Basement Train Layout: Week 318

Sunday, August 30, 2020 thru Saturday, September 5, 2020

This week's goals:

#1. Finish ballast in South Power District (leftover from Week 317)

#2. Wire up cars in Chicago North (leftover from Week 317)

#3. Finish engine tune-ups

#4. Work on locomotive roster with Jordan

Sunday, August 30, 2020

BEFORE
I plan on adding ballast to this section tonight.

I'm also going to try a new technique.
Step 1: Brush on glue before the ballast.

Step 2. Sprinkle the ballast in place.

Well, I've decided I don't like the new technique.
It gums up the ballast too much.
Back to laying out the ballast and then using a pipette to distribute the glue.

Here's the mixture I used for the adhesive.
Half water
Half glue
2 squirts of liquid detergent.

This is some of the "beach sand" Jordan calls it, I spray painted "pink lady".

AFTER
A view down the tracks at the newly laid ballast just west of Geneva.

Monday, August 31, 2020

Train Day!

w/Rob Fair & Jordan Osborn

6-8pm 2 hours

Rob Fair getting his tools ready for tonight's assignments.

Jordan Osborn brings his great smile and is ready for his tasks ahead.

Rob's first project was to give the CNW GP9 1518 an overhaul.
This is what we discovered after we removed the shell.
This is called a DCC ready locomotive. We still need to figure out how the decoder would fit in here.

A westbound intermodal heading out of Proviso Yard

Length: 00:00:18 sec.

Rob's next project was to fix the knobs on the articulated intermodal connections.

Here's a close-up of his work.

We ran the GP9 around the track several times without the shell and it purred like a kitten.
With the shell we did the same, and it ran better, but still made some strange sounds.

Rob Fair on fixing the intermodal articulated units.

Length: 00:00:39 sec.

Goal Progress Report:

#1: Cleaned the track after ballasting yesterday. Ran trains. All AOK. Still more to do.

#2: No progress on wiring up the cars at Chicago North.

#3: We finished tuning up the switcher engines.

#4: Locomotive Roster complete with Engine Facility Track assignments included.

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

No train activity today.

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Working on Goal #1 ballasting SPD.

Spreading the black ballast in California Yard.

Same picture, different view.

Now it's time to secure the ballast, so after spreading the ballast, I spray it down with a mist of water.

A video story of the ballasting process.

Length: 00:00:46 sec.

After the mist, then I use the eye dropper and tediously pipette the glue mixture over the ballast.

The vertical line is the end of the South Power District.
That was my goal tonight. Now it's time to finish the mainline and I'll have Goal #1 completed.