Crandall, dirty rail etc, surely could be the trouble. All the dust and ?? from construction doesn't help. Good there's no voltage drop. Cooler weather's on the way as the summer winds down. Guess we'll look forward to some future progress soon.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
Crandell, I am sure you have checked but I will ask anyway. Have you checked for low spots on the rails? I know you mainly run steam and they might be losing contact on the low section.
Now get cracking! You seemed to have cause a shortage of Atlas Flex Track!
Ken
I hate Rust
cudaken Crandell, I am sure you have checked but I will ask anyway. Have you checked for low spots on the rails? I know you mainly run steam and they might be losing contact on the low section. Now get cracking! You seemed to have cause a shortage of Atlas Flex Track! Ken
Crandell's the one who caused the shortage of track and cork roadbed? I knew it, I knew it!!!
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
Crandell I have just begun using a product called never stall or neverstall can't remember precisely but it really works well. A few drops on the layout rails and things run fantastic, dirty rails and all. Due to this great product sound units, dc and dcc run with out a hitch. I have a post in another section regarding this on our club layout if you are interested. Benefits of a club layout.
Your build thread is one of the ones I follow every chance I get.
I am interested, J. Rob. Please post a link because others observing here are sure to be interested as well. Thanks for raising it.
Crandell
Dear Crandell
I've enjoyed reading this thread. It's all over my head, but I've enjoyed the interaction and progress updates.
Thank you for giving me a very enjoyable hour this evening. I look forward to reading about your progress in the future.
--Jaddie
Come on Crandell, do something!
Here is a link to one of the web sites selling the stuff. I purchased some from a local hobby shop that recommended the product. Our club is in an old dusty building with poor climate control that is in the process of being given some climate control upgrades. We are only slightly ahead of a garden railroad in the dust and dirt area. We run track cleaners regularly but track is still filthy very quickly, also there is construction and continued refinements of scenery going on at a continuous rate. After applying the stuff in a few places and allowing the trains to track it around the layout stalling ends and slow speed operations improve as well. My next test of this miracle product will be in the yard area where we have some frogs that are as yet unpowered as well as track that has not been run very much.
In short the only thing that was done was a few drops of this product on the rails in areas of stalling and the issues of stalling disappeared. The product was not used with a rail cleaning or loco cleaning or any other attempt to correct the issue. It seems to work fantastically and not produce a negative effect on traction. We ran 100 car trains on the club layout with 3 units and 85 car trains with 2 units curve radius 30 inches, grades 2% and in one short tight section the grade exceeds 3.5%.
The stuff works and it only takes a bit. There may be other products that will produce the same results, I have not tried them so can not comment on any comparisons.
It's been a month, do something on the layout already!
Samuel A. Kelly
I can draw pictures with my keyboard!
-------- ( It's a worm)
If you are not going to build anything, sale the flex track you have stocked up!
Hum, I thinking he went the way of slot cars my self.
It won't be long, friends. This time of year the weather is nice and I am putting the yard and garden to bed for the winter. Lots to do. Raspberries and cherry tomatoes to harvest and freeze, hoses to drain, coil, and put away, water pipes to blow out before frost (mine are lying on the grass, so they'll get nipped as soon as there is frost), more wood to chop, caulking to do here and there, rip up tired and non-productive plants and place them on the compost heap, and then there's the Honey-do list.
One thing that I had to get done over the summer was to remove the old layout in the basement entirely, but with a view to saving as much of the materials as possible. Once it was out, I had to wash the walls with TSP, rinse, prime twice, and then paint two layers of the top coat. Recently, had to fumigate the basement, and now we are going to rearrange everything, including cables for TV and internet, move my desk, and generally restoring the house for the rainy/windy/snow squall season looming. Had two cords of firewood delivered, and it had to be piled in our side-shed, except that it needed mucking out itself. So, lots on my plate, apart from starting another on-line course. I figure I will be back in the loft by the first of October, Deo volente. I can feel the spark coming back. That can't be a bad sign.
