Week 316

 Sunday, August 16, 2020 thru Saturday, August 22, 2020

This week's goal(s):

1. Finish ballasting the South Power District (from last week)

2. Order then install the last UP5 on the layout at Powder River Basin

3.

And on to this week...

Sunday, August 16, 2020

No train activity today.

One more day of watching our great grandkids.

Monday, August 17, 2020

Train Day!

with Rob Fair (6-7:45pm 1.75 hrs.) and Jordan Osborn (6:15-7:45pm 1.5 hrs.)

Tonight was very interesting. We moved from building to trouble-shooting.

Check this out...

Rob Fair inspects the track that we believe causes the Metra trains to derail.

Bringing in the test train.

Interesting close up view of the repair job.
Can you see the small rail that was cut to insert into the gap?

Dang! That wasn't it!
Rob Fair kept looking into what was the cause of the derailment.

Let's see some trouble-shooting action!

Length: 00:00:11 sec.

He found it was in the frog.
He had to file it down just a bit more to make operating thru the switch smooth.

Our next order of business was to replace this switch machine that stopped operating.
This too was quite interesting. We replaced it and the one we replaced it with didn't work, so we 
went back to the original switch machine and reinstalled it and it worked.
Go figure! Ugh!

Parting shots!
Great work tonight, Mr. Fair.
You proved your prowess tonight!

And Jordan can't be disturbed as he concentrates on the next project for our next session.

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

No train activity today.

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

No train activity today.

Jan's birthday!

Thursday, August 20, 2020

No train activity today.

Friday, August 21, 2020

Had some time to work on the RR.

But first, I had to go to B&G to pick up my UP5 which I ordered earlier this week.

Here's what I picked up at B&G Hobbies.
I will be installing this just below the UP5 shown here.

After marking the corners I cut out the gap.
Since this has several layers, I'll need to do a bit more cutting.

My blade wasn't long enough, so I had to drill out the holes and then I'll move the drill bit around
to make room for the UP5.

This view show the wall in the back of the Powder River Basin. This shows the thickness of the
wood I had to cut through to make room for the back of the UP5.

UP5 installed. Now to wire it up and clean up the work area.

Goal #2 Completed!

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Opening Day at Kuipers!

I'll be driving the train from 8:30am until 6:00pm today.