Great Northern railway

New delivery.

RF&P 4-8-4 by Fujiyama.

Another, at most, test run engine.  Again, didn't even have a coupler attached to the tender.

Made in 1976 and very well made.  Has lots of detail (see below pictures).

It is noisy so I'll be putting in a Tenshodo 48:1 quiet gear box along with the usual LED's in headlight (engine/tender), marker lights, cab, lights under the running board and a red fire box.

A few parts were broken off.  Injector assembly and one generator and screw for draw bar was inside the boiler.

Injector soldered back under cab.  No extra solder needed, just flux and resistance soldering.

Bracket for generator also loose.

Nice cab detail.  I believe two runs of this engine was done. 

This 1976 (latest) run has the extra air tanks below the cab.

Nice shiny drivers.

Frame is already painted so it will be left 'as is' to show it's 'heritage'.

The 1976 run was numbered on the retaining plate.

Lots of piping.

Even the oil lines are on the trailing and leading trucks: pretty 'heady' for 1976.

Lots of air hoses.

Also, has hex head side rod screws.

Unusual looking tank.  Don't think I've ever seen one like this on another railroad.

Oil lines on leading trucks.

Lanyard to the whistle and lagging stays.

The reason I bought it: multi-colored paint scheme

Sam you have more engines than almost anyone I know, except maybe BrianSilvermustang! I hope you have the room!

That is becoming a problem:

I've got two large turntables that holds about 30 engines, each.  I've got some rail out so I can 'spike'  about 5-8 more stalls for one round house.  The other is full.

I've been putting the non-GN engines on some in-bound/out-bound tracks.  I've got 3 in each yard and they usually are not all needed so one in each yard has been a 'ready' track for engines.  The yards are 20' and 25' long so they can hold quite a few engines. 

Fortunately, there's only a couple more engines that I want: a C&O 2-6-6-2 and a SP 2-8-8-2 cab forward with the whale back tender.  I need to quite buying anymore engines.  The problem is last century's brass is so cheap, it's hard to resist.

SF 4-8-4 #3765.

Finished re-assembling this Key engine.  The usual lights installed.  Had to put two blinking fire box LED's on each side of the frame as the frame sits low to the trailing truck.

This one took awhile with the LED's. The green and white LED resistors are a different rating and I hooked both colors to the one resistor and destroyed them so they had to be replaced.  Plus, one of the LED's under the running board must have had one of the wires touching the boiler and it was shorting out the other LED's.  Sometimes, things don't always goes 'smoothly'!

I bought this engine for one reason: the super tall smoke box extension!

Unusual tender design.  Normally, the entire bottom of the tender frame is one piece.  Also, this tender has an entire interior brass frame that the outer structure was built on, making it a very heavy tender.

Once again, Looks GREAT Sam!

Thanks, Mike,

==========

Re-assembly of SF 2-10-10-2.

Final SF engine is done.

No marker lights so LED's in headlight (engine and tender), cab and 4 under the running boards (2 over each engine) and fire box.

Two connectors used from motor to boiler and to tender.

Ran the wires into some 1/16" diameter shrink tubing: didn't shrink it but to keep the wires from getting snagged by the universal drive shafts.

This is to protect the wires at the front of the engine.

Heat shrink for the cab wires.

As previously mentioned, back head added and can motor installed.

The engine was shorting out.  Took about 30 minutes to figure it out.

Found the front truck wheels were shorting on the cylinders heads (not sure how that was happening since they are painted and no paint chipped!).

Initially, thought the trailing truck must go up there but it was too short.

Finally, noticed that the large wheel set (spoked)  goes on the rear truck and the small wheel set is for the front truck.

All SF engines done.

Left to right:

2-10-10-2

2-10-4

4-8-4

4-8-4 (extended smoke box and shorter tender than the other 4-8-4 and 2-10-4).

The engines are dull coated but the light or camera makes them appear shiny.

NMRA Div 7 (Cincinnati) layout's open after the meeting.

HO layout Pennsy.

My camera developed a 'blur' in one spot and then 'went away': go figure!

very nice steel mill facilities.

Their grandfather's Lionel 1911 steam engine.

N gauge layout.  Four levels.  I believe Paul said the mainline is 600' long.

Good deal!

38 trees for 27 bucks.

