Great Northern railway

WOW Sam, you got quite the load there! Are you sure you have room for all those trains>?

Mike, 9 tracks and 9 passenger trains.  So much for making room for my extra freight cars!

===============

Layout open for  'out of towners' op session.

Had a great time with about 24 showing up.  From what I remember, they were from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Canada, oh, and Ohio.

With the new passengers cars, tonight was strictly passenger train runs.

I was so busy I forgot to take any pictures except for a last minute video of electric assistance of a GN train through the cascade tunnel:  This is not just for 'show' but functional as some trains have more cars than the engine can handle over this part of the mainline that is steeper than the rest of the mainline.  The electrics are very heavy and give the train the needed horsepower to 'make the grade'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

More test videos:  

SP AC-5 cab forward passenger train at Waverly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

At Chumstick Canyon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Milwaukee Hiawatha passenger train at Skykomish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

At Tye:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Walthers UP mainline passenger car truck mounted couplers to body mount.

I tested the cars with the couplers mounted to the truck and pulling worked with no problems but I backed up and one car picked a switch: Even with #10 turnouts on an 8' curve, coupler mounted trucks are going to rack sideways so body mount is best.  

Doesn't get any easier than this.

Unlike the IHC NP car conversions, this one didn't even require any drilling and tapping.

Removed the large screw securing the truck to the bolster and then used cutters to cut coupler pocket away from truck and also removed excess shank going to the coupler.

Glued some .030 plastruct sheeting to raise it even with the end edge of the car.

Since the coupler pocket already had a screw holding everything together and would be easy future PM, I just glued the 'cut off' part of the pocket directly to the new piece of plastruct.  I used a liberal amount of 'plastic welder' to insure a solid bond of the pocket to the car.   Should one want a metal versus glue, the original screw could be removed, drill/tap it and put a longer screw in place of the old one.  The screw only holds the top cover over the coupler pocket.  Walthers uses Kadee couplers.  I placed the pocket so I get a nice close fit between the cars. 

As mentioned, this goes really fast: unscrew, snip, snip, glue, glue, rescrew: done. Faster than a 'shake a box kit'.

Only got a couple done before railroaders came over.

The original wheels are metal and roll freely so I did not replace them. 

Dayton train and antiques show.

Held at the new Montgomery county fairgrounds.

This was the first year of this event and, I'm guessing, maybe the last. I went on Sunday and the vendors exceeded the visitors.  I asked one vendor how Saturday was and he said this was an 'oh well' show. 

Some vintage items with contemporary prices. 

Antique stuff which I made some purchases.  I liked the old style stools on the right but....

these were more practical.  Good for the railroaders: no bending down and back support!

Plus this for my daughter in law with 5 kids.  1950.  Figure she would find this amusing.  Probably, not politically correct in today's society!

Well Sam you got some cool things. Sorry for the bad turnout as like you said it could make it its last! Maybe there wasn't enough information sent out to the public or in the right places!

Mike,

This was an independent person doing the show.  All the NMRA shows around here all do very well, ie: Cincinnati, Dayton and Springfield. 

So much for that theory!

I went to the train room and, by chance, was looking at the new UP yellow passenger cars and the space between them was way larger than I assembled the couplers for.  Every car had its couplers laying on the track. 

Using the liquid plastic welder to secure the coupler pockets to the bottom of the car was a failure.   I'm guessing the original coupler pocket is made of the same material that plastic trucks are made of: very hard plastic resistant to paint and glue.

Oh well, it only takes a few minutes to drill/tap for a 2/56 screw.  

Earlier, I used some silicon on one car before deciding to drill/tap holes.  Left this one 'as is' and see how it 'holds up'.

Having to move the 'end' and 'head end' passenger cars around after a trip on the layout, this Kato rerailer makes 'quick work' of it.

Decoder install in a Burlington O-5B 4-8-4.   

This engine was, previously, painted and LED's installed before I got into DCC.

My preference for decoders: has excellent sound, realistic braking/brake release without bothering the throttle and has built in voice 'walk through' on changing CV values (in 'English' terminology).  Also, has 'keep alive': nothing worse than losing momentary power and engine has to restart.  Also, good to use just one decoder for all your engines: makes operation for you, and visitors, easier. 

I usually use old PFM speakers: Has good bass and is thin which I need for most of my GN vanterbilt tenders with very narrow access.   This engine has a big square tender so round speakers work well.

