we ran just about every engine that could be run this weekend. It kept me hopping. Several things failed. It wasn't always pretty. I fixed stuff as fast as I could to keep the trains rolling.
These are the days I'll remember the most.
some G scale in there too.
Every year there's trouble when the trains have sat thru the summer without any love. Sometimes it's rough, and this time, all **** broke out. I had ballasted all the rails and thought it wouldn't be an issue. It really wasn't but the rails seemed more uneven then before. They sure are louder now! I know enough to make sure all engines I intend to run have been charged up. I just can't guess which engines will end up on the rails anymore.
We had a big train flip the first 2 cars behind the head end power for no apparent reason for example. Our grandson claimed the cars hit the switch machine, but on a straight?? I found a low coupler on the rear head end engine that may have lifted the car over bad uneven rails causing it to tip. It seems the pilot has drooped. So I fixed that.
An old BNSF AC6000 that I converted to 2 rail acted up and kept jumping off the rails. Ended up that the brake lines and brake cylinders on the front trucks were hitting the pilot on just one spot on the RR. It took some time to grind down the back of the pilots and three other things failed while doing that!! Two dummies jumped the rails in a different spot later and I felt overwhelmed. Another old Atlas coupler broke but I expect that.
The software had me going crazy. The remote lost at least one engine and wouldn't add it back. Ends up the polarity switch was set wrong on the PS2 set. The app kept re-adding the 1 gauge Bigboy to a different address?
Looking back now a bad day with trains is still a good day after all.
