Scattered Thoughts . . .

Most people simply buy manufactured train tracks to run their model trains. Some people will painstakingly build their model track just like building the real thing... railroad ties, rail, tie plates and spikes... and drive every single spike themselves. This option looks the best but it is a lot of tedious work. Some of us find some middle ground for various reasons. I'd prefer to be getting some work accomplished on the house outdoors but it is damp, wet and waterlogged out there so nothing is getting accomplished outdoors. Besides, since we are at the hospital every afternoon for Sheila's radiation treatment, there really is little time for any home renovations. By the time I set up all the tools, saw horses and materials, I would need to start cleaning up so we could eat lunch and then head to the hospital. Needless to say, I've been indoors for the past few months. Every fourth tie removed using a Dremel tool. I am currently indoors working on building a 12 fo

Although I am not ready to start building my little railroad in our newly designated "train room", I am working on a plan whenever I feel up to it and I am envisioning it in my imagination. I also buy products as I find them on sale or, if previously used, at a great price. At this point, I have quite a collection of trains so much of my focus has turned to designing a layout plan for this small room. There are a few issues to overcome because the room is so small and, subsequently, some track would need to be lift out or portable but last night I found an unexpected problem with some of the track I plan to use for this model railroad layout. Some of the track will be handlaid simply because no commercial manufacturer makes what I need for my dual-gauge mainline track. So, I'll be gluing down wood ties... then actually spiking rail to the ties just like in the real world. For the remainder of the track which will run through villages and down by the docks, I will use

I managed to get a little bit more work done on this hopper conversion project today. (As mentioned in previous blog entries, I'm converting four American Flyer S scale hoppers to O scale narrow gauge hoppers.)  Last weekend, I had previously cut two different sizes of bulkhead shims for shimming the coupler boxes to the correct height from the rail but I had not glued them in place. That was today's job.  Since I had already pre-cut all the shims, today's work was fairly easy. I had a little bit of trimming to do on the first of eight sets of shims but I today's task was to simply glue each shim in place with some super-glue gel.  Next, I can glue some brake wheels in place on one end of each hopper. Hopefully that will be quick and easy task too. Hmmm... I need to pick up more glue first... I just remembered that I also need to build or buy some stirrup steps for each of the four hoppers. Once these are installed then I can spray paint each of the cars...  L

This morning, I started gluing the grab irons on the O scale narrow gauge hoppers that I am converting and detailing. As usual, this is not working out the way I expected. Getting the Crazy Glue Gel into the tiny holes is a sloppy task even while using a toothpick. The glue is bunching up and I am leaving spiderweb-like glue trails between all parts. It seems to be taking forever to dry too. I expected this to require me to work quickly before the glue set with the grab irons solidly in place. It is not working that way. It turns out to be a bit messy and it is not holding quickly. I stopped after adding the grab irons to just one of the four hoppers. I decided it would be best to wait to see if the glue will indeed set up well enough to hold these tiny grab irons in place. I don't want to do all four hoppers this way only to find out it won't work.  In addition to seeing how well the glue holds after allowing some extra drying time, I also want to see how

I've been focused on working on Lukey's train set (new scenery, new buildings, new trains) for some presents this coming Christmas. While I was looking for stuff for Lukey's train set, I ran across something which caused me to change gears briefly. For quite some time now, I've been reading about modelers who convert old S scale American Flyer freight cars to O scale narrow gauge. O scale is a larger scale than S scale but narrow gauge trains are purposefully smaller than their standard gauge counterparts so the smaller S scale trains often measure just right for O scale narrow gauge.  "Standard gauge" trains are the trains we see running around our real life world today... the rails are almost five feet apart (4'-8½", to be exact) and the trains are quite large. In smaller, tighter places, however, smaller trains were necessary (and a few are still running today) ... ie, winding through mountains, dense woods, around wharfs, in industrial comple