Tender done first.  This decoder has wire harnesses so the decoder is always removed before soldering: just in case!

The 'front end' always gets lots of LED's so 8 wires are needed to control them, functionally.  I break the wires into two groups and put short pieces of heat shrink tubing (don't shrink it though) to protect the wires, keeps them organized plus they kind of look like air/water hoses. 

One of best investments I made. 

The finest tip used for those 30 gauge wires.

Heat gun for shrink tubing after soldering wires together.  

Only way to get a really small 8 pin connector is make your own.  This one is less than a 1/2" across. 

DecoderPro used to change address.  Nice software; already has most decoders programmed in so it can just read the decoder and does all the work. 

With just the motor and tender done, address changed to engine number. 

Everything is modular.  Besides the 8 pin connector from tender to engine, there is a 4 pin connector from boiler to frame.

Last year, I made a schematic and thought it would be easy to connect all the wires but  I had to take apart another engine to make sure I had all wires correct: good thing!   Been several months and I forgot where 'stuff' goes.  Added more info to my schematic and, hopefully, a year 'down the road', I'll remember... but not likely!

I consider it important to use the NMRA color code standards.  All engines are the same and makes PM easier.  Can also, seamlessly, exchange tenders for diagnostic purposes.   

I'm pretty anal on lights.  Gotta have headlights (engine/tender), marker(classification) lights(engine and tender if applicable), cab lights, running board lights (engineer has to see where to oil!) and fire box glow.   An 8 pin connector isn't needed if all these lights aren't installed and, also, if you don't want different function keys to control them.

This was one of my earlier LED mods and I bought white but not warm white and got some ugly blue white LED's.  One can see the difference between the headlight and the running lights. 

Running board and fire box.

Cab light.

Tender lights when backing up.

All ready to pull the Zephyr passenger cars.  During the summer, I was wondering which engines I was going to install more decoders.  With the passenger yard, that resolved that question.  Next: An NP engine for the NP passenger train. 

A few pictures visited a fellow railroaders ops session, last night.

Dan (the conductor) and I had a mainline train run with a berk. 

One way to hide those basement support poles. 

That's a surprise.

Daughter stopped by and I showed her the new staging yard and new passenger cars and she said they look a lot thinner than my other cars.  It dawned on me that she had, previously, seen my heavy weights which were in the original passenger yard and still 'out on the road', ie mainline.  All the new passenger cars are the lightweight, streamline casrs. She rarely sees the layout and, probably, hasn't seen it for a year but remembers that difference.  

NP A-5 4-8-4.

Engine prep for DCC and LED lighting.

I painted this engine back in 2013 before the small LED's (or I just didn't know about them) came on the market so only the headlight had an LED.   I used the colored glass for the marker lights.

Tender, first.

Four screws secured the super structure to the frame. 

Some masking tape (back side laid on pant leg a few times to reduce its stickiness (if that's a word!) to protect the paint. A #60 drill bit, oil and a popsicle stick to brace the marker and headlight while drilling with a dremel on low speed.  I always use a new drill bit to insure no snags (buy them by the dozen at home depot, they're cheap, online only).  Oiled 3-4 times and no heavy forcing: let the bit do the work.  Only partial drilling per oil which also allows bit and part to cool down.  

Light and markers done.  Holes in tender also needed to route wires. 

Some black paint and tooth pick to touch up the area plus need paint on inside of housings so any bare wires on the LED do not short out. 

One screw up front and two in the back are, usually, all that's holding the boiler to the frame.   Weight has been added for extra pulling power.  1/16" thick lead sheeting can be bought online: easy to cut and bend. 

Ditto on the marker lights.  Take time and lots of oil.  These were sturdy mounts.  Some markers only have a very thin wire holding them to the boiler and it's usually best to remove them before drilling them as they'll probably break off. 

These markers were on the boiler front so two holes were drilled on each side of the base of the headlight for routing the wires to the markers.  One could also drill the holes just below the markers.  Some markers are located on the boiler's side.

Running board light holes drilled.  Every hole gets paint to cover up the exposed metal to prevent shorts. Those wire are super thin and the insulation is also thin and can easily be scraped off while routing through holes. 

Cab hole drilled.

I use two sources of LED's.

These are the larger 0604's that I like to use in cabeese.  They are located in Ohio and usually at the Dayton show.

They have resistors and electronics to protect them from higher voltages. 

These are super small at 0402's and, also, have resistors.

