Weekend Update 9/1/24

[aikorob]

Just waiting for a train to come by

love the driftwood on the banks

[altohorn25]

My second try at a B&O Pullman Standard Dome Coach.

This one I scraped the fluting of with a blade and sanded it smooth.

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The B&O blue went on nice a smooth.

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I've got one side lettered; waiting for it to dry before doing the other side.

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It looks much more prototypical without the fluting below the windows.

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[shark_jj]

Had a quiet week other than tackling a staging yard problem that had been irritating me for some time.  (some time being several years).  That problem was derailments going through the Peco Code 80 switches in the my staging yard throats.  They clearly didn't get along with LoPro wheels.  I had decided to convert all of my cars to Micro Trains trucks with MidPro's and that solved a lot of the difficulties but not all of them.  I had pretty well decided to tear out all of the Insulfrog Switches and replace them with Electrofrogs and see if that made any difference.  I was even considering replacing them entirely with the Atlas Code 55 I use on the layout itself since I wasn't having any tracking problems with them.  To make a long story short I was surfing the net the other night and found a video in which the the layout owner shimmed his Code 80 switches.  Before you tell me that this has been talked about here many times, I know, and I agree.  However for some reason I had come to the belief that the shims had to be put in the frog channels and that seemed awkward to me.  Lo and behold as I watched the video, he was putting the shims on the outside guardrails.  I felt like such a dummy.  (not for the first time in my life).  This was simple, (like me).  I did a test turnout.  See pic 1 below.  I use .010 by .040 styrene strips.  I wondered if regular styrene cement would work and lo and behold it did so those guardrails musn't be delrin.  With a couple of toothpicks to hold the strip in place while I applied the glue I was off and running.  Next problem was how to get to those darn turnouts in the back in a 15 inch gap.  Well, that is why God put Grandsons on the earth.  Nathan was a beast, we had all 24 turnouts done in about 90 minutes or so.   I had recently run a coal train into the yard which had all LoPro's on it still so I quickly backed it out then ran it back in again, first fast, then slow, in and out for 3 or 4 attempts.  Not a single derailment.  I was now ready for the ultimate test.  My Rapido Turbo runs great on the layout but it will NOT transit through those turnouts into staging.  Ran it in slow, no problems, backed it out, ran it in fast, no problems.  Can't believe that a little misunderstanding on my part led me to put up with those derailments for so many years. 

[peteski]

I'm glad that you finally discovered where the Peco switches shims go.  Yes, Peco has overly wide flangeways at the guardrails, and shims (as you now discovered make a big difference.  Shims can also be added on the bottom of the frog's flangeways, but that is mainly for visual effect.  For example if some more recent Kato steam locos (like FEF3 or GS-4) traverse the frog, the narrower-tread and low-flange drivers actually fall into the frog, making the loco sway back and forth.  It looks terrible.  Adding those frog shims should lessen the effect.

[shark_jj]

Thanks Peteski, in hindsight it seems so obvious, but it didn't at the time. 

[Bendtracker1]

@shark_jj, yeah the shims work!
Several years ago I was having issues, not so much with derailments, as I had a large number of Pizza Cutters still installed on my fleet at the time ( I'm sure I still have a quite a few that I haven't replaced with MidPro's).  While most stuff did not derail except for a few times, the issue I was having was electrical.

I switched out my Digitrax PM'42's with PSX's.  Since they are much faster I immediately starting noticing shorts when my SD's and E's were traversing the C80's.  It seemed the slop was allowing the wheels to slide over a bit too far and the wheels would touch both rails of the frog where the rails come together.

Did some research and asking on the forums and someone on here mentioned adding the shims.  I took their advice and viola, problem solved.
I went through all my turnouts on the main (the yard I used Peco C55) and added the shims, no more shorts.

I think it was Mr. Foxx who told me (thankfully before I finished them all) that I should use a black 0.010" styrene instead of white so that when I cleaned the rails, the black Sharpie marker didn't wear off and I wound up with a white guardrail again.   

[robert3985]

Just waiting for a train to come by

Talk about "Scenery-to-Track-Ratio!"  Looks GREAT!

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[shark_jj]

Thanks Allen, I'll have to keep an eye out for that black styrene, haven't seen it at my local hobby shop.  By the way, those roads on your blog are looking outstanding.

[altohorn25]

I finished up the dome.....the carbody has a small bend in it which is why the roof is not sitting flush to it......I'll hit it with a little glue and it will be fine......

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[Bendtracker1]

Thanks Allen, I'll have to keep an eye out for that black styrene, haven't seen it at my local hobby shop.  By the way, those roads on your blog are looking outstanding.

Thanks John!
I need to get them posted here on my thread yet, thanks for the reminder.

[peteski]

Thanks Allen, I'll have to keep an eye out for that black styrene, haven't seen it at my local hobby shop.  By the way, those roads on your blog are looking outstanding.

Black styrene sheets are available from Evergreen (same source that supplies the typical white styrene scratchbuilding materials).  If your local hobby shop doesn't stock it, but they stock Evergreen, then should be able to order it for you.

[shark_jj]

Thanks for the info Peteski, appreciate it.

[wm3798]

Well, my model rr budget took a hit this week, as it will be temporarily re-directed thanks to this recent acquisition:

I'm riding with you anywhere you go N Scale Weekend!
Lee

[sirenwerks]

No modeling this week. I am working in Northern Idaho dispatching forest fire crews out of Coeur d'Alene. For a chance to take a trip up US95 and US2 that parallel BNSF and UP track. Lots of in industries along the way.

Asked the permanent dispatchers what I should check out and they said Roman Nose is really pretty.

I remember one of last week's DOI daily incident reports mentioned freak snowstorms in Montana closing roads, so be careful and make sure you're properly outfitted in case you get stuck. But I have managed to get my 2WD Golf Sportwagen into some pretty stupid places and, luckily, never got stuck. I don't do that anymore though. [size=78%]The Kims ordeal in Siskiyou NF in .'07 [/size]always come to mind.

[NorthWestGN]

Spent a couple of hour organizing tools, detail parts and decals I put away a few years ago and tidied up the workbench.
Now that I have a better idea what I actually have l can plan some projects for the fall and winter…

Brent