Re-Powering a Favorite

Howdy again!  This time I come bearing improvements that worked right the first time!

I bought an Athearn SD45T-2 a while back and I made posts on it and its progress here and here.  I finally got the replacement dogbone drive shafts that I mentioned last time.  If you recall, the model came with 1.609" shafts, and after putting in the new motor one of the drive shafts was short.  From what I could tell the best fix would be the 1.76" shafts.  Voila!  They are just right!  Below shows the shaft in the flywheel and gear tower.  It really is a perfect fit.

 

I gave the motor a few spins with the drivetrain fully assembled and I felt no resistance or binding.  So next up is to put the whole shebang back together and run it on the rails.  Hopefully she will run with the other Genesis locos well enough to consist them together.  Since I am finally going to join a club, I can really use the heavy haulers.

For a visual, here are the two different drive shafts side-by-side.

Check back soon as I will be updating with the performance of this over-hauled locomotive.

Making it modular

I have been slowly working on the layout these past months.  The biggest roadblock has been deciding the future of the layout.  We may be moving into a smaller house soon so I have been trying to figure out the best way to divide the layout into movable sections.  More on that other stuff later.

I had always planned on the layout being modular, as my wife and I's plan for our current living situation seems to be so fluid.  I built the frames individually, made track plans based the frame lengths, etc.  However, I went full bore on laying out the decking plywood and the track.  This turned out badly (read: stupidly) as cutting through track with standard cutting implements has proven ...difficult.  Most saw blades are too rough (too few Teeth Per Inch) and would tear the track up or separate it from the plywood.  So to make the layout "modular" I had to improvise ("as usual" he said disdainfully).

The biggest difficulty is cutting through the decking where track is already laid.  The best way I found was to cut the track was with a razor saw over where the modules meet.  Then I used a small drill bit and drilled through the plywood between and around the ties as much as possible.  The plywood was cut using regular hand and powered saws (the easiest part).  To finish it off, I used a hack saw blade to cut the plywood that was still connected beneath the track.  I would have used the razor saw but the blade is not deep enough to cut the track and plywood together.  I angled the hack saw blade in the existing cuts and slowly leveled it out as I cut upward.  It took awhile but it eventually worked.

 

 

So now that the layout is cut up, I can work on finishing the yard.  It works well right now but needs some tweaking.

For my final thought of the day: be sure that if you make your layout modular, you cut the decking before laying track.

Re-powering the Tunnel Motor is a Pain

So right now my budget doesn't allow much in the way of buying brand new locomotives.  I could if I saved up over time, but that doesn't work so well with me.  I plan on getting a new locomotive and suddenly "ooooo shiny new tank car!" or "well dang, I just got to have that Hy-cube" and etc, etc, etc...  So instead I tend to put a little bit into the existing engines.

In this case, I want to have my tunnel motor be able to run with my SD45-2.  This is the beginning of the Pain.  When I tried to do this a few months back (around September...  geez) I found that they were just too different speed-wise.  I played around with the speed table settings on their decoders but that was a lot of time to get nowhere.  So the idea was side lined.  However the idea has come back to the forefront as I am trying to join a local club.  But if they won't run well together then what can I do?

While the two locos are similar in drive train design, it turns out they have very different motors.  The tunnel motor is from the RTR line and the 45-2 is from the Genesis line, and the output on their electric motors is very different.  I had an extra RTR motor sitting around so I tried it in the 45-2, but the frame and weights will not allow it to fit (Pain).  So I decided to try a Genesis motor in the T-2.  After some time on the 'bay I got a new Genesis motor and went to install it.  Turns out it fits as far as the securing screw holes, but the frame was too tall for the screws (Pain again).  SOOOO more work.  Now it looks like this after some time on a mill.

One of the perks of working at a place with a machine shop

 

The motor now fits in the frame!  I had to add some shims into the securing holes as the screw heads could pass through them but it can be done.  However, I am now stuck again (more Pain).  To get the motor to fit, I had to put it in "backwards" so now one of the dogbone shafts is too short...  Blah...  There are some longer ones on order so I will update again when they are installed. 

If you want more detail on the process, or advice on how to avoid the pains above, leave me a comment and I will help out as best as I can.

Later!

