Great Northern railway

Got my UP 2-tone gray challenger 4-6-6-4 back from BLI.

Way back in March, the engine went to high speed and stayed there.  When I sent the engine to them in March,  they said, due to the pandemic, it would take 10-12 weeks for repairs.  Last week I emailed them to see if they were 'on schedule'.  They said repairs have been extended 13-15 weeks but they would check on mine.  Just arrived via Fedex.  Like my grade school teacher use to say: the squeaky wheel gets the oil!

They had to replace the motor and decoder: all under warranty.  Haven't tested it yet but will go back on the front of the UP yellow passenger train. Got an ops session the following Saturday so I'll be working on the railroad, next week.

This summer, all my RC plane meets have been cancelled so, besides going to the local fields to fly, been building a new F4U corsair (93").

NMRA MCR Div 7 monthly meeting.

Our first meeting since the pandemic but it was virtual.

We used Zoom Meeting.  Free upload for members logging on.

It appears we had about 40 members participate. 

One person, John, organized the meeting.

The president, John, held the meeting.

A power point presentation on passenger cars was given by Bruce. 

Instead of the usual visit to 2 layouts, we had a virtual tour of two layouts.  The virtual cookies and beverage was very low cal.

Prepping for this Saturday's Op session.

Got the Bachmann's PRR GG-1 out to test the mainline.  This thing runs around 200 SMPH so can test, quickly, the 400' mainline plus another 200' of sidings and interchange track.  My steam engines would take an hour. 

Had one jumper wire that needed soldering in the interchange track.  Basement stays around 68-70 degrees all year but the humidity ranges from the 30's in winter to the 60's in summer. 

One paper building on plastic board fell onto the track.

One set of block signals were blank at one turnout...

Signal board had power so unplugged it and re-plugged and that fixed it: my kind of fixes: quick and easy!

See my lens needs cleaning from being in the shop with all the dust from building RC planes.  

Dispatcher's panel working OK: signals and occupancy and turnout positions.   PC said it needed to do updates and would take a few minutes: I keep the 'outside world' wire unplugged except for when needed, so I'm not sure how many updates it could perform!

Tested the UP challenger that I just got back from BLI.  Works great and they put the original engine number back into the decoder.  

Love the smoke that comes out of the steam whistle when blown.

The smoke stack works pretty well, also!

The commercial world is 'catching' up with me; lighting the classification lights and number boards...

plus the tender lights. 

Next: need to work on the remote control of turnouts via the virtual dispatcher's panel.   I burned out my capacitor discharge board for the switch machines and just got some new ones in from Australia.  Also, got some bridge rectifiers.  The seller also sent me some parts to fix the old one.  

My summer project.  So far all my flyins through July have been cancelled so building plus railroading.

Corsair F4U, 93" wingspan.  85cc engine.  About ready for first coat of primer. 

Looks like you have a lot to check out!  How does that little gizmo work in photograph number two with the paper clip test leads?

Thanks Mark.  It has two wire contacts along the bottom, touch it across the rails and it lets you find the dead spots.  Very handy.

==============

Allowing my GN personnel to talk to each other!

Stringing wires on the telephone poles.

This is the product I used.  It says it stretches 700% (NO, I didn't test it!).

First I made sure all the poles are solid in the ground with some hot glue.

I found it easiest to put a toothpick in the center to roll the 'line' out.   I tried to put only a small amount of tension between each pole.

A toothpick and two fingers worked well for me to wrap the 'line' around the insulators.  After a few around insulators, I started by wrapping the line around the support arm as the insulators are pretty fragile (must be Italian), at least on my plastic poles.  About every 4th or 5th pole, I put a dab of CA (super glue) on the line ( a little saliva acts as an accelerator: it works best if you put the saliva on the toothpick versus directly!). 

I only did about 10'.  Initially, it was tedious (coming from a guy to hand laid 1500' of wooden ties and used miniature spikes to secure the rail!!) but, after rolling out the 'line' and just looping the cross arm, it went pretty fast.  I started on the back bottom then back top, then bottom front and, finally, top front.  When stringing a 4th line, one of the first lines in the back drooped a lot so I just wrapped its line around the cross arm a few times to take up the slack.  Real lines sag but, I think, that would be difficult to do with this product as one can't scale down weight.  The biggest problem is finding a place where hands aren't present.  This spot shouldn't get too many 'hand' problems.  I only did about a 10' section and only did four lines.    

