The Little Rock Line

[mu26aeh]

That building looks great. Looks like you cleaned out the Rix shelf and... what else?

http://thelittlerockline.blogspot.com/2013/10/sounds-of-construction-in-malvern-part-1.html

[Bendtracker1]

That building looks great. Looks like you cleaned out the Rix shelf and... what else?

Thanks Ed.
The only Rix product is the small building where the cars are loaded.  Everything else was scratched from a plywood core like Adam pointed out.  I followed LIRR's advice and ideas when I built it.





The rest of the details are again from LIRR's imagination, LEGO's

[Bendtracker1]

Allen,
Are those Deluxe's in front of the Blufords?

Yup.
I have a decent fleet of them, but just recently scored a batch of the Blufords from a seller on Feebay at a great price.
Once I got the first few, I found really liked the look of them, might have to grab a few more and possibly replace the Deluxe cars?

[Bendtracker1]

Allen, that S2 shouldn't have any trouble with five cars, mine handles twenty forty footers on a flat surface and does so smoothly. It does require clean track, but so do virtually all our locos. I swear by 91% isopropyl alcohol on a piece of old white cotton T shirt wrapped around a small wooden block.... Keep cleaning until the white cotton stays white and see if it makes a difference.
Otto K.

That's what I was thinking as well.
I seen that video that was posted of an undec on a desktop where it was pulling 20 or 30 cars on a level track.
Also have a buddy who Op'ed a friends layout where he had two of them pushing over 40 cars through a S curve.
I think it just needs a bit more attention?

I know when I first got it, it ran pretty good out of the box, then I popped the chip in there and it ran like crap!  I think one or both of the wires to the front truck had become pinched which restricted movement of the front truck.  It would run very erratically in one direction and the front truck was stiff, but I think I got that resolved.  I think I just need to run it a bit more and check the gauge.

As for track cleaning, I'm not sure about the 91% alcohol for the same fears Dave mentioned?  I use 70% all the time.
Part of the problem with the Crushmoore siding is I had a phenomenal amount of paint, glue. ballast, static grass and more glue on the rails.  it was also the first time I attempted to cleaned the tracks in Malvern since last May when I applied the grass.
I had to scrape the the railheads at first then a brightboy for a few swipes and then went after them with an eraser and 70% ISP.  They were pretty filthy and I'm sure I still have some cleaning to do.


Thanks for the info and suggestions Otto.

[Bendtracker1]

Ed, I believe that is one of Allen's wood core buildings, with styrene glued over wood shapes.

+1

[Bendtracker1]

Allen, that S2 shouldn't have any trouble with five cars, mine handles twenty forty footers on a flat surface and does so smoothly.

Hey Otto,
I had the S-2 out on the main this evening so it could stretch it's legs a bit and break in some more.
After letting it run for about 20 minutes in both directions I added 5 cars it and it didn't make it more than a foot or so before it started to slip.  It did a bit better pushing them than pulling them but not by much.

I flipped it over and the black is all but gone, I checked the gauge and it shows in line with the NMRA gauge.
The trucks are both swinging good.  The track is clean and so are the wheels.
If I give it a slight touch of the finger it grabs and pulls good.

Any ideas? 

I've got a second S-2 I want to run to compare it with, but it won't run because it trips the circuit breakers. I haven't got the chip installed yet so until I do, it's a shelf Queen. 
 

[Chris333]

My Atlas S2 had a mark on a gear inside one of the trucks. I didn't  notice till I took the trucks off. One rolled "forever" the other only a few inches. I scraped off the spot on the gear tooth and they both roll. Just something to look for.

[Bendtracker1]

An update with the issue.

After getting some insight and help from Chris333 [Thanks Chris] I was able to tear down the S-2 and fix the problem.
The issue was that one of the axles was seized up and was not spinning at all.
I got the truck tore down completely and didn't see anything out of the ordinary that might have caused the axle to seize, so I reassembled it and now it runs much better.   The only thing I can think of was the axle may have not gotten inserted properly into the axle cups causing it to become wedged.

It now runs smoother, quieter and will pull 12 cars, maybe it'll do better once it gets broken in?

I also got the chip installed in the sister S-2 and put them both to the test.  Here's a video of them pulling 22 cars.

 

[Bendtracker1]

After getting the bulkheads glued on and giving the decks a paint job, I made some steel plate loads for them over the weekend.











I started with .030" Styrene sheets and cut them to scale 8' x 20', 30', 40' and 45' long.
I posted the "how to" the blog.

[Chris333]

I'll have to follow your lead to make a few gondola loads.

[bdennis]

Nice work.. I will have to remember this idea / process..

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I'll have to follow your lead to make a few gondola loads.

Yep. Me too. After all, a still productive Sparrows Point is at one end of my railroad.

[BobRunty]

The loads look great, Allen. When the Rock Island delivered steel plate to the Cat plant I worked at in the 70's, it was almost invariably in gondolas. I need to make some of these loads up for my J gons.
On another note, back when we had those horrible winters in the late 70's, they use to send some of us out with torches to thaw out the steel enough so the crane could unload. The gons and plates were packed with snow, frozen solid.

Bob

[Bendtracker1]

Thanks guys.
When I was researching for some images I ran across a video that DJ's Trains did when he was making loads for his gondolas, so I modified mine just a bit.

@BobRunty, Was planning to use some gons as well but have them hauling the coils, suppose a little variety wouldn't hurt?
I would think getting plate steel and beam loads out of a gon would be a bit more of a challenge, but depends on the equipment the industry has? 

[BobRunty]

It was all done with overhead cranes so car type didn't really matter. I also remember them loading scraper bowls onto RI flatcars, all done inside the plant. I'm planning on modeling a couple of these with GHQ scrapers and I sure wish I would have paid attention to how they were tied down, etc.

Bob