I get them over seas:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/8V-12...50OVLPJS5IhXfeCf3TRg

 A toothpick and black paint takes care of making all leads by the LED's black. 

One can also use a #55 or #57 drill bit to enlarge the marker lights and even insert two of the 0402's: two different colors and turn on the desired LED.  

You really getting a lot done even with some try it agains.  That is great your daughter noticed the difference!!!

Mark,

Not fast but can work long hours being retired.

=========================

NP A-5 LED install (cont).

Need lights on while applying glue to make sure they are in the correct place and don't move. 

Marker lights glued.  Replaced headlight as it was an incandescent.   Also glued LED's into running boards and cab.

n

Enough of this decoder stuff; time to test the new Burlington O-5B decoder and Zephyr passenger cars .

Video:

O-5B departing Seattle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

 At Hillyard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Retired is the difference for sure! I hope to do the same soon.

Mark,   

I tell people to retire as soon as possible. Like 'they' say: I've never heard anyone on their deathbed saying: I wish I would have worked longer.  Presently, I've got my two main hobbies : RC airplanes attending about 20 shows from May to September and railroading from Sept to May.

========

Got 'off track', pun intended.

In the middle of a decoder install, I remembered one tunnel portal where one engine hits the side of it.  (Being old, I always do what needs to be done or I'll forget what I wanted to do, 10 minutes later!)  It's right at the end of a 48" curve but a large GN Z-6 4-6-6-4 snags the edge of it.  About an 1/8" of the outside of the portal had to be cut off since it's right along the basement wall. 

After fixing that problem, I thought I'd paint the portals I bought last year with some diluted Indian ink.

Since they're 'painted', might as well install them!

Single and double portals are easy to find: triple, not so easy.  Cut two doubles, thick CA plus a popsicle stick across the back should 'do it'.

Some black fiber, cheap hairspray and several colors of 'grass' to make 'bushes'.

The tunnel portals have been solid rock for the last 40 years and I want to 'dress them up'.  The portals also makes it easier to see where the track is coming out of the mountain. 

Before:

During:

Some big gaps between the portals and mountains....

but, easily, remedied with some 'bushes'.

Now that the new staging yard appears to be working OK, I put part of the removable (Lionel days) mountain back in place along with some tunnel portals (dry fitted).  

Here's two more portals that I want to update.  Out of double portals to kit bash for the lower tunnel but I've got one single portal left for the upper tunnel. 

Dry fit.

Some bushes and, at least, one can see that there's a tunnel at that location. 

This and one other hard to see location now have portals: Figure it will look much nicer the next time a video is done from the 'rails'.   Things I didn't have to worry about, 40 years ago!

Besides the tunnel portals installed, I have a lot of individual ties left over from the 'old days' so I spread them around the mainline for 'tie replacements'.

NP A-5 4-8-4 decoder install (cont)

Back to decoders.

As usual, installed all wires in the tender, first.  Besides the tender head light, red marker lights were also installed.

The 8 pin connector built and all wires for motor and fire box glow completed.  Testing on address 3 was successful. 

The rat's nest of wires is under the foam.  There's a piece of brass sheeting in the middle of the tender so I had to drill holes in it to route wires to the speaker and tail lights. Decoder and keep alive is in the front half.  About a 1/8" hole is on the front of the tender for routing wires.

Fire box glow LED just taped to engine frame.

Decoderpro used to change engine address to 2687.

Engine was shorting out.  I put the lead trucks on backwards.  Usually, both sides are insulated but not with this engine. 

All LED wires have been routed through the boiler.  Tomorrow, I'll finish up the final wire connections. 

NP A-5 4-8-4 decoder install (cont).

WORD of CAUTION: 

The LED's have bare wire where they connect to the LED so care must be done to insure they are not contacting any metal parts on the engine.  A voltmeter will verify that there are no shorts when contacting the LED leads and any bare part of the engine.   If one tries  to connect the engine directly to DCC current, the shorted LED's will burn out and you're back to 'square one'.  Never fun removing all your work and 'starting over'.   I had two LED's contacting the engine: one marker light and the cab light.   Adjusting the LED's with a toothpick and then securing the LED with some more canopy glue solved the problem.  

The 4 pin connector made for lights from frame to boiler.  DCC tested good.

Paint pen used to insure proper alignment when joining the connectors. Putting them in reversed may blow the decoder.

All's good on the track.  Will have to run over the entire layout to insure no bugs.

All lights have a function key to turn them on/off.