The water tank was in the way so had to cross the mainline.

A little blurry but one can see where I wrapped the 'line' around the support arm. 

Yes that would be handy!

The lines look great!

Turnouts controlled via dispatcher's panel on the PC (LCC).

Joe came over and we got all the mainline turnouts being thrown by the dispatcher's panel by just clicking on the turnout.

The LCC circuit boards for all turnouts.   Mainline is done; still have to do the upper interchange/staging yard.

Since the turnout LCC circuit boards 'eat' about 3 volts each, I used a larger transformer for input into the capacitor discharge unit which feeds to the turnout LCC boards. 

GNRW through the cascades.

1)  When the first line was built: it had 4 switch backs on both sides of Steven's pass.  The line also had a horseshoe tunnel at Martin creek.  Engines on both ends of the train and very few cars: 10-15.

2) 1900-1929: a 2.6 mile tunnel was bored and used until 1929.  Had a 2.2 percent  grade so had to electrify it.  Car capacity increased to 35-40 cars with electrics.   

3) 1929-around 1956 (diesels took over): a 7.8 mile tunnel bored and, also, electrified a total of 73 miles.

4) around 1956 the tunnel was fan ventilated so electrics no longer needed and diesels could traverse the entire line from St. Paul to Seattle. 

GNRW ops session June 20.

All went pretty well but, being the dispatcher, I made a few mistakes.  Joe normally takes care of dispatching but he brought his new F-3's to run so it was my job.  With 7 train on the mainline at once, I had one 'corn field' meet (no damage) and at least a couple; oops, back up since we already have 3 trains at one siding.  At least the engineers were observing the signals, correctly!

PRR S-1 6-4-4-6 run by Bob.

Paul with a PRR Q-2 4-4-6-4.

John ran the N&W A 2-6-6-4

Jor ran the N&W J 4-8-4 passenger train.

Joe had a GN R-2 2-8-8-2 freight drag.

Joe getting his new F-3's out of the boxes.

F-3's are very nicely detailed.

Bob in the 'hole' until the east bound arrives. 

Joe's new F-3's ready for road work.  

Joe heading for the passenger yard for a Zephyr passenger train.

Fortunately, Jor helped on routing trains. 

John 'hiding'

PRR S-2 awaiting the Zephyr to pass at Tye.

Joe's Zephyr.

'Running rights' through all rooms.  

Zephyr at Glacier. 

Other Joe's GN R-2 at Wilmar. 

Logging railroad got some activity by Steve.

MMMM: the PRR S-1 didn't fit on the 130' table!

PRR Q-2 taking on water.

PRR S-1 dropped off it's train and heading for the service area. 

N&W A arriving at Seattle's freight yard incoming track.  Jor took care of Seattle's yard hog duties for incoming trains. 

Paul's tricked out diesel.

Bob ran the SF 2-10-10-2.

All left happy, hopefully, and definitely full (pizza, snacks and beverage plus some orange cream cycles at the end).  Final departure was at 1:30 AM. 

Stuff:  

Last night, a railroader brought his brass engine for some minor repair.

A front step and some piping under the walkway was broken off.

Resistance soldering needed to repair it. 

He wanted some extra weight but the high gear set prevented adding any extra lead.

Nice engine by Key: has functioning smoke box door and coast drive. 

Avoided a disaster, last night, for the ops session.

A few hours before scheduled ops I thought I test an engine, again, on the mainline and it derailed in the Cascade tunnel.

Turns out, the previous day when I installed the telephone wires along the track above the tunnel, while putting some hot glue in the hole to hold the telephone pole, some dripped down, directly on the rail head in the tunnel.  It's very tight quarters to gain access to the track; had to cut some wood away so I could get to the track.  Things one doesn't think about 40 years ago when one was younger and able to negotiate such tight places.   If I would haven't found this, the whole mainline would have been shut down.

Looks like everyone had an excellent day!

Video of Joe's new BLI F-3's pulling my BLI Zephyr passenger cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y-JtzKMcb4

Very nice indeed!

Thanks, Mark

=============

New delivery:

UP Challenger 4-6-6-4 #3950 factory painted.

