2019-20 Annual Progress Report

 Happy belated seventh birthday to my layout! I must apologize for the delay. Anyway, I don;t think I need to tell you 2020 has been a crazy year. I hope you all are doing well and staying safe with this pandemic. I've not done all that much on the layout this year, but here's hoping I'm getting my mojo back.

On the motive power front, I've made no further progress on the NS fleet DCC conversion. But, one of my goals last year was repairing my bad-ordered locomotives. I accomplished this and all but 3 of the PRR locomotives are out of service.

There's also not much new in terms of track. However, I have started mocking up Pittsburgh Staging. I'm not in a real rush on this project since I can't hold operating sessions yet, damn pandemic.

Finishing Johnstown was last year's other goal. I knocked that one out of the park. It's done and I'm happy with it.

In last year's progress report, I told y'all I was a bit disheartened that things breaking on the layout. I spent some time this year going around and making a lot of minor repairs. A light here, a DCC jack there, but the cumulative effect was making the layout feel refreshed. 

Let's talk about goals for this year. 

-I'd like to get all track ballasted and painted.

-I'd like to make significant headway on Altoona.

-Continue with small repairs and maintenance.

It's hard to believe the layout is 99% done. While I didn't make a lot of progress this year, the progress over the last seven as been astounding. Here's hoping 2021 is a hell of a lot better than this S show of a year!

Johnstown is Finished

 I finally sucked it up and tackled the last Johnstown project I've been dragging my feet on. I strung the rest of the the high-voltage transmission lines. I'd been putting it off because the lines runs through very difficult to access part of the layout. But, I persevered and got it done. 

I was going to run regular telephone polls too, but decided that would be overkill. It's reasonable that a smallish city like Johnstown would have underground lines. 

So that's it. After three long years, Johnstown is done. That leaves Altoona as the last bit of heavy lifting. Speaking of which...

I dug out my jar of raw umber acrylic and painted the Altoona end. As you can see I've relocated all the scenery supplies and assorted junk formerly residing there beneath the layout. 

As of right now, I'm still not entirely sure what the game plan is for Altoona. Since this yard will be used for operation and there will be a lot of reaching across, I will probably limit structures to the backdrop.  may even cut a hole in the middle of the loops to better facilitate switching. We shall see.

Lighting and Assorted Miscellania

 

I finished wiring up the lights in the remaining Altoona shop buildings. There were four in total, the coaling tower, sandbox, back shop, and an aircraft warning light in the water tower. Unlike the buildings elsewhere in the layout, which use LEDs, these use old Model Power filament bulbs salvaged from my previous layout. Here's hoping they last, because they'll be damn difficult to replace should they fail.

In other news, a few nights ago I fired up the layout for some much-needed playing of choo choos. When my M1 passed through the Gallitzin Tunnel, every car derailed. As I pushed the train through the tunnel, there was something snagging it. Long story short, the wires running to some building lights ended up hanging down over the tracks. The solution was a few stripes of duct tape. 

Last but not least, I built five more 1940s-era automobiles and scattered them around Johnstown. I'd post a pic, but it's lost somewhere on my phone, which seems to be something of a Bermuda Triangle for photos.

Lighting in Altoona

As you can see, the roundhouse is illuminated and not with a battery. I ran wires from the control panel to a pair of barrier strips. The other buildings in the Altoona shop complex already have lights installed and their wires threaded through the layout. I should get them hooked up in fairly short order.

Roundhouse Detailing

Way back when I first built Cornerstone's (Heljan's) Union City Round House kit [Link], I left the rear section of the roof removable.  I also installed overhead lighting in the hopes I would one day detail the interior. Tonight, I did just that.

I took a Woodland Scenics "Train Mechanics" figurine pack my wife bought me years ago and glued 'em in. I must say the overall effect is very cool.

I also spliced the wires for the overhead lights together, drilled holes, and routed them through the layout. In the above photo, the lights are powered with a 9-volt battery. Tomorow's project will be routing power to the Altoona end of the layout.

Back From the Dead Line

 

You recall a few months ago I was lamenting the large number of locomotives I had out of service with various issues. I am happy to report four of them are repaired and back in action. It's amazing how doing one small thing can get my juices flowing and I'm finding myself excited to work on the layout for the first time in a good long while. 

My Atlas Trainmaster was the first locomotive outshopped. It'd sucked a piece of ballast into its gears. The repair was dead simple. Pull the bad truck, carefully rotate the gears until the bind, then back off till you find the offending piece of ballast. The whole deal took maybe five minutes.

Next up was the Broadway Limited Centipedes. The loco also swallowed some ballast. I was dreading taking the trucks apart and just kind of let them sit for a while. Turns out, the trucks aren't that bad. So again, another five-minute repair. Since one centipede can't run without the other, both units were returned to service.

Last but not least was my Broadway Limited E7. These were out of service for years. Some time ago, the derailed, shorted, and cooked their decoder. But, they were warrantied and I got a free replacement. I put it in, but the locos would barely creep with the throttle wide open. I knew it was a decoder problem, so I plopped the A unit onto the programming track. I started by setting CV8 to 008, a factory reset. That did it! All I had to do was re-address the locomotive and that was, as they say, that. 

Four locomotives still await repair, the I1 needs a new tender truck and decoder, the T1 may need to go back to BLI, my Atlas GP7 has a decoder issue and my Lifelike Alco FB needs a complete rebuild. The A unit is useless without the B.

So that's that. I have some cool ideas for finishing Johnstown but I need to look at some lighting options. Stay tunned.

Knowing when to say when

Wow! It's six months since my last entry! I supposed you're wondering where I've been. Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. For one thing, having a three and five-year-old means when I have the time to work on the layout, I don't have the energy. Conversely, when I have energy, I don't have time.

On top of that, I'm just getting kind of bored model railroading. Most of the layout is done now. and I'm just not motivated to finish the remaining project. Mostly I just find myself running the trains. Throw in my writing and my newly-acquired 1965 Chevy Corvair, there's just not much time for trains anymore.

 

 

 

Go ahead, ask me if I've read Ralph Nader's book. I dare you!

And now, onto the real subject of this blog post. We've all been there, it's late at night and the locomotive you're trying to install a decoder in just won't run. You know the darn thing is hooked up right, so why won't it go. You're tired and part of you knows you should call it a night. But you wonder when you're going to have the time or when the house will be this quiet again. So you keep on fighting, getting nowhere. Then pop! The decoder smokes, you fried it.

Folks, I can't tell you how many small problems I've turned into catastrophes because I didn't know when to say "when." It's easier said than done. When you're frustrated, you want to fix it right then and there. But, more often than not stepping away and coming back to it later can give you a fresh perspective. You may find a solution you couldn't when you were tired and frustrated.

So that's my two cents worth. I'm sure I'll be back to work on the layout at some point. I just don;t know when.