Scattered Thoughts . . .

A fter deciding upon a track elevation for our garden railroad, I decided to see what the locomotive looks like on track at the specified elevation in the garden.   Here, below, is a front view.  I still need to install the marker lights.  I'm waiting on new light bulbs to arrive.  The original bulbs were only 6v bulbs (I think...  one blew out at around 9-10v) but it is easier to work with 12v bulbs.  The DCC circuit board I'm using outputs 12v for the lighting.  I could have added resistors to the 6v bulbs but preferred to keep all the bulbs in the locomotive the same.  Consequently, I have yet another delay because I'm now waiting on new bulbs to arrive. This weathering is looking pretty good now.  What used to be a shiny plastic, toy-like body with brightly molded-in color now appears to be a weathered metal locomotive.  And, I completely changed the color(s) to make this a very unique locomotive. I just noticed that the rear w...

I 'm not feeling the greatest today so I opted to move to a different area of this locomotive project.  I'm not feeling well enough to be making decisions on weathering so I decided that was out pretty early this morning.  Anything requiring a judgement call is out of the question today so that eliminated any further weathering today.  This meant it was time to start working on something that has a pretty firm plan like getting the tender ready for all the electronics. Fortunately, there is plenty of room inside this tender for everything I will be adding to it.  This will make this conversion to battery power quite easy. First, I installed the big speaker for the sound.  Then I installed the fuse-holder and the On-Off-On switch.  Then I placed the battery inside the tender too to ensure I still have plenty of room for the DCC circuit board.  This circuit board is shockingly small so I know I have plenty of room it is just a matter of where I will posi...

I 've stayed indoors for the most part today.  We've had passing thunderstorms throughout the day today and the heat and humidity is high.  It is still bearable out there but I have no desire to be struck by lightning so I've stayed indoors and done some detail painting. (NOTE:  Later in the day, some severe thunderstorms passed through and the temperature dropped more than 20 degrees and stayed down around 70 degrees for the rest of the day!) For this model railroading project, I am really wanting a nice looking cab so I'm spending a little extra time on various parts of the cab.  Today, I worked a bit on detailing the backhead in the cab with paints and some extra parts.  Now that I see this photo, I can see that I still have a bit more work to do with detail brushes but this is looking great so far... I'm installing a new bell and a new whistle on this locomotive.  Here is the bell, below.  This bell came to me as an unpainted kit so I needed to pai...

I 've spent the past few days adding more coats of paint to my locomotive project.  This is a large scale steam locomotive so it is a very large model and it is requiring a lot more paint than I expected.  I've been delayed while waiting on paint to arrive (the USPS is dog-slow lately).  Regardless of a few little problems, this project is slowly coming along. A couple of days ago, I painted everything using Krylon Anvil Gray.  I was hoping for a charcoal neutral color but this Anvil Gray turned out to be more closely resembling something I would call Midnight Blue.  Midnight Blue was definitely not in my plan for this project so I had to order a different color (and wait a bit longer for it to finally arrive).  I couldn't find a gray tone that I liked because they were all too light in tone so I settled for a flat black.  I plan to weather this locomotive so starting with a neutral black will work even though my preference was for a neutral dark gray/...

I t stopped raining long enough today to paint (primer only) all the locomotive parts.  It was still overcast most of the day but the radar was not showing any rain so today was the day to start painting all the locomotive parts.  I set up a couple of saw horses with an old piece of plywood as a makeshift table and then placed all the parts on the plywood.   I just barely covered everything with a nice coat of primer before the can went dry.  Perhaps I should have purchased two cans of primer!  I had only purchased a single can of the charcoal black paint too so now I know one can won't be enough especially since I'll be painting multiple coats of the charcoal.   All the parts fit nicely on this piece of plywood... Here are the leading wheels... The cab without the window panes installed... Below is the lower half of the locomotive including the driving wheels.  These wheels no long need to conduct electricity to power the motor because I am ...

The nine feet of used track that I had ordered online the other day arrived today so I was finally able to run this large Fn3 scale steam locomotive on some track for the first time.  A couple of days ago, I spent a little time cleaning and lubricating this old steam locomotive.  I had tested it, running, while it was lying on its side but I had yet to run it on any track...  until today.  When the track arrived, it was in need of cleaning.  The rails were a solid dark brown color indicating they would not conduct nearly enough of the low voltage electricity needed to power any locomotive.  The rails appeared to be completely oxidized.  Actually, it appears as though this track was barely used and probably spent most of its life on a display shelf which is likely what its primary use will be at our home too (along with occasional test runs).  After a few minutes of cleaning, the tops of the rails were nice and shiny again. I didn't clean any of th...

This morning, we did a short hike in Montpelier to Hubbard Park.  I'll write more about that and share some photos in another blog entry.  After our hike, we went to lunch at Sarducci's.  Next to Sarducci's is a single railroad line used primarily for transporting granite.  The kids were hoping we would see a granite train coming through the city while we were there.  The chances of this happening are very slim but, who knows?  Maybe we could get lucky... While eating lunch, we heard a train coming through.  Unfortunately, we were seated on the porch overlooking the river on the opposite side of the building where the railroad tracks are located so we couldn't see the train.  We did hear him...  we heard the rumble of the engine...  we felt the vibrating building as the train passed by...  we heard the horn...  and we heard the clanging bell as it slowly crept across streets.  The kids were kind of bummed that we couldn't ...