Great Northern railway

Thanks, Mark.

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A 'very fast' decoder install and Ross club meeting.

GN O-1 2-8-2 imported by Sunset in 1978.

Acquired this engine about a year ago.

It had a Lenz LDE33 decoder.

When inputting the data into the decoder via Decoderpro the engine would do the usual 'short jerking'

indicating that the data was uploaded to the decoder but the engine would never move via the throttle.

When making the 'selection' of a Lenz decoder the LDE33 was not listed so I choose one that seemed reasonably 'close'.

The decoder was mounted in the boiler so I did the same with the replacement TCS KAM4 decoder.

Only 4 wires were needed to install the decoder.

I believe this is the only steam engine that I haven't installed sound and all the LED's.

Whoever painted this engine did an excellent job and I didn't want to 'butcher it'

so I only installed the basic 'no sound' decoder.

I didn't want to drill holes into the tender base.

Nor into the front of the tender.

Also, no lights were installed.

Video: 'yard test'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz7oiSXAAsk

Front view.

Fireman's side view.

A lot of work masking and painting the glacier colors with black domes and piping, etc.

Top view.

Engineer's side view.

'Fun' putting the engine number on the number boards and, especially, the headlight!

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Ross meeting was 'long' so only one train was run.

Joe brought some of his rocks that glow under a 'black light'.

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Jerry ran the recently acquired Milwaukee 'little joe' and 'double headed' with the Bi-polar.

Videos: Many of the cars are vintage metal and wood freight cars released in the 50's.

Tye:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKD4h6u1qYY

Departing Havre:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABH-Ei5HIYo

Willmar: The real wood ties under the rail look nice; they have 44 years of 'age' on them!

I spiked the rail about every 3" staggering the spikes so the opposite rail has it's spikes 1.5" away from the other rail.

The 3' long pieces of rail were also 'laid' so most joints are 18" apart from each other.

I believe this 3" 'spiking' has kept the rail from getting 'out of gauge' over the last 44 years as there are few derailments on the 1500' of track with the mainline being 400' long. The contraction and expansion of the rail can occur between every 3" (which would be 'minimal') of spiked rail so the total expansion is not at the end of the rail if every tie was 'spiked'. This was not a 'planned' result; it was, simply, me not wanting to spike every rail!

The number 10 turnouts also 'helps'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsWLXrpdRwU

St. Paul:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1gSJpWNgSk

Departing Willmar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KK81XnhlQw

Hillyard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSoUHaL6vfo

Entering Tye:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bmv952QtDs

Skykomish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cxQtxwowYY