Weekend Update 2/16/20

[up1950s]

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Altamont_Pass

https://www.american-rails.com/cz.html

[C855B]

Oh, gosh... Altamont. Old stomping grounds. The tracks to the right are the SP's line between Tracy and Niles, abandoned in the late '80s. My most recent trip through Altamont was on Amtrak, believe it or not, the Coast Starlight detouring between Oakland and Los Angeles via Bakersfield while the Coast Line was shut for trackwork. No passenger service on this line now as the modern CZ runs on UP through Martinez - there were railfans everywhere when we went through.

Something I've been working on this week was polishing the DS panel for the east side of the layout:



Rail is laid and electronics except for signaling are done (thank goodness!), so this is the first fully-operational section of the railroad. Turnout control is all touch-screen on the main system. One of these days I'll learn to not run through the switches lined against me at the Cozad grain elevator. 

[hegstad1]

I finished up the bottling house.

[Cajonpassfan]

Very nice!
Otto

[Dave V]

[u18b]

Made a huge breakthrough on my OMI brass Western Maryland Shay.


Turns out the worm bearing AND shaft were damaged and trash.   Thankfully I had back-up parts and replaced them.



I also had a coreless motor come in the mail.  Bought this off ebay.  It's a 7x16 mm.  I was a little nervous it might not have enough torque for this application.


Because the motor is round and has no mounting holes, I had to create a way to hold it on.  a K&S brass tube was just a little too big.  But I had to cut slots for the mounting tube.  These just pinched the motor and worked great. 


Motor is now modular and can be removed.  I use TCS micro-plugs.  Up top is the decoder socket.


As an interface, I used some old old (almost 40 years old!) u-joints from an Atlas RS-3.  Much better than that tubing.


And cut better access slots for the gears and screws.




Bottom line-  It runs!     And runs great.

Oh... and the small motor?
Running it continuously for an hour wide open, it did not even get warm.
Of course, the brass enclosure I made for the motor acts as a heat sink as well.
(that also shows how much friction and binding I've been able to get rid of).

A lot of work to get this far on something that I feared was junk.

Now I'm ready to explore a sound decoder.

[Jim Starbuck]

Excellent work Ron!
Great choice of motor as well.
I’ve used several of them in various locomotives and all perform beautifully. You won’t run out of power with it.

Jim

[wazzou]

Oh, gosh... Altamont. Old stomping grounds. The tracks to the right are the SP's line between Tracy and Niles, abandoned in the late '80s. My most recent trip through Altamont was on Amtrak, believe it or not, the Coast Starlight detouring between Oakland and Los Angeles via Bakersfield while the Coast Line was shut for trackwork. No passenger service on this line now as the modern CZ runs on UP through Martinez - there were railfans everywhere when we went through.

Something I've been working on this week was polishing the DS panel for the east side of the layout:



Rail is laid and electronics except for signaling are done (thank goodness!), so this is the first fully-operational section of the railroad. Turnout control is all touch-screen on the main system. One of these days I'll learn to not run through the switches lined against me at the Cozad grain elevator. 

I traveled that highway many, many times between Sacramento where I grew up to the
Bay Area or vice/versa.
Many times it was just to Altamont Speedway, a tremendous 1/2 mike asphalt oval with great Stockcar or USAC Sprintcar races.
It was one of my favorite trips for catching trains on the WP or SP or both.

[johnb]

Made a huge breakthrough on my OMI brass Western Maryland Shay.


Turns out the worm bearing AND shaft were damaged and trash.   Thankfully I had back-up parts and replaced them.



I also had a coreless motor come in the mail.  Bought this off ebay.  It's a 7x16 mm.  I was a little nervous it might not have enough torque for this application.


Because the motor is round and has no mounting holes, I had to create a way to hold it on.  a K&S brass tube was just a little too big.  But I had to cut slots for the mounting tube.  These just pinched the motor and worked great. 


Motor is now modular and can be removed.  I use TCS micro-plugs.  Up top is the decoder socket.


As an interface, I used some old old (almost 40 years old!) u-joints from an Atlas RS-3.  Much better than that tubing.


And cut better access slots for the gears and screws.




Bottom line-  It runs!     And runs great.

Oh... and the small motor?
Running it continuously for an hour wide open, it did not even get warm.
Of course, the brass enclosure I made for the motor acts as a heat sink as well.
(that also shows how much friction and binding I've been able to get rid of).

A lot of work to get this far on something that I feared was junk.

Now I'm ready to explore a sound decoder.

I remember drooling over a picture of this in N Scale Magazine in 1989.

[Erik W]

I'm making progress on my Precision Scale Co HOn3 D&RGW short caboose kit.  One advantage to having nearly 80 books and a bunch of plans on the Rio Grande, is plentiful information on the undersides of these cars.  I gave it my best shot, keeping in mind that some of the brake gear would connect to the trucks on the prototype, so I had to have those dead end on the frame.  In addition to some styrene and some photo etched brass chain I had on hand, I used .006", .010", .012", .015", and .019" brass rod for the details.









Erik

[SD452XR]

I finished up the bottling house.

Can you tell us about your backdrop? Also did you model Big Timber MT on your layout? It’s where I grew up.

[dougnelson]

Readied my 2 new BM70m for the railroad. Provided a matte finish to get rid of the freshly Simonized look as the cars come from Kato. Also painted some of the detail parts and highlights, and changed the road number on one of the new cars. Not a new model, but these cars are really well done and nicely engineered.

As it comes from Kato. A bit shiny for my taste.


The two new cars with light weathering and one car renumbered:



A car from the first run with more weathering:

[MichaelWinicki]

[robwill84]

Finished up some GHQ cars today. Nothing special but it was fun painting them. I found a technique to do chrome trim rings as you can see on the "woody". I found a piece of brass tubing that was the right diameter, brushed some chrome silver enamel paint on a scrap of styrene, dipped the tubing in it and basically made a stamp. To my surprise it worked quite well.

[freedj]

I resolved the switch machine gremlins i've been having with my Octo III servo board.  If only i had not skipped the part of the manual that talked about range jumpers!

I also finished weathering these two roundhouse reefers.  These were mostly done with oil paints.  I also body mounted some MTL medium shank couplers on them.

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