Some Pictures for the Last Post

Alright y'all, are some pictures as I promised.

First is a shot of the layout construction progress. 

Aside from the messiness of the room, you can see how it is coming along.  About half of the decking of 15/32" plywood is attached and about 75% of the support frames are built.  I only have one more to go!

Due to space constraints I have scaled back the layout some.  It will now have three walls of layout and the fourth wall will be a connector for continuous running and where the work table will go.  However I do have a decent plan still.  The yard ladder has been built (it can be seen about halfway down the right side decking) and should be installed tonight if I can stay awake.

This is the re-motor project I am working on for the tunnel motor.  She didn't play well with my Genesis SD45-2 so I decided to put a Genesis motor in here.  The internet says that the Genesis motor fits RTR locos.  What they didn't say was that it takes some work...  More on that in a separate post.

And lastly, I randomly caught the Illinois Terminal heritage locomotive.  She unexpectedly passed me leading a train from the Texas City Terminal and by the time I caught up to her for a picture, this was the best I could do.  But I swear it is her!  Zoom in on the cab numbers!

And lastly, a shiny new BNSF Gevo near my work.

Now I am off to recover for an op session tomorrow on the Almeda Terminal & Gulf layout!

Workin' on the Railroad

Specifically my model railroad.

I have been making slow progress, but progress all the same.

I don't have any new pictures for this update yet.  I may put them in another later post.  Sorry.

Layout: work is progressing steadily.  I have all of the turnouts I need now so track will be laid in earnest once the layout is fully built.  One frame and the remaining decking to go!  Currently about half way on the decking.

Paint Scheme: a new Texas-themed scheme should be getting applied to a new loco shell next week.  I hope it comes out as cool as I imagine it as.

Prodigy: my trusty DCC system up and burned out on me a few months back.  MRC got her fixed up and returned so the engines can move a little at least

Yard: the yard ladder should be secured and powered by the weekend!  Once the ladder is tested and operational, I will lay the yard tracks and put out some rolling stock.

Until then, have a good time everyone!

Construction Continues

They say that no good plan survives contact with the enemy.  I find this to be true in many cases, particularly mine.  I have had good results using the shelf brackets of the previous posts on earlier layouts, but those were mostly a loop of Bachmann track on 1X4 boards around the walls.  The layout I am building though uses two foot wide frames and as a result the brackets are flexing too much.  I tried everything I could think of to reinforce them, but alas, nothing worked to my liking.

After a week of deciding, I chose to build the layout with legs.  I had originally decided against this but it really is the simplest way to go.  So, I am removing the shelf supports and using the wood planks to make the table legs.  The modules are resting on these legs and a piece of wood that is screwed into the walls at my level line around the room.  The nice part is that all of the support pieces are at the same places as the brackets were, so the frames are the same size.

Now for the pictures:

 



The wall supports

The modules on their legs and supports

This is the first two modules installed

 

The frames are made out of 1X4s and decking screws.  I really like these screws because they use a #2 square head instead of a Phillips.  That means a whole lot less stripping.  The legs are the leftover bracket decks, same for the wall supports.  The frames are held to each other using 1" screws until I can procure some bolts and washers for a permanent fix. 

 

Next is the plywood to make the decking!  Then it will be time to move on to the next half of the room.



Stuff from Christmas

Howdy again!

It is a bit late, yeah but I did want to show off some of the stuff I got this past Christmas.  My wife went out of her way to find me some awesome train related items.  She found a dealer on that Etsy site, which is actually entertaining and does have trains for sale, that had good train items. 

One is a lantern from 1901 that used by the Southern Railway.  It is a bit beat up but clearly used and has traceablity on it to authenticate it!  Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it yet...

The second item is this Southern Pacific logo in brass.  The dealer had bought it from someone who had found it while walking an abandoned/torn up old SP right-of-way out in California.  Unfortunately we cannot determine what it came from or it's use...  But it still looks really cool!

And the third item is an SP engineer's guidebook from the 60s!  It is well worn and not exactly a collectible item of value but I certainly love it.  To give you an idea of the age of the item, it shows pictures of where to place marker lights on steam locomotives.  Yeah, steam.

 

 

Anyways, that is all for now.  Back to the layout construction!