New Throttle: UT4R

Yesterday I picked up a new throttle I had on order from Mac Loco Works, it is a Digitrax UT4R (Digitrax, MLW). This throttle is primarily for ops sessions so I’m not running from UP5 to UP5 to plug in.

Car Shops Flat Update

This is a project that kind of stalled for a while for no real good reason, (if you are just joining us this is what I’m building: link). When I last posted about this (link) I was short a piece of styrene, grab irons, and paint.

Today I made a trip to the hobby store and picked up some styrene, brass, and drill bits (#61-80). The drill bits were for a number of projects but will also be useful for installing the grabs I’m making out of the brass. I’ve finished the styrene and got started on the grabs:

My First Weathering

While I had some train time this afternoon I decided to take a first try at weathering, I selected a UP Auto Parts boxcar that was nice and shiny. While it would be feasible for my era it was just way to clean, when I lived in Mankato MN I saw one just sitting in a metal recycling location a few years ago well rusted (shortly after I spotted it, it was cut up as scrap).

Another reason for choosing this item was that while the UP runs in the area of my prototype I could easily do without it should weathering go wrong, add that to me having the mental image of a prototype and it was a good start. Of course the camera really pulls out the areas that could use some grime, for this stage all I’ve used is a floquil rust pen.

DM&IR 130: Resurrecting an SD9

One of my first Missabe locomotives was a Proto SD9, it was actually a pretty good deal. Bought it off someone changing prototypes and scales and it wasn’t operational so he through it in with a number of ore cars. The original problem ended up being stuck bearings on the worm gears which made it a good deal.

After a while I started having problems though and eventually I couldn’t even run it reliably on straight track, no matter what I did it just didn’t work and I ended up giving up and putting it in my doesn’t work box in a pile of parts. Since then I’ve learned a few tricks both tuning up other locomotives and fixing car problems.

While troubleshooting a problem with my wife’s car my mechanic, and father, used dielectric grease to improve electrical connectivity between contacts on a connector. Shortly after than I ended up fixing a problem with DM&IR 413 and unpowered frogs by, among other tweaks, using dielectric grease on the power pickups. Then one day while digging through my parts box fixing one of my son’s locos I came across the frame and decided to give it the dialectric treatment. Before long I had it running pretty well.

One of my reasons for giving up on it originally was because it is a bit out of my era, the Missabe sold it in July 1996 but the tunnel motors from the SP didn’t start arriving until December of that year. This is one of those situations where when I’m running it I’ll invoke the stretchable reality clause.

The Prototype

DM&IR 130, and EMD SD9, was built 1957 and was one of 74 SD9s owned by the Missabe, including #110 which was originally EMD Demonstrator 5591. It’s my understanding that 130 is still around but just sitting having ended up on the now bankrupt Modac Northern.

Short Missabe Consist Video

I managed to shoot a very short video of my Missabe consist pulling a coal train last night, unfortunately the combination of the camera not cooperating and having to make sure the main was clear to keep moving it was very short.

Birthday Operating Session

Last night some friends and I had an operating session that happened to fall on my birthday (and the layout owners was the 24th!)

I took along DM&IR 210, 216, & 413 as well as EMDX 9003. It was the Oakway’s first time out for an Ops session and it ran flawlessly. It ran both solo and with 210 which also ran well (but I need to turn up the sound, its too quiet on a large layout)

I also ran all three Missabe units as a consist pulling some large trains including a large coal train, I seem to have them well matched as they really weren’t fighting each other. Both 210 and 413 ran well but 216 was a little rough so it will need some tuning. It also had some problems derailing on tighter turns, I suspect this was due to the very short coupler shanks and being in the middle of a consist.

Going to have to get him his own train soon

All Cinched Up!

One of the last outstanding wiring items on my CR23 module was to get some cinch jones plugs. They actually arrived a couple days ago so with today off work I wired up the jones plugs.

I had been using the accessories bus plugs (trailer plugs) as temporary track bus plugs so i have to wire those back up and get a second UP5 and then the wiring is done!

Train time

I got some time this after noon to work on some train projects, re-assembling DMIR 216 and even got to a long standing project to revive an older Bachman F9 for my son.

While I was working on that my oldest son played with his switcher and switching layout.

Replacement truck for DM&IR 216

Today I got a replacement truck from Athearn (I sent in the bad one a week or two ago). Looks like it’s even back in time to be speed matched for the next Ops session.