Everything has a decoder except the cab forward in the staging (passenger) yard. 

Two tracks empty in the staging yard are for the two trains 'on the road', being the GN and Burlington.  The original passenger yard has one GN passenger train. 

Next decoder install is the cab forward which presents a few problems as I may not be able to run 8 wires the length of the boiler to the motor area. 

SP AC-5 cab forward decoder install.

This engine was painted several years ago and weight and lights were installed when there was no control over each set of lights so all lights are powered by two wires although all lights are LED's (thankfully). 

This engine presents unique problems.  Being the cab is in the front, where the motor is, all wires have to be routed to that location.   Due to that fact, all wires were kept to a minimum.  Normally, I use 8 wires to control all light functions: If the engine was new, I could have, maybe, drilled a large hole in the front of the boiler to route all wires along the inside of the boiler.  This engine is heavily weighted with lead and I have no desire to try to remove it so the simplest route was taken. 

Two 1/16" heat shrink tubing was used to route 4 wires to the cab area (2 for motor and 2 for lights).  The tubing will be routed above the drivers and frames so they will look like piping.  I kept the wires all black, also for same reason.  One of each wire end in the tubing was painted white so I knew 'which was which'.

Only the necessary wires were routed to the cab area: motor: gray and orange and lights: blue and white.  The red wire is ground and I'll connect that to a small brass tube on the back driver frame.  This tube was already there from the PFM sound system so it should work OK.  If there is any break in electrical continuity, I can solder a jumper wire from the back driver frame to the front driver frame. 

Figure a test should be done before routing the shrink tubing along the drivers.  All seems to work. 

I wasn't sure if all the lights would work being all on one circuit but the decoder can handle it. 

The original sugar cube speaker used for the PFM sound was left in the tender.  The sugar cubes need the plastic boxes (sold separately) or they won't work properly. 

Grey and orange to motor.

Blue and white to all lights in boiler.

Neat transition between levels!  The portals and trees on the mountain look great 

Thanks, Mark.

=========

SP AC-5 decoder install (cont) plus passenger car testing.

Like the novel says: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  Nine hours later and good stuff happened but also bad stuff happened.

The best of times: the decoder install went pretty smoothly.

Initially, I was going to run the wires along the engine frames but that wasn't working out as no place for the wires plus it would be difficult to PM the engine with all those wires along the frames. 

I was incorrect when I thought I had too much lead inside to route the wires via the boiler.  Was the easiest way 'to go'.  

Room for routing the new wires.  When no weight is provided, roll up some sheet lead and drill/tap it and secure it to the boiler. 

With the 4 wires routed through the boiler, two were soldered to all the boiler lights: ie headlight, cab light and 'smoke' light. and a 2 wire connector for the motor.   All tested and works well.  These LED's were installed awhile ago when the engine was painted. 

Track testing.

I didn't think about adding running board lights and fire box glow: too late now: I'm not taking it apart again!

One tender light.

The 'smoke' light.  These were added so the firemen could look back at night and see how his fire was doing.

All ready to test some cars: now the 'worst of times'.  It took several hours to complete a round trip on the layout.

Some cars were derailing.  The truck wheels on both the MTH and the BLI passenger cars were a little too narrow.  I knew about it when I first got them but ignored it: not a smart move. 

There was a couple places that only a few of the cars would derail (the other 700 cars and engines have no trouble!).  The gauge was a little wide and, since some of the passenger cars had too narrow of a gauge, they 'met each other'.  The track gang got out and remedied that problem. 

MTH too narrow.

BLI too narrow.

Removing the trucks, I could twist the wheels on the axle to get them correctly gauged. 

Both BLI and MTH have metal prongs that make contact with brass plates in the car bodies to transmit electricity. 

The train was shorting out at several places.  Being a new decoder, I first suspected the engine but, after a few hours of checking, engine was good so I blocked the cars in groups and started to check those.  Of course, the last block of cars checked was the problem  One 2-car articulated set would, periodically, short.   I checked for shorts but found none. 

This is how the BLI center section looks. That was good.

The two end trucks provide electricity to the interior.  When I put masking tape over the contacts, the car doesn't short anymore.  Not sure why at only certain places on the layout but I gave up on diagnostics and will have those run 'dark'.

This is one of the spots were the short occurs.  Found nothing and tons of other equipment runs this mainline with no problems: go figure!

Video:

SP AC-5 passenger train at Skykomish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Next we'll cover the problems with the NP A-5 decoder install.

