Week 92

Week 92

Sunday, April 24, 2016 - Saturday, April 30, 2016

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Working each day on one thing.

Today I painted the "wire box" Dean Hatzis installed on Wednesday.

Check this out...

 First, I painted the box sky blue.

 Then I noticed it didn't  line up evenly on the corner.

See the slight gap on the top side?

Next, I inserted a spacer to bring the box level to the outside corner.

Do you see the spacer 1x2 just above the blue line?

More tomorrow...

Monday, April 25, 2016

I painted the rails tonight.
I laid the BEFORE/AFTER pictures side by side.
As you will see below:

AFTER

BEFORE

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Tonight I cleaned the rest of the mainline rails.

The rails are the left have been cleaned.
The rails on the right...not!

 Both cleaned.

 Ditto.

 Cleaned up to the road way.

Finished.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

TRAIN DAY!
4-5:30pm

We made sure all the spray painting was done tonight since Dean was absent and that wouldn't be too good for him. Isn't that thoughtful of us?

Ed Nelson, Carlos Baez, Jordan Osborn, and me rounded out the train crew tonight.

Here's what we got accomplished with each man doing his part.

Ed Nelson back at the workbench working on the track bumpers.

Carlos Baez (Dr. Carlos) was redirected to troubleshooting tonight.
I had derail problems most evident on the well cars due to the improper elevation of the installed switch machines: way too high.
Later in the blog you'll notice his detailed work to solve the problem.

Jordan Osborn and I sifted "coal" into smaller granules.

WHAT'S ON YOUR WORKBENCH THIS WEEK?

 Well, I added my old laptop from work.
You can't make it out in the picture but it's on a website that converts scale units to actual units.

 Ed Nelson finishing up the track bumpers.
You can see the two bumpers completed tonight with the two he completed last week.
Nice work, Ed!

Carlos Baez making some finishing touches on his troubleshooting project.

 Ed Nelson went back to the mainline to insert missing rr ties.

Jordan Osborn posing for another picture.

Length: .40s
Watch as we tested the intermodal train going over the correctly mounted switch machines.
Thanks Dr. Carlos!

 Carlos Baez testing crossover #3.

Ed Nelson never stops working. Here he is installing missing ties.
Jordan Osborn is in the back ground running test trains over crossover #3.
(See Video above)

 I wanted to capture the detail behind Dr. Carlos' work.
Check out the jog in the wire (paper clip) he made after he installed the switch machine in a lower position to avoid hitting the underbody of the well cars when passing over.
The other piece of wire/paper clip is to keep the original wire from moving in the opening.

 A similar installation on the other crossover switch machine.
Excellent work, Dr. Carlos, excellent work!

Here's a bird's eye view of the adjusted switch machine.

 The same view different switch machine.

I missed painting some sections of track.
Carlos noticed some black ties were still visible.
Those all had to be spray painted brown.
Tomorrow I'll need to clean more track because I missed quite a bit.
Even on the mainline! UGH!

Week91

Week 91

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

TRAIN DAY!

Our latest and greatest accomplishments

 Dean Hatzis installing the electrical box cover.

 Ed Nelson was assigned the track bumpers.

 Ed Nelson working the details on the track bumpers with some help from Dean.

 Hard to see, but those parts are really small and break easily.

 A look at Dean's handiwork.

I will paint this later in the week and you won't even know it was there.

 Dean and I took some time to lay the yard ladder at UP Proviso Yard.

Ed Nelson finished three track bumpers.

It was a work of determination and detail.

Week 90

Week 90

Begins Sunday, April 10, 2016

My goal this week is to do one project a day this week.

The first project of the week is to install the dome lights in the Metra/RTA Commuter Cars/Cab.

Here's the step by step...

BEFORE

What's on your workbench this week?

 I laid out the cars and the parts.

 The light fixture to the left should be flipped and connect with the tabs shown on the top car 

(I wish I could figure out how to insert an arrow to  point out the silver tab)

 Next I soldered a delicate metal strip to the contact point.

 I folded the strip to insure contact with the silver tab.

 Another look.

 Then I flipped the light fixture and installed on the ceiling of the Commuter Coach/Cab.

 Here are two of the three installed light bars.

Here are all three installed.

I only had three and now all are installed.

Now let's see if they work.

First I took this video:

Length: .31s

Next I tried to capture some night shots.

Not so good, but maybe you'll get the affect.

One of the Coach Cars.

 The other Coach Car.

And finally, the Cab car.

 Parked at Union Station.

One attempt at a night shot.

Another attempt at a night shot at Union Station.

And finally...

AFTER

What's on your workbench this week?

Dome Light Installation Project Complete.

Monday, April 11, 2016

What's on your workbench tonight?

 Tonight I'm going to start a few-day-long project.
I'm going to electrify the two crossovers in the NE Power District.
I laid out all my electronic switch machines to find two that would work AND would fit.

I found several that would work well, but chose the ones in the next pictures because they worked best.

 If you look closely you can see how the switch plates are located on the wrong side.
I had to switch them to the other side (see last picture).

Here I laid the switch machines in place.
I haven't moved the switch plates to the other side...yet.

In this last picture you can see I've switched the plates to the other side and temporarily installed the switch machines. I will need more time with this project before completion. Hopefully that will happen in this week 90 session.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

So far so good. Each day getting something done.
Nothing new on my workbench tonight.
In fact, I started at the control tower...

here we go...

 A bird's eye view of the switch machines for the two crossovers in the NE Power District.
I already wired them up to an 8-wire cable.

Here's what it looks like underneath.
The wires are connected just in front of the junction box you see the bottom of in this picture.

Length: 1m.
I took a quick video of what I wanted to accomplish tonight.

 Unfortunately the cable I used wasn't long enough to go under the table.
So I had to splice the cable half way up the wall.
I have a feeling Carlos will have me repull another cable.
I will have to agree with him because it doesn't look very "clean".
Maybe we could build a cabinet for this cable group and hide the whole thing?

 Yeah, this is what it looks like from a distance.
Not too good.

I used the cable extension and wired it to this terminal block under the table.
Just above this location are the two switch machines that I'll use to switch the one set of crossovers.

One last shot.
This shows the proximity of the two terminal blocks I installed tonight.

TRAIN DAY!
Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Ed called and said he wasn't feeling well so decided it best to stay put at home.
Jordan, Dean, and Carlos came ready to roll.

 Jordan Osborn at his best - at the controls.

 Carlos Baez installed all the ground throws at California/WeGo yard.

 Dean Hatzis finished the ends of the maintenance tracks Metra California Ave. yard.

Two Men working on the RR.

 With Jordan Osborn in between.

 Unfortuately I had to leave early.
Carlos wired up one of the crossover's switch machines.
(See Friday, April 15, 2016 for an update - bottom of this blog)

 A view of the ground throws looking NW.

 Same ground throws now looking SE.

 Dean's work at the end of the maintenance tracks at Metra California Ave. Yard.

 Another look.

 Finally, looking NW through the maintenance shop.

And the last shot of the night, looking through the other end of the maintenance shop
(view is looking SE).

Friday, April 15, 2016
This video is priceless.
Check out the crossovers in operation!
You won't believe who the operator is!
You'll have to watch the entire video to solve this mystery...

Length: .16s
You won't have to wait tooooo long.