainder of the train set was packed into our Yukon by my masterful wife, and it is now safely stored in Billings. It is great to know that others will continue using the layout structure, and I'll be able to re-use a boatload of stuff from the original layout!

Bride, mother, and father packing/removing

Uncle and Aunt working on tracks and details

In 2007, I filmed a 30-minute video of the SDCR&GC railroad in action, so we'll always have a memory of the sights and sounds of the layout.

Thank you to the construction and de-construction teams, and as always, thank you to my very understanding wife!

Keep those rails shiny ~

Geronimo City, cut into thirds

Much of the layout is now outside, awaiting its new owners

This sign is no longer accurate! But, as you saw in a previous post, it has a new home

The layout is off to its new home in Rockford

My parents, bride, and I stand where the mighty layout used to be. I'm holding my first train, gifted to me by my Uncle

Illinois Trains 2015 Part One

At the end of June, we traveled to Illinois to visit family and disassemble my original train layout in my folks' basement. There were also lots of other train-related adventures along the way. Our first encounter was south of Owatonna, MN, where a huge crew is rebuilding the Canadian Pacific tracks. The operation was several miles long, and used a conglomeration of complex and wacky looking machinery to perform most of the tasks.

The next day, we traveled to Kenosha, WI with relatives and rode on their electric streetcar loop. The PCC trolley we rode on, #4610, was decorated in Toronto colors, and was operated with foot pedals. Growing up I rode on the Illinois Railway Museum's CTA PCC car (the "Green Hornet"), which is operated with hand controls. Apparently, the CTA was the only system that used hand controls on these cars, but I didn't know there was another option until I visited Kenosha. Kenosha has several PCC cars in their fleet, each decorated for a different city's electric railroad.

http://www.visitkenosha.com/attractions/top-attractions/electric-streetcar-circulator

Train adventures continued the following day, as we visited Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL. They have a narrow gauge railroad that circles much of the park, headed by a blue "steam" locomotive. The open cars provide for easy loading and unloading, and thankfully the weather was beautiful, although rather humid. Locomotive 22 has a #4 builder's plate. At each station, the engineer and fireman would trade off with personnel from the next station. We also rode on several roller coasters which have "trains" and run on track as well.

More on this trip later! Keep your rails shiny ~

Toronto PCC Car 4610 in Kenosha, near Lake Michigan

Interior of the 4610

Great America locomotive #22 taking riders on a scenic tour of the amusement park

Narrow gauge "steam" engine puts on a nice show

Signage and Lighting and Puzzles

This week I placed some signs in the Train Room, and set up the Switch Lantern. The bi-fold doors on the Train Room closet were looking rather bare, and I now have a variety of train-related signs displayed on them. My Switch Lantern had already been altered to run on household electricity, so it is now plugged in and hanging out on top of the DVD player. Amber and I also tackled a neato railroad puzzle in one evening. We purchased it at Wall Drug on our way back from Illinois.

In the coming weeks I'll be prepping some items to sell at our garage sale. These will mostly consist of O-27 rolling stock and track. The goal is to get all of the boxes/tubs stowed under the layout and get some trains rolling again!

Til next time - keep your rails shiny ~

East closet doors decorated

West doors decorated too

New sign welcoming visitors to the Train Room

The switch lantern on display

The completed puzzle - lots of fun to work on with my bride!

Boxes...Again!

The remainder of my train collection has been brought from Illinois to Montana, and is now sitting on and around the layout. Now to find a new home for everything!

It was a big job to disassemble a fully scenic'd train set, and I will show the process in a few blog installments. I was also able to ride on several real trains while in Illinois, so we'll check those out too!

Keep your rails shiny!

Regular Posts Returning Soon!

After taking a year off from regular blog posts, Mark's MT Railroads will soon be active again! Check back in the next few weeks for new content, and keep your rails shiny in the meantime ~

It has a bell?

Happy 6-2-6 to you,

This week involved some troubleshooting based on last week's operations, and a few new entries to the roster.

On Saturday I hooked up two Lionel 5906 sound activation buttons to the Track 4 wires. These allowed the horn and bell (I didn't know it had a bell) to operate on the Rock Island E-8 units without problems. However, the wires coming in and out of these buttons are 16 gauge, and the rest of the wiring is 10 gauge. What I would like to do is get 6 more of these buttons, and modify all 8 of them to use 10 gauge wire. Annoyingly, these buttons go for about $20 each, which seems kind of silly. I will look for them on auctions and pick up more over time.

On Monday I lubricated the Rock Island E-8 powered unit, the Illinois Central GP9, and the CNW Doodlebug power unit. To address the coupler issue on the caboose train from last week, I added a layer of scotch tape to the link between the red Lionel CNW bay-window caboose and the Lionel MRL caboose. I had used similar techniques on the Illinois layout, and the tape remained in place and continued working for nearly 10 years. A long-range solution for the red caboose would be to upgrade the trucks/couplers to nicer, all-metal units, rather than using the stock mostly-plastic trucks.

On Wednesday I acquired two new pieces at auction. The first is a battery-powered Lionel locomotive that looks like the classic #2343 ATSF F3. I changed the batteries, but got no results yet. I searched, but couldn't find any info on what set this engine was a part of. It may actually require a remote to run, and possibly may not run on track at all. The other is a #2034 Lionel steam locomotive. I lubricated the gears and was able to get it to run intermitantly. It shoots off quite a few sparks, and the E-unit has some trouble. Sometimes it causes a short in the line by simply sitting on the track. This may give me some good experience doing a more in-depth diss-assembly, cleaning, and reassembly job to get it up to full working order. So, these two locos will be a work in progress over time, but they look acceptable and will be good display pieces while they wait their turn in the engine house.

I don't normally mention it, but I do run the trains every week, even if there are no "guests". The RI Northern ran well last night again at high-voltage, and the other locos all completed their circuits too.

On my lunchtime walks this week, I snapped photos of some visiting Canadians, and some real-life caboose work.

Have a swell week, and keep your rails shiny~

Tape does the job

Artsy through-the-pantograph photo of the 2034

First warbonnet in the collection

Two Canadian grain hoppers

Crossing the road

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