Engine made in 1973 by Tenshodo.  Always liked their products: well made and good runners.  Wasn't looking for this engine but the price was 'right'.

This engine has some run time on it but not much.  Came with sound cam and speaker holes in tender.

Cab detail.

Nicely detailed.  Just noticed the smoke box cover is on crooked: an easy fix. 

Tenshodo's proprietary quiet drive came out in 1975.  This engine's gears are noisy but I picked up a bunch of the quiet drives back in the 80's so I've got enough to change any engines that I made acquire.  The open frame motor will be replaced with a can motor.  Another easy conversion.

Re-gear and re-motor an engine:

This is the Tenshodo UP 4-6-6-4 challenger made in 1973.  Starting around 1974, Tenshodo started to use a quiet gear set and, usually, can motors.  

The original noisy gear set and open frame motor are replaced with Tenshodo's proprietary quiet drive and a can motor.

Original gear and motor.  

Back gear set.

The silver tower gear set was replaced with the brass universal support.  The screws holding the old tower gear set are the same dimensions for the brass support. 

Next, the driver gears need to be replaced.  The two hex pins securing the side rods to the geared driver are removed.  Then the driver retaining plate is removed so the geared driver can be removed.   

For quartering the drivers (all drivers are 90 degrees offset from the other side where the side rods meet: done so engine cannot, sometimes, be at a position where drivers will not move), I just scratch an X mark across the driver and axle for easy relocation. 

NWSL wheel puller used to remove one driver and the old gear.

Old gear and new (white nylon).  New gear is 48:1 gear ratio.  The axle is, normally, knurled in the center to secure the gear.  If not, I use some dikes to put some indentations where the gear will be located.  Tenshodo puts a 'shoulder' on the end of the axle so perfect gauging when gear wheel is put back on the axle. 

Wheel pulling used to put gear back at the center of the axle (knurled part).

Wheel set reassembled. 

After all parts are reassembled, push drivers on track to insure no binding. One side is insulated so insure the insulated driver is on the correct side when reassembling.

After 40 years, my real wood ties have weathered nicely!

Just about all brass engine's drivers are sprung. the springs sit loose in the journals so don't loose them.  Tenshodo puts some brass centering 'springs'  on each side of the frame to center the gear box. 

Old draw bar replaced with a 'scissors' draw bar: just push tender forward and they connect. 

Front set of drivers were done and universals added.  Presently, just have the motor taped to the frame to test the mechanism. 

Nice informational post.  What kind of decoder is this one getting?

Gene Anstine

Thanks, Gene.

The TCS 1517 WOW 101.

New delivery.

C&O M-1 steam turbine 2-D-2 + 2-D-2 factory painted by Custom Brass.

This model was made in 1980 and, I believe, only 200 were made.  I've been looking for one of these for around 3  years and they don't come up very often.  Overland models brought them out in 2007 but way above my 'pay grade'.  

This model looks like it may have been test run, about 5'.  The paint is immaculate.  Very impressed by USPS mail: mailed in Texas on Monday and got it on Wednesday.

Needless to say the box is very long.

Nice detail with the fine screen.  Just noticed the steps on the front: imagine trying to climb up steps with a negative incline!

The C&O is raised lettering so must be careful in handling the engine.  Don't know if the lettering is brass or plastic.  I've seen some where the lettering has been damaged. 

The blue striping must of been done by hand at the factory as some places are a little 'squiggly' but a lot better than I could ever do!

Tender detail is nice, also.

This thing is huge.  Next to it is a Key Big-Boy. It's over 21" long.

All drivers are powered.  Haven't checked, yet, to see if two motors or one.

Tender.

If anyone knows of a decoder with the M-1 sounds, please post. 

It is a very impressive looking model!

Thanks, Mark.

==============================

The 'guts':

8 screws secured the frame to the body.  

Two can motors: good.  Plenty of room to add weight and put the decoder in so there won't be that many wires going to the tender. 

Lubricated all moving parts. 

Two idler gears from motor to drivers. 

Looks like this is 102 of 200 made. 

@samparfitt posted:

GNRW through the cascades.

1)  When the first line was built: it had 4 switch backs on both sides of Steven's pass.  The line also had a horseshoe tunnel at Martin creek.  Engines on both ends of the train and very few cars: 10-15.