One more video of SP AC-5 cab forward passenger test (finally all's working):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

============

NP A-5 decoder install and passenger car test.

Blew two decoders before realizing the problem.

After the first decoder install, all worked great but after about 40' on the mainline, the sound started hissing and then went out.  I suspected a bad speaker so I installed another speaker as the decoder didn't have any evidence of 'smoke' escaping.  The new speaker was installed but I heard 'smoke' escape, this time, from the decoder.  Took tender and engine apart and all wires seemed correctly attached and then noticed the back head had some scratches on it.  The paint eventually wore off and the two motor contacts were rubbing against it and shorted out the decoder.  Bummer:  will be sending two decoders back to TCS for repair.  

Video tests of engine and passenger cars: at least with simple IHC cars and no lights, they didn't give me any problems! 

At Skykomish:  This video shows where the hissing (clicking) starts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Video at Hillyard after three decoders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Nice videos on youtube:

Turbines:

Around time 41:00, a little too much fuel on start up!

Last few minutes shows the coal powered turbine using a GN W-1 electric for one power unit (the W-1 was the largest electric ever built).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pSv29qIF4Y

Cab forwards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TdbKe4lGYA

Final testing of the Burlington O-5B and Zephyr cars:

video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

They are all great!!!!

Mark,

I try.

========

Engine weighting.

Added lead weight to this PRR T-1 for more pulling power.

The engine had two original large weights but there is room for more.

There was room under the front weight so two pieces of lead were slid into that area.

The center, between the two air tanks, was empty so more lead was inserted in that location. Small pieces were wrapped around an object to get a circular contour and then inserted in the boiler. 

Once there, a couple small screw drivers were used to push the lead weight to form inside the boiler.  The lead is soft so it easily conforms to the boiler.

A piece of paper was used to get the needed length of each piece of lead sheeting.

The final area was filled with some rolled up lead sheeting.  A small vice and hammer helps me get the initial fold on the lead sheeting. 

In this case no need to even glue in the lead.  The original surrounded lead will hold it in place.  I usually just use some carpenters glue to secure it. 

The original lead block was reattached plus some more lead sheeting under it. 

Final connection of LED's from boiler to frame via wire connector.

Boiler weight:

BEFORE: 14.6 oz.

AFTER: 20.4  increase of 5.8 oz.

Total weigh of engine after assembly: 29.6 oz.

A piece of tubing is usually placed over the tender pin to better secure it to the engine.

I wanted the T-1 to be able to pull the 14 PRR passenger train but, unfortunately, the train is too heavy so I had to use the new centipedes.  Bummer.  Probably, I can use the GN electrics to get the T-1 past the initial grade and then let the engine handle the remain low grade.  I'll have to test that, later, as I'll have to take the T-1 apart and replace the motor to gear connections as they started to slip while testing the engine. 

Videos:

PRR centipedes passenger train at Tye:

The entire train has to be run over the mainline to insure no bugs.  I can have hundreds of cars run over the mainline but new cars can, and do, present problems that hasn't occurred with the 'old' stuff.  

The diesel sounds on these centipedes are annoying to me, more so, when watching via the video.  Steam sounds sooo much better!

At Tye:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

At Chumstick canyon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

At Skykomish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

There were a few momentary shorts running the engine.  I've got some MTH and Kato passenger cars along with the Balboa 7 car set and some MTH and Kato were out of gauge: too narrow.  As with the SP set, the trucks were removed and the wheels twisted to the proper gauge.

The passenger track also had a turnout that is a little close to the stock rails (also where the out of gauge wheels contacted). For an extra precaution, a guard rail was put to one side to force the wheels away from the points.   There's a slight curve here and the cars tend to move to the near side. 

One more destruction of a decoder.

Milwaukee bipolar electric EP-2.  This engine was painted a few years ago and I wanted to install a decoder in it.

It has two open frame motors.  The motors were running nicely so I thought I'd used them with the decoder as I've done this in the past (but only one open frame motor).   The motor brushes had to be insulated from the motor frame.  An insulation washer and some heat shrink tubing insulated the brush tension spring from each other and the motor's frame. 

A TCS KAM4 decoder was used: no sound but has 'keep alive'.   I kept the decode in one motorized unit and ran the needed wires through the center cab and to the other motorized unit.  Only needed 4 wires: blue/yellow for lights and orange/grey for the motor.   Some heat shrink tubing used to protect the wires.  A hole had to be drilled/filed in each power unit super structure. 

