January projects

 While I wasn't able to make any real progress on the main layout, I was able to accomplish a few things.   I started constructing some of the building kits that I have.  The first ones are for the yard area.    These include the engine house, fuel oil tank, sand house, icehouse, water tank, and maintenance. buildings.

I also bought some HOn3 flextrack and N scale cork roadbed for a 23 inch radius circle to test the narrow gauge engine that I purchased.  

After playing with it for a short while, I decided to convert it into a 2 foot by 8 foot shelf layout.   This will be based on one of the layouts in the book Shelf Layouts by Reid.  This will be the lower left part with a foot added to the bottom as shown below.   This section is similar to a reversed image of John Allens Time Saver layout which is also pictured.

I also added feeder wires to the frogs of the older DCC friendly Walther's turnouts that I have.   The new ones have a tab on the side that provides an electrical connection to the frog.  On the older ones the frog is isolated without power.  I removed the plastic under the frog between two of the ties and soldered the wire to the bottom of the frog.   I did the soldering on a metal rack for a heat sink to prevent the plastic around the frog from melting.   The photos show one of them with the plastic removed and another one with a short feeder soldered to it.   As can be seen in the photo of the top of the frog area the plastic was not affected.

I need to spend the next few months getting back on schedule for building the main layout and getting it running.  I also ordered some more flex track so I could finish.   

    

       

December Christmas Present

 I was not able to get any work done on the layout in December.  However, I did treat myself to a new locomotive.    It is a Southern Pacific narrow gauge 2-8-0.   The Southern Pacific had two narrow gauge 2-8-0's, number 1 and number 13.  The number 13 was manufactured earlier.  Most of the other narrow-gauge locomotives were 4-6-0's or 4-4-0's with a few 2-6-0's.  Westside imported three versions of the 4-6-0's, numbers 8,9, and 18.  All of them have been preserved.  They also imported this 2-8-0 in two different runs, one with the motor in the cab and this one with the motor in the tender.  There were 300 in both runs.

The 4-6-0's also were imported with the motors in the cab and then in the tender.  Pacific Fast Mail imported the motor in the tender version of #9 while Westside only imported the motor in the cab version.  

The version of # 1 that I have has the motor in the tender.   Of course, I will be purchasing a few cars and some track to run it on.   In addition, I will be adding a decoder, keep alive and speaker.  There should be enough room in the tender for everything.