As a not-so-closest fan of the "Link n' Pin" era in US railroading, I find that absolutely amazing. What an amazing V scale "mini route" that section would make!

Andre

grand kid's visit:

Sam, That's great your grandchildren got to visit you!  They look like a good a crew as your Saturday old guys crew!!

Railroad bridges on my way to a RC plane flyin.

Cincinnati, Ohio: Ohio river.

Louisville, Ky, Ohio river.

New delivery.

My new decoder arrived for the C&O M-1 steam turbine.

I had to deviate from my usual TCS 1517 decoder and get a loksound so it can have a steam turbine sound downloaded into the decoder.  There isn't a big demand for steam turbine sounds so I  had the choice of a foreign turbine with foreign whistles and foreign language spoken on it or the scaletrains UP 8500 turbine.  I have the UP 8500 turbine and know what it sounds like so I picked that sound option.   I, also, want smoke so I picked up a seuthe smoke unit.  Turbines don't chuff so that should be good.  I, also, bought the 'keep alive'.  This thing is expensive at 43 bucks and adding on the decoder comes to $130.   I'm glad I'm partial to TCS as I get them for $93 with 'keep alive'.  To be safe and not overload the decoder I bought a TCS FL2 light only decoder for the smoke unit.  With the screen in the front of the engine, I should be able to put the speaker there and have the entire system contained in the main unit. 

C&O M-1 steam turbine.

Decoder install:

LED prep.

Taped off the front marker lights in case the drill bit slips. 

The spelled out Chesapeake and Ohio is plastic so I wrapped a paper towel around it to protect it while working on the engine. 

Added three more weights to the original center (largest) one.

Marker and headlight LED's glued in.

The tender got the same.  The tender had some red plastic for the marker lights: They were CA'ed in so I was able to drill behind them (as they are on a square box) and insert two warm white LED's. 

Loksound decoder.  Had to solder 3 small wires (black, white, red) to 3 small tabs on the decoder for the 'keep alive'. 

Double side tape to secure decoder and 'keep alive'.  Motors connected and a 5 way connector made for head light, marker lights and speaker. 

Speaker will be secured at the front of the engine where a large, open screen is located. 

Using the draw bar to get to the ground in the tender.  Will be using a TCS light only decoder in the tender for the marker and tender lights thus only needing one wire between the engine and tender.  Also, will be using another TCS light only for the smoke unit in the engine. 

New deliveries:

New digitrax wireless controller: this is a new release DT602D.

TCS FL2 light only decoders.

C&O 2-8-4.

Runs on 3 double A batteries instead of the normal 9 volts.

Had to get some flags for the main yards and stations.  Two large (O gauge) for the main yards and 6 small (HO) for wayside stations.   Buses were only 6 bucks so I got those, also.

I've got some ACL purple passenger cars and this big northern engine was selling cheap so I purchased it.  

Made in 1977.

The price was right since it had two items broken off.

One was the trailing truck support.

The other the pilot was broken off.

Looks like it was test run only.

Nice tender detail.

Resistance soldering fixed the pilot...

and the trailing truck.  The center piece of brass broke off that secured it to the engine frame.

I like multi-colored engines so this is what the colors will be.  Got decals for it, also.

C&O 2-8-4 Kanawha by PFM.  Made in 1972.  No coupler on tender and it appears it has never been run.  

This is what I call one of the iconic engines as it was the first 'super power' as Lima called them.  The Birkshires were popular with a lot of railroads.  

Another engine that was very cost effective as one part was broken off.   Again, resistance soldering fixed the outside bearing on the lead truck. 

Open frame motor so that will be replaced. 

C&O M-1 steam turbine:

Decoder install (cont):

First test with new Loksound 5 decoder. I needed to down load a steam turbine and Loksound fills the 'bill'. I've installed headlights (engine and tender) and marker lights (engine and tender). To only have one wire between (red ground) engine and tender I installed a TCS FL2 (lights only) decoder in the tender. Another FL2 was used in the engine for a smoke unit. When changing directions, the engine jerks a few times before running smoothly. Not sure why it does that. There are two motors and I wired them in parallel.