The center superstructure already had a nice large hole in each end.  Added some lead weight for traction. 

Insulated brush tension wire.

Connector needed between non-decoder end for lights and motor. 

After swapping the orange/grey wire on the non decoder motor, all worked well with directional lighting.  

I wanted to mate the yellow EP-2 with an MTH EP-2 since neither, by themselves, could pull the Hiawatha passenger train.  

The MTH bipolar is pretty cool: operating pantographs (video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB2uAuVxlw0

Ten cars by Walthers. 

All went well for about 20' until the yellow EP-2 started to smoke.  I'm guessing the decoder can handle one open frame motor but not two open frame motors.  This is the third decoder going back to TCS. 

In the meantime, I'm hoping a decoder in this Milwaukee S-3 4-8-4 will be able to handle the new passenger train. 

One good thing happened; at least my last order of tunnel portals (plus some crates) arrived.

STUFF:

Monday's are daughter outings plus I had to do a few chores around the house (like mulch leaves) but back to railroading.

1) Stained the new tunnel portals and then cut them to fit the unusual angled portal and a 3 track portal and added bushes around the portal.

Many moons ago, I experimented with tree bark for rocks.

Also got some crates from the same person that sold the cast portals.  Used some beige painted, watered down, to give them a 'wood' look.

Put them on several of the factories. 

Milwaukee S-3 4-8-4.

I painted this engine several years ago and, today, installed a TCS 1517 decoder.  The usual stuff for decoder install as mentioned, previously, on installing decoders.   More lead was added.  Initially, the boiler weighed 10.5 ounces: I forgot to weigh the boiler after lead was added but, after assembly with the frame, total weigh of just the engine was 26.7 ounces.   With the arrangement of a tender divider and placement of the decoder a sugar cube speaker was used.  I had to drill holes in the tender frame for the speaker sounds. 

Things that took about 4 hours to debug:

1. The first one didn't take too long, about 15 minutes.  Trying to read the decoder but decoderpro kept telling me there was an error before I realized I forgot to turn on the Digitrax DCC system.

2.  In 'mid stream' I decided to load all the engines, that I previously changed addresses via the digitrax controller, into decoderpro.  That wasn't bad but took about 3 hours.  Decoderpro read all the 1517 WOW decoders but had a few problems reading the TCS KAM4 decoders in the electrics (some it would read and others, nada).  Decoderpro couldn't find the KAM4 but on expanding a given folder, the decoder was listed in that folder.  The other problem was the MTH bipolar and Erie Triplex decoders were not found as decoderpro said there was an error.  I loaded the engine 'data' onto the table but changed the addresses via digitrax on the main line.  I turned off all CB's going to all blocks but the one where the desired engine's address was to be changed.   

After installing the decoder in the Milwaukee S-3, testing the engine took about 3 hours.

1) The trailing truck's wheels were skewed so the truck didn't track straight and would derail. 

Before:

After: Had to de-solder joints and re-solder them.

Took awhile to find this short as I thought the tender trucks or trailing trucks were the cause.  I had to put some shims in the 'cow catcher' to raise it from contacting the rails. 

This problem took a few hours to solve.  The trailing truck on the tender kept derailing going with the points of a #10 turnout where hundreds of other freight has passed with no problems.  Wheel gauge was correct, not skewed so made adjustments to the track as it was a little wide just past the points.  Still derailed.  Replaced the wheels with intermountain wheels, nada.  GRRR.  LED flashlights give off a weird light via a picture. 

The guide pin was touching the truck so I bent that to the center and put in a softer spring on the bolster bolt...same results. 

Swapped the front truck for the back truck and that seemed to work; but there's more....

Back wheel set on lead trucks were not rolling and causing derailments.  Easy fix with a fine file to enlarge the hole.  AND...

Trailing truck was derailing.  There was a wire running across the front of the truck that I cut off so the truck could have more vertical movement.  Fixed some of the problems. 

The brake rigging at the top of the trailing truck was contacting the fire pan on the boiler on curves and derailing.  Had to file the tops of the brake pistons to clear the fire pan. 

Oh yes, I almost forgot one: brass brake shoe was, momentarily, touching one insulated side driver. 

All, finally, seems good!   This was an Overland model.  I don't have many Overland models but will be wary on the next decoder install in one of his models. 