Stopped by Menards.  They had all you can put in their 'green' bag, 15% off plus Christmas items were all 50% off 

After buying some trees as the bag was full with other stuff, I figured I might as well, at that price, buy all of them, so I went back in with the green bag and got the rest of them.

Surprised they had any Christmas stuff left over this late in the month.

All the 'stuff' on the left was in one package.

My new 'fast clock'!

Been on the Lionel 'post war' table and not working: Works much better, now, with new batteries!

Sam, great buy! I also have one of those clocks hanging in my garage!

Mike,

I think one of the kids gave it to me.

===========

'Planted' the trees.

Thought all those trees would be enough: amazing how many trees a layout can 'soak up'.  At least it looks better than before, barren.

For some reason, my conifers look OK to me, even though they are all cut like Christmas trees.  Looking at some pictures of snow covered pines, they do seem to be pretty uniform in shape.  That's my 'rational'  and I'm 'sticking to that'!

Sam, they look Great! But I think your right, you might have to go back to Menards!

New arrival.

1994 brown book for brass locomotives.

Also, some more red and green 0402 LED's.

My previous brown book edition was 1980 so a lot of engines that I have recently purchases in that 1980-94 range, were without original price listing in my inventory.  I was able to fill in 24 gaps.  I have a few auxiliary tenders but the book doesn't cover those.

Picked it up from Amazon.

A very nice book.  Gives a history of brass and lists brass by steam (rod), logging (rod, gear and narrow gauge), diesels, gas electrics and electrics.  Plus there are a lot of foot notes that can be looked up in the back of the book for more explanation of that engine (There are 1954 footnotes). 

The 1994 range works fine for me as, after that, most engines become extremely expensive (I guess that's a relative term), so I don't need info to later engine prices.

I believe this is the last brown book published.  I have the brasstrains book but it only covers the history and not prices, quantity, etc.

The last page is 280 (counting index, etc) pages: that's a lot of brass over the decades.

The book also gives 'current' prices but, since that was 1994 or 24 years ago, it's meaningless. 

I go to ebay and check out what they sold for as 'sold' to get an idea of current prices or use brasstrains price guide.

For me, I could care less about prices: I keep an inventory so my daughter has a fair idea of value when I 'croak'.

Each year, she gets a listing of all my assets. 

As I have mentioned, previously, brass is not an investment.  Buy because you like the engine.

Also, as mentioned, previously, most the the brass bought in the last few years is around the suggested price when the engine was produced (even a bank savings account is better than that!).

Paul,

It's been since Jan 1 that I used the various spray cans of contact cement and the building cutouts are holding well to the foam board with no warping, although I still have to arrange and double tape stick them to the back drop!

I believe the important thing is good coverage along all the edges.

SAMPARFITT, your buildings look good. I am still going to stick ( pun ) with the 3M.  The flats that separated  with the Loc Tite didn't show up till down the road. I sprayed to same way with both glues. My first buildings with the 3M are still glued with no peeling. I like the way your buildings are set against the curve tracks. Nice job.............Paul

Paul,

Like I always say: there is no 'right' way: always best to do what each of us is comfortable with.

=====

Nice picture.  Thanks for posting.

=========

Never too many trees!

After 'cleaning out' the Menards store by me, I thought I'd check to see if any other Menards are in the 'area': found two others.

Between the two stores, I got 12 more 'bags' of conifers.  At $4.24 per bag and 16 in each bag, not a bad price per tree!

The trees vary in height from about 2" to about 8".

That should do some 'damage' to those 'barren' areas.

Like the old lawyer's joke: what do you have with a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean.......a good start!

Needed  that: no, not that!

Lots of trees planted.

Area was pretty barren of trees:

Before:

After:

About 250 trees.

Amazing how many trees a small area can 'consume'!

Great job Art! Looks like a winter wonderland!

Thanks, Mike.

As I said before, to me they look good even though they are all 'Christmas' tree shape.

Sam

Back working on the ore dock: only been about 2 decades!

The side walls need to be added.

Original drawings from my GNRHS quarterly.

The chopper makes quick work of making duplicates.

Chute  doors made.

Got to 'creosote' the wood.

Wooden ladders.  Made a ton of 1/16" square rungs.

Used one of my RC airplane tools.

Made a 'jig' (at least lines) to guide where all the parts go on a hollow core door.