I wonder if I should put up some of my rail stock holdings for auction....
Crendell, its Oct 10th, have you been busy building in the loft?
I know what you mean, the summer for me was busy, and I didn't even make it into the train room for 2 months. But my spark is coming back, we had a light covering of snow recently. For some reason, cold nasty weather and trains go together like peaches and cream.
Michael, I have come to a potentially serious obstacle. I have been informed that my employment will be terminated when my winter course ends next spring. My wife is ailing and will possibly have to stop working. With that double whammy, we may be faced with a quick sale of our home and moving across the Strait and up into the south-central interior of the Province where living is much less costly.
Living seaside where we are, with a million dollar view, was always a tenuous proposition. I inherited the property, and my father warned us that you need deep pockets to keep such a property. I have rather shallow pockets being on a military pension, and I still have a chunk of debt from looking after all my daughters after I retired. They have since been launched, but we still owe the money. The sale of the property will allow us to be released, and still have lots to get a nice property in the semi-arid part of the Central Interior.
This means it doesn't seem sensible to keep working on the layout. I am pretty sure I can salvage it intact since I built it in modular fashion, but it will be that much more difficult, and wasteful, shipping fragile details and scenery. I can stop now and ship much more robust items that will withstand some mishandling.
However, I think I will tackle a removable mountain to see how that goes and looks, so stand by....
Well. That sucks.
Terry in NW Wisconsin
Queenbogey715 is my Youtube channel
Crandell,
So sorry to hear about your obstacles. Life does get in the way of the best laid plans and when that happens we need to step back and do what is best.
Take care and hope that mountain is a whopper!!
There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.....
saronaterry Well. That sucks. Terry in NW Wisconsin
Too say the least. Sorry for the luck Crandell. Hope it works out for you and your wife. It sounds like you have already got it figured out.
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
Crandell, I sure hope the best for you and your wife as you are faced with many potential changes in your life. The hope is that when one door closes and new one is opened and you will experience the good life thru that new door.
Gale
In Illinois
Geared Steam saronaterry Well. That sucks. Terry in NW Wisconsin Too say the least. Sorry for the luck Crandell. Hope it works out for you and your wife. It sounds like you have already got it figured out.
Gidday, couldn't express it myself.
Best wishes, the Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Good luck moving forward. With what's happened over the past few weeks, personal health and the health of loved ones is FAR more important than finishing a layout. I know you'll be back once everything settles back down again. Painful though it may be to leave the old behind, anything that relieves excess stress in your life will ultimately be good.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
That's very bad news, man!
Quite a bit of time between now and spring, though - maybe things will start looking up.
Whatever happens, just make sure you stick around here. Place wouldn't be the same without you.
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
The big ones are known as rats. I sincerely do hope that you are not plagued (note that word...) by rats...
Rich C.
Thanks ever so much, fellas! I am very pleased with your good wishes.
Nothing is dire or set in concrete, but I have never been one to let fantasy and dreams get in the way of my screaming brain's warnings. I can see the writing on the wall, and it says the jig is probably up. We have done well, if run through a lot of money, to live in this place and to enjoy its views, acre, beach path, and aircraft displays so close to the runway. We always new we were not going to go from here directly to 'the home'; there would be at least one intervening move.
I agree with the sentiment expressed by Mark that one needn't just dread and mark time until the inevitable. As I stated in my last post, I don't see why I can't figure out ways to continue, but to make it that much more deconstructable so that I can enjoy the build, but safely remove and transport almost all of it, including lift-off mountain structures and such. As Granny always said, "Where there's a will, there's a way."
It is a rain day, signifying, with the accompanying blustery off-shore wind, that the fall is truly here. I have to blow out the outdoor water lines to the shower and garden, wrap the pump 'well' housing with plastic wrap to keep the colder sub-zero winds from actually penetrating the housing and freezing the piples, and pull up the last of the summer vines and plants. I will do that this weekend, and commence constructing scenery anew by Monday. I'll post photos and commentary.
