Week 238

Sun, Feb 17, 2019 thru Sat, Feb 23, 2019

Sun, Feb 17, 2019

What's going on in the train room?

Length: 00:00:44 sec.

Henry is racing trains...

Length: 00:00:15 sec.

Watch Henry follow his train...

Action photo...

Going around the corner...

Joined by Ida, Emily, and upset Charlie.

Ida Zielke at the controls and keeping her eye on her train.

Here's is the unit coal train.
Mine is the Metra Commuter train.

Mon, Feb 18, 2019

Train Day!

w/Rob Fair 6-8pm 2 hrs.

Rob Fair is working on Melrose Park Platform details.

Here we're checking the clearance on our longest car - the 85' flatcar.
We had to trim a bit off the fence to make room for the clearance.

Here's the fence now in place and rechecking the clearance.

See the triangle section where Rob filled in the gravel filler?

I inspected three cars tonight and put them on the test track ready for their test run on Wednesday.
On Wednesday we'll hand the sheets to Jordan and then make a train with these three cars. 

Norm Zielke bought me the 12v 20w lights now installed.
They work as we expected.

BEFORE

AFTER

Rob Fair stains the trim he trimmed off last week.

Oops!
I inspected 4 cars tonight.
FLASH

No Flash

Tue, Feb 19, 2019

No train activity today.

Wed, Feb 20, 2019

Train Day!
w/Carlos Baez (4-5pm 1 hr.)
Dean Hatzis, Jordan Osborn, Cameron Passaglia (4-5:15pm 1.25 hrs.)

It was a banner night for running trains.
We had three going at one time tonight.
See first video after these photos for a quick look.

Cameron Passaglia in the hole.
He fits quite nicely in this small area.

Cameron Passaglia in the background, with Jordan Osborn coming towards you.

Carlos Baez and Dean Hatzis will finish the Chicago North section tonight.

Back at the control tower are Jordan Osborn and Cameron Passaglia getting ready for tonight's runs.

Carlos Baez coming going in...

A sneak peak at Carlos Baez under the Chicago North section.

Carlos Baez and Dean Hatzis putting in the puzzle pieces.

The test cars being picked up by the test train led by "The Hawk".

A major accident with NO fatalities.
The Metra Commuter was going in the wrong direction and smashed into the westbound CNW unit coal train.

Three trains running at one time.

Length: 00:00:18 sec.

The Three Engineers running the three trains tonight.
Cam has the Metra Commuter.
Jordan has the CNW test train.
Carlos has the CNW unit coal train.

Train maneuvers.

Length: 00:00:19 sec.

A quick look at the three trains.
The Metra goes by pretty quick in the first few frames.

Length: 00:00:06 sec.

Our parting shot.
This will be Carlos Baez's last visit for about 6 weeks while he covers 3rd shift at work.
Dean will be here for about 6 weeks before he heads out for his other hobby.

A nice few from the South Power District looking east toward Chicago.
Global 1 is in the foreground.
Next week Cam will be running an intermodal train.

A very quick look at the South Power District at night.

Length: 00:00:02 sec.

A Metra Commuter and the Test train pass each other.

Length: 00:00:10 sec.

Thu, Feb 21, 2019

Jan had Bible study tonight so I had Jordan come over to work on the RR
for about 1 hour 7:20-8:20pm

Getting ready to add the asphalt layer.
But FIRST, I'll need to add the Clinton Street Extension to the north.
I already did the Clinton St. Extension to the south, now it's time to do a 180 and go the other direction.

First, I'll need to add one layer at a time.

First layer which will bring out the 2x4 to it's proper depth.

Here is layer two and three in place.

Jordan Osborn "Happy Face"

Jordan Osborn "Transition to Sad Face"

Final step is to install the facia.

Fri, Feb 22, 2019

After subbing today I spent some time in the train room:

Clinton Street North extension now complete.

Added the road sub base.
Ready for the "asphalt" layer.
FLASH

Ready for the asphalt layer
No Flash

I decided to remove the wiring under the bridge.
Why?
Because I want to slide in the bridge supports and mount the LED lights to those supports.
They won't slide in with all those wires under the bridge.
So out they come.

Better view of the wires under the bridge with FLASH.

If you're able to look close you'll see I've started to pull out the wires from the switch connectors.

Here you can see the wire is pulled and sitting on the prototype picture laying on the road bed.

I took this photo to show the work area and all the tools and my notebook to make notes on what wire goes where.

Sat, Feb 23, 2019

Final Day for Week 238
Wow! I got a lot done.

I worked from 2-2:30 (.5 hr.) on making an opening for Milwaukee Ave. and Fulton Street in Chicago North.

This was my starting point.
I will be making two openings for the two street to pass under the crossover to Chicago Terminal.

This is the view from the other direction looking through to the closed ends (which will be open soon).

Here you can see the Milwaukee Ave. side is open.
The Fulton St. has begun the process to remove the wood block.

A view from the other side.
That's Milwaukee Ave. to the right and a closed Fulton St. to the left.

Here you can see they are both open. to the other side.

And this is a view from the other side.

Here's how it looks with the "ground" put back in place.

What did I remove from the picture above?

Another view of more progress.

Jordan came over at 2:30pm and stayed until 4pm (1.5 hrs).

Here we're preparing the CNW SD38-2s to move to Global 1 to pick up an intermodal train.

Jordan Osborn taking control.

Jordan getting the SNW SD38-2 ready for an intermodal run.

Length: 00:00:27 sec.

The CNW SD38-2s are backing into position to pick up the waiting intermodal train.

Backing up to couple to the intermodal train.

Length: 00:00:30 sec.

Train is secured and ready for departure.

Leaving Global 1

Length: 00:00:30 sec.

Heading Eastbound under 25th Avenue bridge.

Length: 00:00:31 sec.

Before calling it a day, I returned to the train room and cut some "asphalt" streets for Chicago North.
We'll finish this during Train Day on Monday with Rob Fair and Jordan Osborn.