N&W Varnish

The heavyweight cars that I had in the paint shop to be put into N&W livery are done, and they are beautiful. I am still waiting on four coaches, but I have a string of 6 that I could run...if they had the proper couplers. I have a set of MicroTrains trucks and couplers on their way, but in the meantime I have installed a dummy coupler on one end of the baggage car.

The smoothside cars that I had in the paint shop to be put into N&W livery are done as well, and yesterday while I was mucking about putting the decoder into the SD7 I had them behind N&W 601 doing laps.

I am told that the Pacific that was formerly in Lackawanna paint is almost done (I was putting it into N&W paint), and the streamlined Hudson shell is almost done with its fantasy Erie paint job as well. So soon I should have my four N&W coaches, my fantasy N&W streamlined Pacific and my Erie streamlined Hudson all set up.

Next step will be to put a chip in that Hudson, which may be a lot of fun, and then I'll be able to run the Erie consist. I'd like to take it to the next show in December but I'll have to see how it goes. I definitely will take N&W 601 and associated cars. I'd take 611 as well...but everyone has 611.

I must say that I am now convinced that DCC is the way to go. I still have my DC/DCC control panel set up on the home layout, but about the only time I use it any more is to isolate the front siding so I can use it as a programming track. I still have enough DC only locos to keep it, but they are getting to be a smaller and smaller percentage of my roster.

One day I might even get crazy enough to chip my Nn3...

Neuse River Valley 2017

Last weekend the club attended the Neuse River Valley train show at the NC State Fairgrounds in Raleigh.

 My Model Power Mikado pulled a 12 car freight around the mountain line most of the show.

 I even managed to get the headlight working on it while I was there.

 This photo is for my sister in law who is a John Deere fan.

 We also had the T-TRAK set up, it was our biggest T-TRAK layout so far.

Of course, since it was a train show I did pick up a few goodies...

I am happy to report the installation of the decoder on the SD7 went far easier than the installation on the SD9. Now I just have to get them speed-matched and I can double-head them.

Back to work this weekend, the next show will be the Train Collectors Association show in December.