I was using decoderpro to try to load the new address but kept getting 302 errors.  A friend had to bring his locprogrammer hardware to my house to get the address to load.  There's something wrong with decoderpro since I reset the digitrax command station, rebooted my PC and restarted decoderpro.  Via the programming track the tender decoder FL2 got the same 302 errors but, using the hand held throttle, I could program the FL2 so the problem seems to be Decoderpro.

Tender FL2 decoder handling marker and head lights.  I drilled one small hole to run the red wire to the engine. 

Not sure where the decoder ground wire goes so I didn't connect it to anything.

Smoke unit by Seuthe.  The instructions are all in German but, with only 2 wires, can't be too hard to figure out!  Watched enough 'flicks' to know one work in the instructions: Achtung.

The motor is right below the exhaust so I soldered two pieces of brass tubing to route the smoke. 

Presently I only taped it to the roof.  It just occurred to me that the smoke unit is, probably, going to have to be vertical (or at least some angle) so the fluid runs down to the heating element!

First test.  Lights off.

Lights on.  Digital cameras are great in low light but exasperates bright lights. 

MMM: only one marker light working. 

When anyone runs this engine, will have to know not to touch the 'chesapeake and ohio' logo as it is plastic and very sensitive.  Putting a paper towel around that area saved any damage to it.

One wire needed between engine and tender for FL2 decoder.  The other ground is going through the draw bar and seems to be working OK; in the past, I've always had a wire between the decoder and engine.  

I'll post a test video of the engine when youtube uploads it. 

While bashing smoke an alternative to brass tube is the tiny "gas" RC engine flexible fuel lines and fittings. (AF feed smoke from tender to engine by rubber tube.)  Silicone tube today is usually hi heat tolerant and imune to my O fluids so far. I even used a ittle silcone pill/quarter case to hold an element and provide a fluid well that can butt to the stack or mount remote. A remote fan plumbed in is easy, but "ram air" worked well enough in my application.

If really hacking hard, hi-heat automotive silcone could be molded into a element case/well too. It doesn't melt and is tough to burn.

Good idea Adriac.

What's amusing is I'm into RC airplanes and didn't think of it.

Test run.

As always, have to test run the engine the full length of the mainline; east and west to check passing sidings.

The engine shorted out on four curves.  Was OK on the 8 footers but the 4 footers, a short appeared.  Since no wheels were off the track I suspected contact between the lead, middle or trailing trucks (weird saying middle trucks!).  After taking off the lead trucks the engine didn't short so I put some tape along the engine frame so the truck wheels wouldn't touch them.  Engines like this are always a good test of your roadbed!  Can see why this engine was, at most, just test run.

Test video in the yard:

Will see if the initial hesitation goes away with a string of cars behind it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGHtjZ4Ey7Q

Skykomish.

Hillyard.

Chumstick canyon trestle.

Willmar.

That long overhand caused the front truck to touch the frame on 4' curves.

Had to move this Menard's building back along the 'straight away' as the overhang of the back of the engine was hitting the building. 

Seattle.

MMM:  too long for the 130' turntable!

Just plain beautiful! Hands down you did a great job and I tip my hat to you. Thanks for sharing and happy railroading!

Trainmaster, thanks for the kind words.

===============

It's 1938 so lots of flag poles.

These are by woodland and very nice.  They come with spot lights, which still have to be installed.

Put two large (O gauge) at the large cities of Seattle and St. Paul.

Six medium (HO gauge) went along the mainline towns.

Hillyard.

Havre

Whitefish.

Wilmar

Tye

Glasgow.

Comes with LED spotlight (O gauge on left and HO in center) and connecting plug. 

Should have bought a couple more for a few towns that I missed. 

PM before Saturday's operating session.

I was suppose to be in Goshen, Indiana this week for a multi day RC plane flyin but it was cancelled so more 'train running' this summer. 

The new Digitrax throttle doesn't fit the 'regular' throttle holders so I had to add some 1/8" thick wood for the mod.

One nice thing on the new DT602D is no wires hanging off of it.

Make sure all signals, turnouts and train tracing is working.

On initial start, have to initialize screen with four 'initializing' programs that Joe installed. 

Fixing things that got broke in the last ops session.

After 40 years, one track lead wire was loose on one of the round house tracks. 

