Basement Train Layout

Sunday, September 6, 2020 thru Saturday, September 12, 2020

This week's Goals

#1. Finish car light Chicago North (from Week 316)

#2. Add landscaping details to grasslands in SPD

#3. Begin detail work on West Power District (WPD) starting at West Chicago

Sunday, September 6, 2020

SPECIAL GUESTS:

Mabel, Henry, Ida, and Charlie stopped by today and played trains with me.

Global 1 with lots of semi trucks.

Henry is going to run a train today.
He's going to pick the locomotive and the cars.

He chose the C44-9 Union Pacific.

Henry's Train

Length: 00:00:25 sec.

Mabel gets up close and personal with the train.

Ida and Charlie find work to do at the workbench.

Monday, September 7, 2020

Happy Labor Day!

Before everyone comes over today I'll get a few things done on the RR...

Today I'm going to add grass and ground cover.

SPECIAL GUEST:

Josiah was up early this morning (7:30am)
so guess what we did?

Josiah helped me secure the grass and ground cover.
You like?

And now, it's time for...

Train Day!

with Rob Fair (6-8pm 2 hrs.)

and Jordan Osborn (6-7:30pm 1.5 hrs.)

Rob Fair begins the evening at the workbench.
Checking the power needed to light up the cars.
No need for resistors, 9v will do it.

Next project for Rob
will be to add foliage to the ground cover.

This will add more color to a pretty drab area.

I was working under the table on the car lights
when Jordan came down and gave his typical greeting.

In this picture you can see the two power cables
on the left. You can also see the car light cables
coming down through the table.

I've got the first three cars lit up.

Checking on Rob's progress.
Looking good...

Rob also added some more trees.

Jordan's been working hard updating rosters,
inventory, and notes.

Rob Fair drilling the holes for each tree.

Stepping back to see how it looks.
Definitely taking shape.

Bright lights from the cars in Chicago North.

The truck lights are dim. Look down the street to the
right behind the first car at the crosswalk.
I plan on removing those wires and giving
those lights a little more "juice".

For now, let's say Goal #1 is complete.

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

No train activity today.

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

I had about 30 minutes to work on the RR tonight.

Here's what I did...

After Monday's session, I said, "...giving
those lights a little more "juice". Well, I did. I took
them off the 9v power source and connected the
wires to a 12v power source. The picture
doesn't do justice, but the lights are brighter.

Drone view of the truck with brighter lights.

Back view of same truck.
Again, not as evident in the picture as in real life.

You'll just need to come in person to see the difference.

Thursday, September 10, 2020

I really need to take some to organize the paperwork.

So here we go...

Bringing the piles upstairs to make into smaller piles.

Friday, September 11, 2020

Still working on the paperwork...

Making progress.

My different piles are as follows:
Historical
Rolling Stock
Structures
Electronics
Misc.
Receipts
DCC

Saturday, September 12, 2020

No train activity today.

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.