Week 607

Sun, Mar 15, 2026 thru Sat, Mar 21, 2026

Sun, Mar 15, 2026

Still working on switches (#4 & #5) at the Industrial Park

This picture shows the piece I added to the switch
arm that will hold the activator of the switch machine
to move the switch from main to divergent

This is the other switch belonging to the crossover
which shows how I attached it to the foam underneath

I took this picture to show the hole I drilled at the
end of the bridge to the right side.

I drilled out the hole for the wires for this switch
machine too.

The time shows 0:59 but I had a 15 min. phone
conversation so the time spent on the RR tonight was .75.

Mon, Mar 16, 2026

TRAIN DAY! FINALLY!

w/Rob Fair 6:30-8pm 1.5 hrs.

Guests:

What we did...

Moving Commuter Cars from Chicago Terminal
to the California Ave Metra Commuter Facility
Coach Yard

The two stars of the show tonight.
GP-15 #1812 and SW1500 #1064

Oops! We didn't finish the end of the line supports.
Major failure, but fixable! Whew!

Next move is at the Powder River Basin...moving
coal cars from the East Yard to the West Yard

Main Power locos waiting to take the Unit Coal Train
back to the Melrose Park Power Plant

Almost finished. Only need to switch 10 more cars.

Moving last set of cars into the West Yard Track 2

Rob handled the West Yard while I assisted him
in the East Yard. 

You can view the action from tonight
in the Weekly YouTube Layout Update video found
in Saturday's entry at the bottom of this blog.

Tue, Mar 17, 2026

Paperwork catch up day...

Updating the Performance page in the spreadsheet

I also need to redo the manifest sheet for this process.
I need to make it much simpler. Right now the process
is on two sheets, I need to put it all on one sheet.

Wed, Mar 18, 2026

Finished paperwork...Train  Performance & Train Cars in Consist (the Train Manifest)

BEFORE
This is the sheet I had to change
drastically.

AFTER
This sheet is more reflective
of what the job requires, and much
easier to follow.

Thu, Mar 19, 2026

No train activity today.

Fri, Mar 20, 2026

Visit to Tom Stover's Elburn IL operating session...

Tom leads the charge. Shown left to right:
Alan, Tom, Dave, Jon.

Dave is working Denver Yard. Jon is running the
milk train.

Glynn is the final member of today's crew.
He is working Grand Junction.

Later that evening...

I'll be working under the layout.

Running wires to feed crossover switch #5 in the
Industrial Park.

Here are the two wires coming down from the switches.

As I move to the top of the layout, here are the two
sets of wires coming up from the bottom
to Crossover Switch #5.

Next up:

Connect the 2 sets of wires to the switch machines, and then,

connect the wires together under the layout to switch controller #5

I hope to get that done tomorrow.

But, we'll see. Lots going on tomorrow...

Sat, Mar 21, 2026

Almost done with Crossover Switch #5, but not quite...

First thing is to extend the wires to one of the
switch machines.

Next, I used shrink wrap to keep the wires from
touching one another and causing a short

Finally, I inserted a larger straw to use as a conduit
for the wires to fit through the layout base.

I did wire the switches and tested them and they work...sort of...

but I still need to solder the connections because I don't think

they worked too good because of the temporary wire job I did.

 

I added a new transformer (the old one was way too
loud under the benchwork) I had to wire them from
the previous power source.

This is the new transformer.

I also finished wiring up the crossovers together.

Here's a view from above of the same thing you saw
under the layout in the picture above.

Click here

to view YouTube video of the Weekly Layout Update

Duration: 10:32 min/sec

Description

What's ON Track this week?

*Intro

*Monday night's train session

*Visit to Tom Stover's Elburn IL

*Finished wiring the switches at the Industrial Park

*That'll do. See you next week.

*Thanks for watching!