Resurrection

You may recall that I had this locomotive painted.

You may also recall that when I put it back together it ran horribly, and then not at all.

Well today I got it running again, although it is once again a DC only locomotive.

First I checked the locomotive with the decoder installed on DC power. It didn't work. Then I took the decoder out and wired it back up as a straight DC locomotive, and the motor did run but the gears slipped badly. So then I took the locomotive apart and carefully inspected each and every gear.

It turns out that any grit at all in the gears will cause them to decouple, and anything that keeps the frame from firmly contacting the boiler only exacerbates the problem. Additionally, when the grit causes the gears to push the frame outwards the cast on brakes that are there purely for show actually start to work, further binding the drivers and throwing them out of quarter.

Once the gears were cleaned of all debris, the wires were tucked firmly into their channels to keep them from interfering in the frame to boiler fit, the brakes disengaged and the drivers requartered the locomotive ran smoothly again. I have hooked up a train full of cars to it and had it running laps on a temporary track setup on the kitchen table all afternoon.

The next step will be to install another decoder and program it for the new number, but for now I am just enjoying seeing it run.

Work Progresses

on the layout.

After several false starts I've finally nailed down where I want all of the downtown buildings to go. I had to buy a couple more corner buildings but now it looks like everything is in place as it should be.

Now I'm cleaning and painting the buildings before detailing their interiors and finally placing them on the layout. I'm also looking at interior lights for them, but that is a project that may have to wait for a while.

I also have to get some of the DPM Modular Building System walls to finish out the tool making factory (although in the final take it's probably going to be some other kind of manufactory). I have the DPM planning package that I've used to mock it up and I like the way it looks like it's going to turn out.

I also have to scratch-build a scrap metal baler and some sort of loading system to take the place of the scrap yard. The plan is for the manufactory to wrap around the "scrapyard" with the scrap from the manufacturing processes being fed into the baler and then the bales loaded into the waiting gondolas. I'm thinking about some sort of chute, something like you find on the coal mine kits to load the boney (rock that has had the ore processed out of it). It's going to have to be on an angle, which makes things interesting.

Pics when complete.