Again, after 40 years, one turnout throw bar broke in half at the screw location that had to be replaced.  These are all handmade turnouts so parts are made from sheet plastic. 

Under the table ground throw solder joint came loose.  Old choke cables are used in all the yards. 

Once in awhile the yoke (open end U joint) moving the water spout on this one BLI operating water tank would come loose so I put some caulk at the end of the yoke. 

Engineer wrote up a 'problem sheet' on this engine's brakes not working. 

With a stub end passenger yard/station, after an ops session, all cars and engines have to be 'five fingered' to get them as 'out bound'. 

New bus purchase placed into service. 

Track checked for continuity, ie getting DCC power everywhere. 

A engineer was having running issues on the Swan River logging railroad.  Turns out the engine's wheels needed a good cleaning.  

All seems better, now!

Tested the mainline with MTH's N&W J that has smoke (I still like Lionel type enhancements!).

MTH makes some nice engines: all cast metal (engine and tender), DCC, sprung drivers, LED's, smoke and traction tires.

Wilmar.

West of Waverly.

Tumwater Canyon trestle.

Tye.

Looks like a 'GO' for Saturday.

Suppose to be 93 on Saturday so 72 should feel good!

Decoder install in UP challenger 4-6-6-4 (Tenshodo model)

With the layout all tested for tomorrow's op session, figure I'd get back to this engine.

A few weeks ago I remotored and regeared it.

First thing is to drill out all the holes for the 13 LED's to be installed in this engine:

Head lights: 3  engine 1 and tender 2

marker lights: 4: engine 2 green, tender 2 red

cab light: 1

running board lights: 4

fire box glow: 1

Marker lights drilled out on engine.

Tender marker lights.  One pulled off when drilling the hole.

Had to solder a new brass wire to it.

Fortunately, the back of the tender has a double wall so I drilled a hole via the front, inserted the brass wire and soldered it to the wall without any heat damage to the outside paint.

Four holes drilled under the running boards for the running board lights. 

Used thin CA to coat all the LED's to prevent any bare wire contacts with the brass structure. 

Dipped each LED into a little puddle of CA.

With one wire being red and some of the wires will be exposed, they got painted black.   YES, they still make wax paper (how mom used to wrap our sandwiches when dad and I went on fishing trips).

All drilled out areas painted black for insulation as well as they are suppose to be black!

Had to add my flexible drill bit to my Dremel to drill a hole to the cab.

#45's work well for 0402 LED's.  HD sells them by the dozen via their web site.

Multiple holes drilled in front of tender for 8 pin connector access. 

An old, small cut off disk to cut some of the brass away and final cleanup with files. 

Got input on fixing the initial hesitation when the C&O M-1 turbine starts moving: set CV54 to zero.  

Loksound 5 says 54 is load control parameter.

Decoder install on UP 4-6-6-4 challenger (cont).

LED install.

There was no way I was going to get two wires through the marker light and then through two small holes in the tender so I soldered the wires to a piece of brass wire as a guide.   All LED's have resistors so they were removed for this kind of work.

Two headlights and marker lights done.

Engine marker lights done.

All wires routed through the boiler and secured to the top of the boiler.

1/16" diameter heat shrink tubing to protect the wires. 

Testing all LED's plus grounding to the boiler to insure no shorts. 

Cab.

Running board lights.  These take awhile to install as each is done, one at a time, as not much room to secure them and they have to be in the exact spot while the glue dries. 

Engine marker lights.  Wire made a little longer than needed so able to put lead weight into boiler and PM. 

All LED testing done with low power tester so not to burn out an LED but, also, not have to do all that work to replace it. 

GNRW operating session, July 18. 

First one out was the new C&O M-1 steam turbine.  Wasn't sure what it could pull so only put 30 freight cars on her 'maiden' trip: No problem handling the train.  Pizza arrived so all activities, save eating, stopped!

C&O M-1 turbine video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs8Am04c4lo

Taking on water at Hillyard.

Hillyard station.

Dave with a freight drag pulled by a GN R-2 2-8-8-2.

Bob's SP AC-9 2-8-8-4 at Wilmar.

Steve discussing stripping his hudson with Jor.

Bob's AC-9 west of Waverly.

GN R-2 just east of Wilmar.

