Scattered Thoughts . . .

W hile I'm in the house every day this week while still recovering from a very busy week last week, I've been doing some maintenance on some of my model railroading locomotives in between long naps.  Earlier this week, I cleaned and lubed a big Fn3 scale steam locomotive.  That little project went extremely well so I continued testing various locomotives and provided maintenance on them as needed.   The latest two locomotives I worked on were two MTH O scale locomotives.  One was a steam locomotive and one was a diesel locomotive.  I haven't run either of these locomotives in a number of years so I expected them to need some work.  I already knew that the MTH steam locomotive needed new traction tires so that is where I started.  I had the new traction tires on hand so that seemed like the logical place to start. Since I hadn't used either of these MTH locomotives in a few years, I quickly realized that I have forgotten how to set up the power con...

Here is a quick video from this past weekend of Lukey running my New York Central passenger train... well, really, only half of the train.  He seems to be liking this newly upgraded locomotive as much as I do! I have other video clips of Lukey running that Alaska GP-38 diesel locomotive that is sitting alongside the tracks in this video above. It is funny... while he was running the big Hudson steam locomotive, he ran it at realistic speeds... while he was running the Alaska GP-38 diesel, he ran it at a lightning speed like it was a bullet train!   Shortly afterward, he turned the diesel over to Kenzie's control...  I'm not sure I have any video of that though...

It is always fun playing with trains with Lukey and, as much as I enjoy playing with trains myself, it is perhaps even more fun watching Lukey play with trains! On this particular day this past weekend, I was able to shoot some photos as well as some video of Lukey as he played. The grandkids were at our house through the weekend again so that allowed me to get some nice photos of them in action (some photos of Kenzie will be added in another blog entry). Lukey will be back this weekend to run some trains again. This weekend, however, we'll be running Lukey's HO scale trains and giving some of my narrow gauge trains a run (these narrow gauge trains can run on Lukey's HO scale layout).   This past weekend, Lukey and I played with my newly upgraded O scale Hudson steam locomotive. The track was sprawled out across the living room, around the coffee table and then under the coffee table.  He seemed impressed with all the upgrades which made playing a lot more interesting...

From this angle, you can see the tender marker lights and the firebox glowing in the cab. As I wrote in a previous blog entry a couple of days ago, my O scale MTH Hudson steam locomotive arrived back from the shop. I had sent it in about a month ago to have some major upgrades installed so I was pretty excited to get it back... especially to have received it in the days right after our annual train show excursion! I had the ProtoSound electronics upgraded from version 1.0 to version 3.0. This upgrade is a significant sound upgrade as well as a very significant control upgrade. Slow speed control is outstanding now... slow and steady... chuffing smoke... the sound is great and it runs silky smooth.  This upgrade also included the ability to control the rear coupler with my controller. And, naturally, this useful feature includes an uncoupling sound as it uncouples.   While it was in the shop, I had marker lights added on the front of the locomotive and the rear of th...

Around lunchtime today, FedEx pulled into our driveway... the moment I saw the box in the driver's hands, I knew what it was... my upgraded O scale Hudson steam locomotive! It was packaged exactly how I had packaged it to send it in to the facility to be upgraded. I actually made a box to perfectly fit the manufacturer's box. Apparently, this worked out well since it appears to have arrived safely and securely.  I haven't had a chance to put it on the tracks yet, but it is looking very nice!  I had the electronics swapped out completely with the newest available today. The electronics that I had originally were two generations old and quite lame by today's standards. This upgrade also provides better control, far better sound quality, better chuffing smoke, and more sounds than was previously available. Mostly, however, I'm excited about the better control. Additionally, I had an engineer and fireman added to the locomotive... a firebox glow effect with LED...

My big O scale Hudson steam locomotive is headed to the shop for some nice upgrades. This old locomotive, by MTH, currently has only very rudimentary control and some generic sounds which, to be honest, aren't that great. This upgrade will be a significant upgrade and will be  very welcomed! My MTH O scale Hudson steam locomotive... This old locomotive runs great but it operates unrealistically just like the old Lionel locomotives... press a button on the transformer and the locomotive jumps into forward... press it again and it jumps back to neutral while coasting to a stop... press it again and it jumps into reverse...  press again, back to neutral... forward, neutral, reverse, neutral, forward, neutral...  So, what if I am going forward and I want to stop at a freight station or passenger station and I want to leave the station going forward again? The next time I press that "direction button", I'll be heading in reverse! I'd prefer to have complete ...

After we met Adam at the airport yesterday, we came back to our house with the grandkids in tow. Once Liza arrived from work, I grilled dinner for all of us but there were a few hours to kill before dinner though so Lukey, Adam and I pulled out Lukey's new train layout (from this past Christmas) to play with some trains. This was a rare occasion so I allowed Lukey to run some of my newer locomotives which Adam had not seen yet... the ones with locomotive sounds, smoke, operating lights, and crew sounds. This also entails allowing Lukey to use a much more complicated controller with far too many little buttons to erroneously press but he did well and learned quickly. He'll probably forget how to use it before we use it again but he did well and didn't destroy either of my locomotives.  Lukey accidentally found that one of the buttons on this big controller activates a crash sound sequence... the locomotive makes these horrendous crashing sounds as it comes to a sudden st...

My New York Central passenger set, headed by a Dreyfuss Hudson streamlined locomotive. As I mentioned in previous blog posts, I came home from the annual Amherst Railway Society's train show empty-handed this year. During our drive back home, I decided to do some model railroad shopping online when we arrived home.  Before we headed to the train show, I put together a pretty good sized list of things I might buy at the show if the price was right. From my experiences at past shows, I knew that I would not find three quarters of the stuff on my list so I made sure I had a pretty lengthy list to improve my odds of coming across something I wanted.  I had products on this wishlist from a number of different scales... N scale, HO scale, O scale (narrow gauge, 2-rail and 3-rail stuff), and even one F scale locomotive. I even had some products on my list which are not scale specific (ie, various power controllers, scenery products, etc). Even with this many products on my w...