Videos:

Milwaukee S-3 4-8-4 and bipolar electric pulling Hiawatha passenger cars:  The 'portal' windows on the passenger cars are cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Milwaukee S-3 pulling Hiawatha passenger cars.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

New delivery:

Some NYC passenger cars. More 'new' cars that have been sitting in their boxes for 40 years.  Like the NP, the pizza cutter size wheels will be replaced and the horn hooks will be Kadee body mounted. 

A Niagara will pull them once a decoder is installed. 

NYC passenger car updates.

Observation car top had to be removed to drive out the pin holding the dummy coupler on the rear so a kadee could be attached. 

Usual .060" thick plastic used for mounting the kadees.

Pizza cutter wheels replaced with intermountain 36".

Did 'production line'  on the cars, ie, glue plastic base, drill/tap screw holes to hold kadees, etc.

Divider used to get consistent location of couplers.  Bottom lip of diaphragm was trimmed for free movement of kadees: there's a thin piece of plastic that extends past the bottom of  the diaphragm. 

As close as I can get...

so they don't bind on curves. 

New delivery.

B&O 10 car set by IHC.

Officially, I have,now, exceeded my new staging yard limit.  These will go in the freight yard when operating session is all passenger trains. 

These, as with the NP set etc by IHC, are just generic representations of cars on that railroad.  IHC did do a good job, in their day, to produce nicely painted cars that will give me the 'flavor' of that particular railroad's passenger service.

I get most of the cars from ebay and, usually, only buy cars sold as sets.  These cars, being 25-35 years old can, usually, be had very inexpensively.  They don't have all the 'bells and whistles' of say the BLI Zephyr set but they 'fill the bill' on what I'm trying to achieve with passenger trains.

This is another brand new set, never out of the box collection.

Very nicely painted.

They are on my 'to do' table although I plan to convert the wheels and couplers to kadees in the next few days.  Tomorrow is Dayton's big train show so that's 'first' on my list. 

Didn't know that IHC actually used functioning knuckle couplers.  Must be some of their later stuff.  These, like the earlier models are truck mounted and will be kadee body mounted couplers.

The observation car has plastic lenses that could be lighted.  It came with a dome car.  I think only one Eastern railroad had a dome car as tunnels and stations restricted such purchases. 

I've only got one B&O engine, an EM-1 yellowstone, and it has already been converted to DCC.

B&O IHC passenger cars.

Got done sooner than I thought.  Only took an hour or so to replace the truck wheels and install new kadee couplers.

Road test:

Videos:

B&O EM-1 2-8-8-4 pulling passenger train.

At Seattle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

At Marias Pass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

At Chumstick canyon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

At Basin tunnel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Excellent as always, Sam!  The B&O cars are great

Thanks, Mark.

=======

NMRA MCR Div 3's train show in Dayton, Ohio.

At the new county fairgrounds.  Two buildings: first one to sell stuff and 2nd building mostly for the layouts. 

1st building.

Kind of rare to see N scale brass:

2nd building.

Nancy's module:

I purchased a few items.  Most were 10 bucks, this time or total, there of.

B&O passenger car for the 10 that just arrived (10 bucks).

Shinohara #8 turnout (10 bucks)

CV steps, whistle posts and mile marker posts: total 10 bucks.

Brand new steam book (  10 bucks). 

Thought I'd put in the turnout in the new staging yard.  Got some room up front to store some motive power.

Real nice book;  Lots of pictures and detail drawings.

many are 'double' page 'foldouts'.

Can use the steps to help the ore dock workers down the side of the ore dock!

Looks like a great time in Dayton!!!

NYC Niagara 4-8-4 decoder install.

I obtained this engine already painted.  I'm keeping the original open frame motor for the decoder install.  The brushes are insulated from the motor frame.   I usually like to clean the armature but this motor is, surprisingly, very clean. Added some oil to the front and back felt material and oiled all the moving surfaces on the engine. 

The usual TCS 1517 WOW steam decoder install.  After checking with decoderpro to insure all is good and new engine address, ready to be reassembled.  Since the engine was pre-painted, care was needed when drilling out the headlight, running lights and tender lights as to not scratch the paint.  Usual 8 pin connector between tender and engine and 4 pin connector between boiler and frame.  No marker lights on this engine: don't know if the builder forgot to install them or Niagara's didn't have them!

Added weight.

Before:  20.1 oz.

After: 29.4 oz.

Not as heavy as previous engines that I 'super' weighted as this GN N-3 2-8-8-0 coming in at 43.40 oz. but respectable to pull a passenger train. 