Thanks again, gentlemen and ladies.
Crandell.
Sorry to hear of your temporary setbacks and that everything all works out well in the end.
I consider myself to be one of your many online/Forum friends and I always look forward to seeing your input on the many topics that you chime in on. Just do what you can, when you can and we all will be happy to read about it.
All the best to She Who Must Be Obeyed and yourself. Stay safe.
Blue Flamer
Well, Blue Flamer, with that warm comment (and I am touched ), I guess I should get back to work. And thanks to all who have continued to support me during the drought.
Now, five full months after my last afternoon in the loft, I decided how to do the one smaller mountain, the one that will be in the far right corner. I posted a photo showing a double-wide portal with the stepped retaining walls with tracks beginning to rise up the grade toward the truss bridge under the large glass block window. (Turns out it isn't glass, but plastic, and something broke an outer wall of one of the blocks and it began to fill with water over the past winter. I had to bore into it low using mm-thick drill bits and let the rather murky water drain.)
Anyhoo, just inches behind that double-wide portal is the separation between the long yard module and the corner module that will hold most of the mountain. I figure to create a seam over the module join. So, rising around the portal and retaining walls, back and stopping just at the join, I hot glued strips of aluminum window screen and supported it with custom-cut scrap ends of 1X2. It looks like so:
Then I had to mix five separate batches of ground goop and spread them over the screen, except I wanted to do it more seamlessly than on the last layout. I think it worked...I have to be more patient, and promised myself not to rush these things. I then sprayed the still wet (learned not to let it dry before doing this) ground goop with a diluted yellow glue mixture and sprinkled on some blended turf and coarse turf.
You can see the ground goop and on the far side only the blended turf was done when I took the image.
Next I must build the frame for the rest of the mountain. I think I will use a perimeter frame with crescents of plywood as the 'rafters'. I will have to figure out how to brace it, too.
That is one big pile of ground goop that you have there. It looks pretty good even with only the turf on it.
By the way, don't forget that the Lotto Max is $50 million tonight + 24 extra $1 million prizes so make sure that you have a ticket or three. I know the odds are REALLY SLIM if you buy a ticket, but if you DON'T buy a ticket, they're even slimmer. At least that's what I keep telling myself. AND, someone has to win it eventually. If it's you, you wont have to do a de-construct job on your layout.
All the best,
Blue Flamer.
Lotteries are a tax on people who are bad at math.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
I have popped in on this thread now and again to watch "the master at work", but have never commented.
I am sorry to hear of your trials and tribulations, they come to all walks of life.
Perhaps it is better in the longer run anyway if the house is a handfull. A teacher once told "the only thing more expensive to own than a car to own is a house". Better to be out of the house now than forced out to the "home" as you put it. Or to be forced "to the street" in "poverty", LOL. Even our trailer home, now 29 years old is costing a bundle to fix and repair for us comparatively and we are going broke doing it. We may never have a house, but are now thinking maybe a new trailer won't be so bad if we can arrange that, but then 25 years later for it, we would be even more in to senior years and maybe just as broke!.ANY house will need repairs and maitenance that may require "deep pockets" to it's owner.
I, when I have a MRRIng space with a house over it {or at least a bigger room for it}, will build mine so it can come down if need be. I have a very small one now, but to build a big permenant one can be disappointing when life deals a changing blow.
I am the "keeper of the flame" in the diner..the prayer candle flame, that is. I will say an extra prayer for your ailing wife with healing thoughts.
The Best of luck to you and keep us posted on your transition!
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
Everyone's posting using tiny little fonts. (I think I know what happened.) Is this a secret conversation?
Tom
[Edit: Well, I take it back. I don't know why it's doing this. I had to change the post to the #3 font size but my signature is still in #2 font size. Weird. ]
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Thanks, Galaxy.
Tom, in these hard economic times, our hosts are trying to preserve bandwidth. This but one of the many cost-cutting measures they have implemented recently.
PS...I paid extra for this post's font size.