The main wall was some 1/16" thick balsa that I used a scribe and straight edge to score lines in the balsa to look like individual boards.  The chutes glued and then all the 16" square supports glued to the wall (carpenters glue).

Straight edge used to insure all supports align with sheeting.

Weights to insure good contact while the glue dries.

The railings vertical posts are 12" square and come down the sides several feet so a straight edge was used to have them all perfectly level.

Before:

After:

Dry fitted only.  still need to make and add the chutes.

2"X12" railing added to the top to keep the workers from falling off.  

Vertical wood ladders and no railing on the landings around the base of the chutes (don't think that will pass today's code!).

That was fun gluing all those rungs to the sides!

New arrival.

C&O H-6 2-6-6-2 by PFM united.

Another engine that had no couplers on the tender and the front pilot deck was never installed on the engine.

These were made over several years.  Some of the early 60's had some rough castings on them.  I'm thinking this is a 69 or 72 run as castings are very crisp and the tender has chains on it which, I believe was added on the later models.

The boxes varied also for each variation.

Regardless, whether it's an early or late model, I like it's overall quality.

I've always like the united engines: they seem to have a 'heft' to them which I'm assuming it was due to thicker grade brass used in it's construction.

The headlight was loose in the plastic bag that had the pilot deck.  When made, 'they' forgot to put some solder on the main shaft.  While it was off, I figured that I might as well drill out the headlight.

Pre-can motor days but I was surprised the motor was mounted far enough forward that it will be easy to add a back head.

Very nicely detailed model.

Chains on the tender.  Nice under tender detail which a lot of early engines were missing.

Some mottling on the tender. Initially, I thought the finish was lifting but it appears to be just the oxidization occurred in some places and not others.

This is the last of the C&O engines.  Back in the 70's I always wanted an H-6.

I'm guessing, since they have the low mounted headlights like GN, I was 'partial' to them.

Left to right: H-8 allegheny, J-3A  4-8-4 and the H-6 2-6-6-2.

'Prep'ing' the layout for tonight's operating session.

Good thing: Found 3 electrical brakes in the rail, two places where the track gauge was too narrow and two shorts when one switch is thrown only in one direction and the other, the cut in the rail was touching each other: some epoxy fixed that.

I'm glad I used the T&P 2-10-4 for testing: I think, with the long wheel base, it found those tight track gauges.

Had to get my above creeper out to fix a few spots.

So Sam, is it going to turn Black also!?

Of course: nothing worse than an engine left unpainted!  Besides, I love having LED's in the headlights, marker lights, number boards, cab, fire box, etc.

Maybe one day I will get something to send you to redo for me! LOL Then again maybe not! All depends on $$$$$

Everything on hold save one item.

PM the entire layout.

After all the problems with last Saturday's operating session, the entire layout is getting a major PM.

I'm using DPDT toggles, one side for routing track power and the other side for lighted 'on/off' indicators.  The lights were getting brighter when one toggle was thrown and found one of the wires was touching the track power side.  This was really 'hosing' up the main line throttles but easy to fix (neg. to pos.). 

Some throttles were not working in certain blocks so I have some defective toggles to replace.

For the layout PM, I started at the St Paul yard.

Every car was removed and checked:

Out of about 270 cars, 200 needed the wheels cleaned due to 'gunk' on them.  A jewelers flat screw driver was used to clean them: A lot of those rp-25 wheels were more like rp-10's with all the crud on them.  For the most part the metal wheels didn't need cleaning.  The plastic seems to attract dust more than metal.

Four of the cars got new metal wheels.  A few had low 'air hoses'.

Two turnout linkages needed adjustment, a spot had too wide of a gauge track, one frog point was picking some wheels and one miss-alignment of rail ends.

Each yard track had a full set of cars pushed through it at a pretty fast speed of about a scale 35 MPH to insure all was working.

Next, each of the four main throttles will be run over the entire mainline, both ways with a 35-40 car train.

Finally, the Seattle yard will be PM'ed. 

WOW Sam that sure sound like a lot of work! I sure hope you had help!

No help: this has always been a 'one man show'.

During the car PM, some of the time was doing two 'mindless' things at once: cleaning wheels and watching the NFL playoffs!

LOL I do a lot of mindless things at once! It's the only to go!

PM (mainline testing).

Ran the first train the entire 400' both ways and found some bad track at Marias pass. I've had cars come off there once in awhile and always blamed the cars when the rails were miss-aligned at two locations just a few feet from each other.

