Week 270

Sunday, September 29, 2019 thru Saturday, October 5, 2019

Sunday, September 29, 2019

NTA
Family time and Bears Game at 3:25pm

Monday, September 30, 2019

Train Day!

Rob Fair with special guest, Faith Fair.

Also Jordan Osborn working from 6-7:30pm 1.5 hours.

My favorite "Can you see?" perspective.
Can you see Faith?

Rob Fair working on the GE AC6000 adding couplers.
Jordan Osborn running Train Simulator game.

Close up of Rob Fair hard at work.

In the meantime, Faith finds ways to build her own empire.

Back at the workbench watching Rob put a spring in the GE AC6000 coupler.

Jordan Osborn checking out specs on the Train Simulator

Jordan Osborn playing the Train Simulator game.
Rob Fair working on the GE AC6000
and Faith Fair checking out the sights.

Length: 00:00:21 sec.

Watching the Intermodal heading west bound through Proviso Yard and beyond.

Length: 00:00:30 sec.

Another view of the west bound Intermodal traveling through Proviso Yard.
Don't be afraid of the very mean look from Jordan Osborn...he's just messing around.

Length: 00:00:27 sec.

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

NTA

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Train Day!
w/Cameron Passaglia from 4-5:30pm 1.5 hrs.

First things first.
Cam Passaglia got the Train Simulator game up and running.

We'll be working under Chicago Downtown today.
We have two faulty signals to replace so we'll work on separating the connected wires underneath today.

Here is Cam hard at work.

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Jan had Bible study tonight so I worked about 1.5 hours on the new traffic signals under Chicago downtown.

Here are the wires for the replacement traffic light with the wires all connected and soldered together.
The black is the liquid to keep them insulated.

Out with the OLD...

Length: 00:00:28 sec.

...In with the NEW.

Length: 00:00:28 sec.

Here's all the wiring ready for solder.
The alligator clips keeps the wires in place until we're ready to solder them together.

Final Product

Length: 00:00:16 sec.

Friday, October 4, 2019

NTA

Saturday, October 5, 2019

NTA

Week 269

Sunday, September 22, 2019 thru Saturday, September 28, 2019

Sunday, September 22, 2019

NTA

Monday, September 23, 2019

Rob Fair was very sick tonight and couldn't make it to Train Day!
I started at the UP Engine Facility and started the process to solder wire feeders to the track.

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Here I have everything soldered and tucked away.

Now I'm at the CNW Engine Facility and getting ready to solder the 6 tracks located at that engine facility.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Train Day!

w/Cameron Passaglia and Jordan Osborn (4-6pm 2 hrs.)

After a little snack and a drink Cam gets ready for some action.
Jordan Osborn takes the role of  supervisor for the afternoon.

Cam did a great job securing the white feeders together and then I'll finish up by attaching the final feeder to the bus line.

More under-the-table work by the Cam Man!

The last 40 minutes Cam and Jordan played on the Train Simulator Game.
Here Cam says, "I thought I was running the train."

Sneaky look by Cam, as Jordan focuses on the Train Simulator.

Thursday, September 26, 2019

NTA

Friday, September 27, 2019

Reorganizing my electronics cabinet space.

Cleaned up the desk at the back of the monitors.

Called up the Inventory/Maintenance Log on the workbench computer.

Tonight's guests:
Charlie, Henry, Emily, and Ida Zielke.
Something at the East Power District has their attention.
Hopefully it's a train and not a mouse.

Hey, Charlie, look up!

Thanks Charlie!
Now Mom, look over here.

Can you see Ida in this picture?
Look close and you'll find her face.

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Mainly cleaned up today.
Paul Nyenhuis stopped by but I didn't take any pictures.

Week 268

Sunday, September 15, 2019 thru Saturday, September 21, 2019

Sunday, September 15, 2019

NTA

Monday, September 16, 2019

Train Day!

Rob Fair came over to work on the RR from 6-8pm (2 hrs.)

We began the night under Chicago Downtown.
Rob Fair will cover up all exposed ends with liquid electric tape.

But first, we need to rewire the traffic signals to be switched on/off when the other city lights are off.

The last half hour we prepared the two engine facilities for power by drilling holes for the feeder wires.

Here are the holes in line at the UP Engine Facility.

Rob Fair drills the feeder wire holes at CNW Engine Facility.

These line up quite nicely.

Back at Chicago Downtown.
If you look closely you can see Rob Fair's work for the night.

All the exposed ends should be protected now by the liquid electrical tape.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

NTA

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Train Day!

w/Jordan Osborn (4-5pm 1 hr.)

My goal tonight is to get started on wiring up the tracks in both engine facilities.
Here's the starting point.
No wires in any of the holes on top of the number mounts.

Jordan Osborn in his jovial mood.

Here are the labels in place.

Jordan Osborn brought over a gift from his dad tonight.
He sent 12 LED lamps. Here you can see three of them we plan to use in the high rises to see how they look.

Jordan Osborn moving his cars around to different locations on the layout.

I'm working toward my goal.
With the labels now in place I can begin the wiring.
You can see in this photo I already completed tracks 1-3 for the UP Engine Facility.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

I worked a few minutes tonight on the wiring.
The UP Engine Facility is finished.
I have tracks 1 and 6 started on the UP side.

Friday, September 20, 2019

All the wires are connected to the switch plates on the facia.

Now I need to connect the wires to the tracks at the CNW Engine Facility.

I put the colors in alphabetical order to make sure they match up on the switch panel.
BLUE, BLACK, GREEN, RED, WHITE, YELLOW

Here's a bitter look at all six colors.

And this is what it looks like underneath the table for the CNW Engine Facility.

And the underneath the table view of the UP Engine Facility.

This is a view of the wires coming into the switch panel.

The final steps in splitting up the unit coal train at Proviso Yard.

Length: 00:00:17 sec.

Once the wiring is complete, I put the engines back in place.

Engine placement at the UP Engine Facility.

I finished off the day with train operations.
I split the Unit Coal train and put most on the CNW yard track and the rest on the UP yard track.

The Metra is waiting at the Geneva station to return to Chicago.

My Train Order Board shows the BLUE assignments are complete.
Now I'm ready for the RED assignments.

One more bird's eye view of the UP Engine Facility.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

I reported for train duty at Kuipers Farmview RR this morning and this is the view that greeted me when I arrived.

When I got home after working until 3pm at Kuipers Jan gave me this in the mail.
It was my lucky day!
TRAINS magazine also came in the mail.
Yes, it was my lucky day!