Difficult start with my California Zephyr

Nice!  Takes a good size layout to hold all those cars!

Beautiful!! Just beautiful!!

Oh, you cherry popper, you! Not too late to come back to conventional w/remotes or best yet, postwar, where, like a 70s VW Bug, you can fix whatever the hell 3 rails throws at you...lol...just kidding.

Im pretty good at fixing stuff. Im no GunRunnerJohn but I get by pretty well. I like fixing all the electronical doodads

Lookin' good, Matt.  I counted 13 cars thus fa, so that's already a good-sized train.  Do you plan on getting the baggage car and buffet-lounge in the next run?

 

David

Why yes David I already have them on order. I do have 13 cars and a Zephyr train was really ony 11 with the PRR car it was 12. I do have the PRR car(one with the black roof) I bought cuz why the heck not. But now Ive got to get my CB&Q Legacy F3's to work right. My train meltdown today really irritates me, I should have just taken a nap

Matt - Beautiful train and very impressive length.  Did you have any problems with the new observation car catching on anything?  Some guys were having problems with that one projection that sticks down.

 

Looks great.

 

Art

S W E E T

 

Love the Alco's on the point.  Are they MTH or Lionel?

I have the CB&Q legacy F3 set. I have not run them yet. Hope I do not have a similar problem

Beautiful set.

Art, I had all kinds of derailing issues and at one point while I was running with my amp meter to see if I was over drawing with such a big train, FYI ONLY 5.25 amps with all lights and smoke, I dropped a coupler and accidentally crashed into the back of the Obs car and broke some part off,  I did not have an issue with snagging any thing but I did have just about every other problem a guy could have.

Jim, the Alco's are MTH. I like em too. Kinda wish they had the five stripe

Another candidate maybe? Last week went to replace the tires on two Lionel and MTH diesels that spit off tires. Had to remove cabs, disassemble motor from truck, hold truck while it is still connected to chassis by the pick up wire to remove side frames from truck to replace tires because the mounting screws are on top of the truck and face the frame rather than being accessible from below...

From others on here the Lionel tire behind cylinder on scale steamers is another gem.

 

Your idea to make them easily reachable thru TIU cover rather than having to remove it is great. 

Well, after I blew a fuse the first time and it took 45 minutes to fix I figured that was enough of that nonsense. They only ever blow when I trip out the 180 bricks breaker multiple consecutive times.

I love the long consist.

The train is about 28 feet long

This is what all my TIU's look like

Good idea, makes it easy to replace fuses.

Yeah, I blow one about every 9 months to a year

I use automotive "fast blow" in-line 10AMP fuse on the output of every single channel on both of my TIU devices. Thus, that 10AMP fuse blows prior to doing any damage to a TIU channel.

Matt,

Nice video! Love seeing the ALCo's on the point! 

Wow, how big is the layout?

 

I just realized how many cars were in your train and how many 21" cars I own-gonna need a bigger layout plan 

 

Now that's an excellent idea.

Hot Water, fuses on my outputs are on my list of shtuff to do but the more I work the longer the list gets. The layout is 16 by 55 feet without the turntable and crows nest its 16 by about 47. I don't get a ton of working time in the layout since it's not at my house, heck it's not even in my state but I try to get in about 40 hours a month if I'm lucky

And now I broke a coupler

What kind, and who's make. If it was one of the early Atlas O scale size couplers, then that was not uncommon with them.

Its on one of my CZ cars, seems the spring is all messed up and the locking tab wont stay up to keep the couple closed. These couplers are different than anything I have in my parts inventory. If my track wasnt so wavy i would put Kadees on all my stuff

I find it hard to believe that your track would be worse than our old Independent Hi-Railers, Midwest Division modular layout, yet I didn't have any problems with Kadee couplers on its track. In fact, we had more problems with the big lobster claws.

So if I am understanding you right, Kadees are much more forgiving than I was lead to believe. My track does have a bit of up and down in it due to the Homasoat, is this an significant issue with Kadees? I have ZERO experience with Kadees on O scale, the make a great product but until I saw yoru layout it never occurred to me to put them on three rail trains. I was told my somebody that Kadees were really finicky with up and down ont he track so stay with the lobster claws

Have you found out why you blow fuses?

I only blow fuses when I have a consecutive series of breaker trips on the 180 watt brick, almost always associated with derailment issues. This time I derailed like 7 times coming through a switch until I blew the fuse. I should be noted that I haven't ran the layout in like 4 months. Bowing the internal fuse is a rarity and its only happened twice in the last 3 years. It was just such a huge pain to get at the fuse I decided I never wanted to deal with having to pull them off the wall and take them apart.

Who ever told you such bs apparently had no experience with O-Scale Kadee couplers. Not only did I not have any problems with Kadees on our old modular layout, even with 21" long scale Golden Gate Depot heavyweight passenger cars (an 11 car CB&Q set), I operated fairly long & heavy freight trains (50 cars or more) and never had a "failed" Kadee coupler. I previously used all #805 metal Kadees, but now occasionally use the new more "scale looking" #740.

Well, it appears I have been misinformed. ive had a string of coupler issues lately that my solution has been to zip tie them shut but now you have me thinking about Kadees as a solution. And my list gets longer

I hope you are able to tweak your CZ set to run in an more favorable light.

I gave up running a set of these on 072. They run much more reliably on 096 and larger.

My widest radius is O-82 and that's what I'm running them on. Funny thing is the broken coupler is the only problem I've had with the cars themselves. Derailing issues was due to a bent point in a turnout, other issues were the locos. This train is sweet I just need to run more. I spend so much time working that I never just stop n run trains