Needed the above creeper to get to the problem area. 

Figure I might as well take pictures while testing the layout.

Top side creeper needed to fix problem track.

Also, a few videos:

 SF 2 10 4 at Chumstick canyon trestle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_EJAC8lla4    

SF 2 10 4 at Steven's pass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnfhvxxOajs     

SF 2 10 4 at Marias pass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHYEYytC0cE

You sure are a great rail roader! Wonderful layout! I just love everything you post! Thanks

Thanks, Mike.

PM the layout (cont)

Second mainline throttle tested using a different and longer train.

Videos:

GN W-1 Leaving Seattle's freight yard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFCoZtqrBm0

GN W-1 at Marias pass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF5z_t0DJgA

GN W-1 at Chumstick canyon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DItvsA8rumU

GN Z-1's leaving St Paul's freight yard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGFrbMNlD8k

GN Z-1's at Tumwater canyon trestle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZlWw0wPpKk

GN Z-1's at Marias pass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5lXEozH-HE

GN Z-1's at Tye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5-SBtgL0EU

Nice videos.  Need some videos of those beautiful steam engines.

Gene Anstine

Gene,

Still have lots of PM testing to due so those will be 'coming up'.

==========

Good idea from a fellow modeler.

(Using lights for circuit breakers CB)

Went to HD and got some 12 volt, 11 watt bulbs (for landscaping) and put them in series with each power supply.  I want to install DCC along with present DC and he recommended doing this. 

He said the bulb will take up the shortage and prevent hosing up the DCC should a  toggle get thrown the wrong way.  I'm going to run either all DCC or DC on the mainline but don't want to do it in the yards (cost savings and a lot of hassles to install with yard and turntable).

Epoxied the bulb into some lite ply and put the bulb in series with the power.

Even without DCC, this works great on the DC system as the light comes on giving a visual indicator of a short versus waiting for the CB to 'pop'.

TA DA!

Put a screw driver across the tracks to test.

I had a minor in physics and, now that I think about it, I think I knew this trick but forgot!

(lots of brain cells have died in the last 60 years, or so).

New delivery.

Purchased 'art of brass' vol 1 and 2 on ebay.

They are very expensive but when I saw I could get both for less than the price of one, I bought them.

The books deal with the people who made the engines versus who imported them.

My kind of books: lots of pictures  

samparfitt posted:

PM the layout (cont)

Second mainline throttle tested using a different and longer train.

Videos:

GN W-1 Leaving Seattle's freight yard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFCoZtqrBm0

GN W-1 at Marias pass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF5z_t0DJgA

GN W-1 at Chumstick canyon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DItvsA8rumU

GN Z-1's leaving St Paul's freight yard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGFrbMNlD8k

GN Z-1's at Tumwater canyon trestle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZlWw0wPpKk

GN Z-1's at Marias pass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5lXEozH-HE

GN Z-1's at Tye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5-SBtgL0EU

Thanks for the great little videos! fun to watch as they go buy! Thanks again!

Glad you like them, Mike.

New delivery:

Cal scale plate decks 190-385.  Found them on ebay for only $3.88 and had 8 of them so I purchased all of them.

Good theory, slight mod to implementation.

Lights used as circuit breaker (CB) for each throttle.

Installed 12 volt, 11 watt bulb in the 4 mainline throttles plus one in each of the two yards plus one for the future DCC (hopefully!).  The bulbs were glowing when running engines so I installed another 12 volt, 11 watt bulb parallel to the existing bulb and that kept the lights off (at full throttle, the bulb does glow dimly).  I'm guessing that the 12 volts, 20 watt bulbs at HD would work but I already had the 11 watt bulbs, plus it would have been a lot of work to replace the epoxied bulbs in their ply frame.  Fortunately, I used terminal strips to install the bulbs so it was quick work to add the second bulb to each circuit.  

Also, installed a DPDT toggle to switch from one of the 4 main throttles to DCC. 

Now I need to test to see if DCC will function on my present 'wired' layout.

That took 7 hours to do: I forgot how much fun it is doing 'wiring'!

Just noticed that my remote throttles have CTC 16 that Keith Gutierrez designed.

That system is probably out of date to purchase!

Memories: the 1983 March MR that had the build article for the remotes that I use has 154 pages and PFM advertisement on the back cover.