Week 283

Sunday, December 29, 2019 thru Saturday, January 4, 2020

NTA = No Train Activity

Sunday, December 29, 2019

Special Guests: Jordan Osborn's cousins John & Kurt

l.to r. Kurt & John

l. to ri. John, Kurt & Jordan

Monday, December 30, 2019

Train Day!

with Rob Fair (6-7:30pm 1.5 hrs) and Josiah Crockett

Getting started on tonight's project.
Removing mainline track and inserting crossovers by Rob's right hand.

 SPECIAL GUESTS:

My daughter, Natalie Crockett and her daughter, Lisette Crockett.
And, of course, Rob Fair!

Rob Fair preparing the cork roadbed between the mainlines.

Natalie took a picture so you will see a rare picture of me in my blog.

Rob Fair checks the feeder wires for continuity.

Finishing up the added crossovers.

There you go!
Mission Accomplished!

A look around the layout...Josiah in control.

Length: 00:00:29 sec.

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

SPECIAL GUESTS

Granddaughter, Ida Zielke and grandson, Josiah Crockett.
Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Happy New Year!

Lots of SPECIAL GUESTS today:

Mom & Dad came for New Year's Lunch and then after a round of Rook (card game) we visited the trainroom.
Mom & Dad are great encouragers for me and the trains.
Mom always says, "Wow, this is unbelievable."
Dad scratches his head and says, "I could never do it."

Ed, Amber, Clark, Lincoln & Nora came to visit Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Berg this afternoon. Dad said, "Let's go see Curt's trains." Amber stayed back with Mom at 415 and the rest came back to play trains with me!
Oh what fun it is! Check this out...

Dad, Ed & Clark check out Melrose Park.

Nora drove the Steam Excursion while Lincoln engineered the CNW unit coal train.

The three amigos still checking out Melrose Park.

Jordan Osborn joins us as Nora and Lincoln keep their eyes and hands on the contols.

Clark and Ed make their way to Chicago...

Check out Lincoln's animated Christmas sweater...

Length: 00:00:24 sec.

Now the three siblings work together at the Control Tower.

Here they are again keeping occupied.

Jordan Osborn says good-bye for the evening.

Later today I was able to make some time to wire up the new mainline crossover switches...

The first step is to attach the throw bar to the switch.
I also had to secure the switch machine to the track/bed.

I had to super-glue an addon to the throw bar on this switch. 

I had to super-glue an add on to this one too.

This one didn't need any special adjustments.

This one was a little tricky. I needed to do a bit more super-glue for this one to make the switch work properly.

Here are all the tools I needed to complete the project.

Finally, before wiring I had to drill the hole for the wire.

Next was to secure the wire above and below.
Here is A2 attached.

B3 attached.

B2 attached.

A3 attached.

And here are all the wire connections attached on the bottom from each corresponding switch machine above.

Thursday, January 2, 2020

NTA

Friday, January 3, 2020

More work on tree "planting and preparation".

I cut more of the dried plants at church and getting them ready for spray painting.

Laying them out...

Saturday, January 4, 2020

We had a sleepover last night with the Zielke grandkids (Mae, Henry & Ida).  When they woke up this morning, Ida wanted to play trains. Of course, I was overjoyed. :)

Here's Ida checking out her train...

Length: 00:00:09 sec.

Ida at work at the control tower.

Two freight trains passing each other.

And the Metra Commuter coming around the bend.

After we dropped off the grandkids, I prepared the plants for tree painting.

I added the styrofoam sheets to protect the skirting around the layout.
Sorry for the blurry picture. I must have moved.

I painted one side and then flipped them over to paint the other side.
The bottom side is painted and now here the plants are flipped over and ready for the second coat.

And her are the finnished product. Ready for cutting to size and installation.

I put the vairous sizes on different white foam boards for easy access for "planting".

Here's the start of the corner grove.
I can see I'll need to do some more "filling in" so no gaps show through.
I'm a little surprised on how brown it looks. I may need to spray paint them a bit more.
We'll see.

Week 282

Sunday, December 22, 2019 thru Saturday, December 28, 2019

Key: NTA = No Train Activity

Sunday, December 22, 2019

My current project is to move the crossover switches as shown on this diagram from B2A3 and B3A2 to before the B1 A1 mainline switches. See next diagram...

Here's the diagram updated with the new location of the crossovers B3A2 and B2A3.

Now, let's go under the layout.
I labeled the wires for the switch machines after I removed the "guts" to install Milwaukee Ave and Fulton Street in North Chicago downtown.
What you see here is the wire stubs for B2A3.

And here is the wire stubs for the other crossover A2B3.

I knew I would need a point of reference for what wires went where so I drew this diagram to help me remember what worked. See tomorrow's update for more on this project.

Monday, December 23, 2019

But first, we have some special guests...

No train day today, but we did have some train activity with Henry and Ida Zielke.

Engineers Henry and Ida Zielke!
They did such a good job tonight!

I tried to capture Ida's excitement.

Length: 00:00:29 sec.

Ida is the Engineer for the CNW Unit Coal Train.
Here is the train running through the South Power District.

Henry counting cars...I love it!

Length: 00:00:20 sec.

Project Update:
I mounted the terminal blocks that will be the hub of the wire stubs for A2 and B2 as you saw earlier in the blog.
Also you can see I updated the diagram and included "Lake Street".

Here's the Terminal Block mounted below where the new crossover switches will be installed.
Tomorrow I'm hoping to get the wire stubs hooked up to the lower blocks.

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

NTA

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Merry Christmas!

Thursday, December 26, 2019

I had a gap of time to do some under-the-layout wiring.
Here we go...

Look closely at the drawing and match the terminal plugs with the drawing.
Note: I took out the green wire and replaced it with an orange wire.

Now you can match up the terminal plugs to the drawing.
From left to right on the terminal block which corresponds to the drawing top to bottom.

See it?

Friday, December 27, 2019

I did some fall cleanup at church this morning and cut down some "trees".
Here they are getting ready to be transformed into models.

On Monday (see Week 283) I'll show you what these plants look like in the "wild".

First, I put them upside down to spray paint the bottom black/brown.

Then I put them right side up in a pile and started painting the tops green.

I bought three cans of paint today at ACE.
I used the lighter green. The darker green I will either return for the lighter or use it on another set of trees to mix with the current set. The final paint can I'll use to seal the deal.

Here are all the tops painted the light color green.

I like the way it looks now, but let's see what it looks like in place tomorrow...

Saturday, December 28, 2019

Today is tree day...

Check this out...

Here's the opening scene...a grove of trees near the old West Chicago station (with flash).

Same grove different view (no flash).

This is the same picture as the one above, with some minor changes.
What are they?

 Answers shown at the bottom of today's blog.

Same grove - back to original view (this time no flash).

The next series will show the progression of tree placement & planning.

Next, I laid out the tree optioins before me.
I will plant the small ones intermitant among the tall ones.

One my way...grove is growing...inventory is shrinking.

Another view of the progress.
Note the dead tree I included in this grove.

Since I was doing trees today I thought about adding some to the South Power District.
Here are some just above the Kedzie Avenue feeder alley.

And here I added some between the tracks and the pond.
I'm anxious to hear what you think when you see these in person.

Answer to question about what changed between pictures:
1. Removed drill
2. Removed glue bottle
3. Added tree to the left side of the grove
4. Added flash