Final assembly.

I like the overflow pipes for when water was picked up on 'the fly'.

The previous owner put in a nice coal load. 

Initial testing of the decoder and new passenger cars.

Video:

I've got 4 more passenger cars arriving this week to make the train a respectable 10 cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

As  always, a great looking, running, sounding engine and train an a wonderfully detailed layout!!

Sam, you seam to have all the bases covered on model railroading, wonderful looking layout and great running engines with perfect looking rolling stock! Your work is really impressive!

Thanks, guys.

And to think, it ONLY took 40 years to finish this layout and I've got enough things to do to keep me busy, probably, for another 20  years, or so!

========================

Milwaukee S-3 4-8-4.

Continuing saga with this engine.  More shorts.

After running the engine and passenger cars from Seattle to the interchange loop at St. Paul, it shorted on the return back to Seattle at St. Paul.  The engine didn't short when the lead trucks were off so I changed the mounting using an old draw bar and attached the lead trucks as most engines are done but still was shorting.

RC airplane manufacturers make a nice set of drills/taps in common used sizes. The screws I had with shoulders used 2mm so I drilled/tapped the parts for the lead truck. 

Since the lead truck was still shorting, I thought I'd install some intermountain wheel sets.  This solved the problem.  Both sides of the original wheels are insulated but the frame is very close to the wheels so on some curves (even 48"), the wheels were shorting out on the frame. 

I started to put the spare parts into the original engine box and found a spare lead truck that is longer than the original one.

I tried the longer one and no more shorts.  Overland must of known about the short problem and included a longer set of lead trucks. 

One of the Walther's Hiawatha passenger cars was also shorting.  I had to 'divide' and conquer to find the faulty car.  No lights but had contacts leading to the body so I just put some scotch tape over the contacts and resolved that problem. 

Video tests:

Milwaukee S-3 4-8-4 at Chumstick Canyon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

At Skykomish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

===========

New delivery.

Some IHC Atlantic Coast Line heavyweight passenger cars.

Last week I purchased 2 from someone else to get an observation car so this makes a total of 7 cars.

Purple is my university's colors so I had to have these!

The usual .060 thick plastic for the kadee body mount support and new intermountain 36" wheels.  Unlike the two truck streamlined IHC passenger cars that I converted, last week, the axles are the same width as the originals so no mods were needed. 

'spot on'  IHC gives you some plastic handholds for around the doors.  

Not bad under body detail for a 30 year old IHC product!  The heavy weights seems to have a little more detail than the streamlined passenger cars. 

The previous owner must of had some sharp curves as the center wheel sets were missing. 

The baggage car, which is shorter than the 'regular' passenger cars, needed some truck trimming so as to not hit the new body mount kadees.  Some 'nippers' made quick work of this. 

The baggage car trucks must of been a little too wide as the new wheel sets were falling out of the trucks.  I had to glue some .015" wide plastic along the bottom of the axle slots to secure the wheel sets. 

The 7 cars makes a nice set.  Today, someone just posted 8 more ACL cars at a very reasonable price so I bought them.  It includes an observation car but, for how cheap the set was, it's worth having a spare observation car!

Final testing of B&O passenger cars.

video:

at Wilmar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

at Glacier:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

at Hillyard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

at Seattle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Testing new ACL passenger cars and also PRR S-1 6-4-4-6 engine.

The heavy weight cars with 6 wheel trucks were derailing.  I found the kadee coupler pockets were interfering with the ends of the trucks.  Initially, was going to trim some of the trucks but that would have weakened them, severely.   Instead, about a 3/32" of the back of each coupler pocket was trimmed with a utility knife.  That amount of trim was to the back edge of the brass centering spring mechanism. 

Before: 

After: Fortunately, not much extra room was needed.  The alternative was to move the coupler pocket forward.

I purchased this engine about a year ago.  Installed a decoder but haven't tested it over the entire mainline.  Figure this was a good engine to pull the ACL cars as, I believe, PRR, RF&P and ACL cooperated in running each other's passenger trains from New York to Florida.  

Videos:

At Hillyard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

At St. Paul:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Dumb thumbs, accidentally, knocked over this engine (Erie Triplex) and broke the rear engine mount off the boiler. 

Resistance soldering was needed for such a large surface area.  Unusual engine in that it has 3 electric motors. 

This is, without a doubt, the best sounding steam engine that  I have; unfortunately, it's not HO!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3-JVFtC94U