Week 181

Week 181

Sunday, January 14, 2018 thru Saturday, January 20, 2018

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Jordan Osborn stopped by with his Dad, Chris Osborn and his friend Josh today.

Josh Jones and Chris Osborn doing some trouble-shooting on the intermodal train.

The second video shows the trouble.

Length: 00:00:24 sec.

Length: 00:00:13 sec.

Chris Osborn taking the trouble car and tightening the truck screw.

Chris Osborn in action...

After Jordan, Josh, and Chris left to watch a movie, I returned to paint the scenery an earthtone brown.

Both sections now painted.

And from the opposite view.

A close up of my failed repair of the chassis on one of the intermodal cars.

Monday, January 15, 2018

Train Day with Rob Fair, Jordan Osborn, & Chris Osborn
Lots accomplished tonight.
Check this out...

Rob Fair continues to work on the rewire and relighting of the Proviso Yard Spot lights.

Jordan Osborn in the "over-tired" zone.

Chris Osborn working on correcting the buckled track near the UP engine terminal.

I went around the layout to take pictures of disturbed track mainly caused by buckling.
Not sure what's really causing the buckling but we're blaming the atmosphere.

You can see how the track has lifted up over the ballast.
Not good.

Some wavy track may be cured with a few more spikes.

I will come back on Wednesday and correct this buckle.
Actually I may take the corrected picture and  post along side this one.

More wavy track on the elevated mainline.

Even worse.
BEFORE repair.

Much better.
AFTER repair

Now some found in the CNW Proviso yard.

Yes, more of the same.

This is along the NW curve approacing the elevated section.

Another view of the same picture shown above.
BEFORE repair.

Much better.
AFTER repairs.

Even wavy track on the mainline.
How can this be?

Chris Osborn worked very diligently on the NW curve.
Really needed some TLC, which Chris provided.

Chris Osborn is serious about his work.
He's not afraid to get on his hands and knees to get the job done!
Note how we rigged the flashlight to provide some overhead lighting.

One of the wavy tracks in the yard.
You can see in this photo how much it overlapped.

Looks the same, but this is a different track in the same yard.

This is the overlap found in the main wave you saw in the two photos shown above.

This shows the repair.
I'll take a picture looking both ways to see the difference.
You can see the two pictures above side by side in the BEFORE & AFTER sequence.

Length: 00:00:21 sec.

Rob Fair finished rewiring the Proviso Yard Spots.
The glue is drying now and will be installed next week.

Jordan Osborn trying to salvage the night.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

I decided to mark the tracks that had the buckles or waves.
Here's the code:
Red denotes the buckle/wave
Yellow denotes where the joint needs to be trimmed to fit
Green denotes the final adjusted joint.

Note the following pictures and their current status according to code.

This is the only track I fixed on Monday.
I removed the wave at the red mark and adjusted and reattached the rail gap at the green mark.

This is an interesting fix.
In order to match the coupler heights I had to switch both wheels from either 36 to 33 or 33 to 36.
It will work for these two, but I still need to test them against the standard gauge.

Red denotes where the track heaved.
Yellow denotes the gap that will need to be trimmed to allow for rail expansion.

Same thing here.
Red denotes the wave.
Yellow shows where the gap will be adjusted.

In this picture the track heaved, so the red shows where that happened.
The yellow will show where the gaps will be adjusted so it won't happen again.

I've taken the wave out and now I'm ready to trim the rails.
I haven't yet, so that's why the tack is yellow.

Same here in this photo.
When I finish I will replace the yellow tack with a green tack.
I will also mark the green tack with the week# it was fixed and documented.
That will be used as a reference for next year so we can see if it happens again at the same spot.
Please NO!

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Train Day!
We had quite a crew today.
Carlos 4-5:15pm (1.25) Dean 4-5:30pm (1.5) Chris 4:15-6pm (1.75) Jordan 4:15-5:30pm (1.25)
Here's what we did...

Carlos Baez and Dean Hatzis work on the "turf" as you enter the layout.

Preparing the surface for tonight's work.

Chris Osborn prepares to repair the kinked trackage.

Jordan Osborn mesmorized by his new iphone.

Carlos is gluing down the grass foam.
While Dean touches up the ballast in the bridge section.

Another view of the team working on their tasks.

Length: 00:00:30 sec.
Checking out the intermodal operation.
Still having problems.

Chris Osborn will end up fixing four sections of track affected by heaves and kinks.

Nice work tonight, men!

Length: 00:00:21 sec.

Chris Osborn stops by to check on the work in the South Power District.
Carlos and Dean give him a full report.

Chris goes back and begins repair on sections 2 and 3.

Chris remained in his "safe zone" while Jordan tries to pose for a Father/Son photo shoot.

Chris Osborn decides to tackle one more section before calling it a night.
He finishes work on section 4.

Chris points out the area that was repaired.

The red thumbtack denotes where the track kinked.
The green thumbtack down the line shows where we cut the rails to create gaps for possible further joint expansion.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

No train activity today.
Instead, Charles "Charlie" Norman Zielke was born at 3:55am this morning.

Friday, January 19, 2018

No train activity today.
Pretty much preoccupied with new baby in the family.

Saturday, January 20, 2018
No train activity today either.
Same reasons...