Bob's AC-9 waiting for John's GN N-3 2-8-8-0 to free up the mainline at Waverly.

Jor's M-1 in the hole until Joe's new SP black widows pass  at Tye. 

Joe likes his SP black widows by BLI.  With 3 of 4 units with power, he figured no problem just pulling one full string of 43 cars out of one freight track. 

Jor the first in with multiple mainline trains following him.

John's GN N-3 just west of St. Paul.

John's GN N-3 heading for Waverly.

Joe's black widows about to enter Chumstick Canyon trestle. 

Dave's GN R-2 at St. paul.

Joe's black widows in the hole until Bob's AC-9 passes.

Old versus new : AC-9 passing black widows.

As usual, as seen by all the red on the dispatcher's panel indicating train locations, I was kept busy trying to prevent 'corn field' meets!

Bob's AC-9 at Marias pass.

AC-9 at Skykomish.

Joe doing some dispatching (routing trains) while running his black widows. 

Bob's AC-9 dropped off his train and heading for the roundhouse via escape tracks. 

Fortunately, after Jor finished running the M-1 turbine, he took over yard hogger duties. 

GN R-2 passing black widows at Marias pass.  Only had one SP cabeese and it was on the AC-9 so a UP was sub'ed!

AC-9 getting ready for servicing. 

Dave's GN R-2 at Tye.

St. Paul yard.

Joe's black widows at Tumwater canyon trestle.

Maria pass.

NYC Niagara 4-8-4 passenger train at Wilmar.

After a hard day's work an orange cream cycle is a welcome sight!

The lights were turned out around 1:30 AM: no world problems were discussed or solved but we did a lot of 'train talk' and did a little resistance soldering on Steve's brass engine that had a part come off. 

Started at the wrong end!

At the ops, last night, one train with the Erie triplex was shorting.  It had about 25 cars and I started at the caboose end, removing 2 cars at a time until the problem went away.  Had two cars left and moved them a few feet and no short. Then ran the engine with the two cars and the train shorted so figured it was the engine.  We replaced the engine and left off those two cars and I'd check the engine, later.  Next morning, I tested the engine and it ran fine the entire mainline.  I kept all the possible bad cars, fortunately, on my work bench and it turns out one of the cars with the old sprung metal trucks was allowing the new intermountain all metal wheel sets to contact each other.  That car was the last two cars tested next to the engine!

Shorting trucks. 

Put a white plus sign in the Digitrax throttles so engineers know how to insert the 9 volt battery. 

Once again it looks like a great time was had by all!  Thank you for posting photographs of your operating sessions.  It makes a loaner feel like he participated!!  

I second Mark Boyce, I look at your link often (I'm a GN and CB&Q modeler) and what I see a a bunch of guys not only enjoying running trains by a close knit group of buddies enjoying each others company talking trains and other things. Especially at this time when a lot of us can not get out to our club to run trains and meet with a fellow club members.

RAY

Thanks for the comments, guys.

I'm 74 and have no problems with friends over.  I send out an email for attendees to make good judgement by not coming if they are sick or been around anyone who has been sick.   The bulk of us are retired, are home most of the time so it's a 'little hard' for any of us to actually pick up any viruses.  Plus, just walking in the sun kills viruses just about instantly.  I'm into RC airplanes and a lot of my big multi day meets have been cancelled but some one day events have been scheduled so I go to those.  Pretty safe out in the open, especially with 90 degree days and the sun 'beating down' on you!  As usual, each of us has to do what we are comfortable with.

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NMRA MCR Div 7 monthly meeting (virtual):

We had our monthly meeting on Sunday and all went well with around 50 people signing on.

John, our president, resided over the meeting. 

After that we had the major presentation of Quick Interiors for Structures given by Mike Tylick.  He lives around Boston so, pretty cool, on having him give the presentation. 

After the presentation, we usually visit two layouts but John B. gave us a virtual tour of two nice layouts. 

Today's Monday so it's daughter's day so no trains, at least until the 'work' is done!

It was pretty hot even in the morning  when I started at 7:30, by 10:30 it was 85.

A few weeks ago primed the peeling part of the garage.

Today, we, she supervised, painted the primer.

Also, reinforced the entrance door with some plywood along with replacing those short 1" screws in the frame plate with 3" screws. 

Really, this is his true colors!