Great Northern railway

Interesting but that's a lot of $$ for track!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...F8&pbjreload=101

Cleveland flats video:

For those of us that grew up in Cleveland:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHCX-PRVeXE

prep and painting a N&W Y-3 2-8-8-2.

I still need to assemble the Texas & Pacific 2-10-4 engine but figure I can do that while this engine is 'cooking'.

I wanted a Y6B but this was for sale 2 years ago at a real good price so I bought it instead (plus it, closely, looks like a Y6B!)  The engine was made in 1978.

Unusual box lid in that's it's hinged. 

This, also, sold me on the model: removable cab roof with real nice interior detail.  The PFM Y6B that I was looking for didn't have this kind of detail.   This will make it easy to paint the interior walls a light green.

The open frame motor replaced with a can motor.  This is one of the motors that I purchased for 5 bucks which, to me, appears to be a duplicate of Kato's motor.

No holes in the motor frame to secure it to the engine so just used clear silicone.   New tubing replaced the old black dried out tubing plus a metal rod inserted between motor and gear for stability. 

DC test was good.

LED and decoder prep:

Multiple holes drilled below the tender's deck plate to route decoder wires (8 of them).

A 'burr' used to remove the brass sheet under the tender's deck.  A little filing 'cleaned it up'.

Tender light plus hole in tender to route LED wires.

Four running board lights over each of the valve gears.

Marker lights drilled and holes in front smoke box to route LED wires. 

Three screws had to be removed to disassemble the valve gear from the valve gear supports. 

The slot in the support was too small to pull the valve mechanism through so the one small screw had to be removed. 

There were 2 small screws to be removed to take the valve mechanism out of the support.

Each screw was different so care was taken to replace, immediately, back into it's respective hole. 

Some valve gears are soldered onto the driver's crank pin.  This one has a small screw.

No springs for the drivers but wires, instead.  In theory, this should allow better traction between all drivers as the motion of one driver affects the motion of it's 'neighbor'. 

All parts arranged in the same orientation that they are removed from the engine. 

Washed all parts in dish washing liquid and vinegar, dried them, taped up all exposed surfaces not getting paint and put the first coat of Scalecoat #10 black on all parts.  Parts in paper boxes are air dried while metal tray gets the usual 200 degrees for 2 hours.  Unusual on the tender trucks not having screws to remove the wheels so they will have to be air dried. 

'Cooking' for 2 hours in the toaster oven.

Making railroad ties in the 'old days'.

Had to be tough back then and 'we' complain how hard we have it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkjXqmmaP-U

N&W Y-3 2-8-8-2, painting, LED's, assembly and decoder install (cont).

After painting a multicolor (green boiler), painting just a black engine, almost, seems too easy!

Smoke box painted as well as cab roof.

Custom brass had Champ makes decals for them and they were in the box.  After 40 some years, decals can, sometimes, just fall apart when put into water but these were good.

Left (used), right (new) :  good to wear a mask!

Think this is the first engine that I've had that had so many weights included with the engine. 

Even the leading and trailing trucks have lead attached to them.

Brass mounting plates were soldered to the tops of the boiler by the builder.  Came with a package of screws.

Two provided weights were attached to the sides of the fire box.  Builder has brass tabs to hold them in place.   I added a dab of clear silicon to them.

Weights screwed in.  LED wires inserted into 1/16" diameter heat shrink tubing (HST) to protect them in the boiler.

Marker light LED's get some short HST so front wires are flexible and allow for future PM (preventative maintenance).

More HST on the 4 running board LED's and routed along the top of the boiler (fuzzy picture part of an amateur photographer!). 

Drive train assembly.

Used a jeweler's small screwdriver to scrape the paint off the interior sides where the driver journals contact it.  Also, oiled axles and journals; easier to do now. 

Instead of springs, the builder used wires.  Glad I kept them in order as it took a few minutes to remember how they were mounted!

Side rod screws need to, also, be kept in order as the shoulders are, usually, larger when two side rods are connected on a driver.  Most brass engines have individual side rods (as the prototype) so the drivers can move independently of each other versus one long piece of side rod. 

Manual pushed on the track to insure no binding after each sub-assembly.  Easier to find a problem when it 'was just working'!

This took a little more time with the valve gear. 

After mounting the piston cylinders that has the guides, the driving main rod was, then, connected and then the eccentric crank was mounted next.  The gear connecting rod crank was, then, attached to the valve support (black) with a screw.  Another screw attached the valve rod to the combination lever. Finally, the bell crank was secured to the valve support.

Gear and motor attached and tested.  Sides of gear and bottom motor mount was painted so no brass showing when assembled. 

Front engine, basically, the same as the back engine. 

Another view of some of the tiny screws that had to be re-attached.

The dull clear coat, virtually, eliminates any 'shadow lines' of the decals, especially when viewed from our, normal, above position. 

Great looking work!

Your attention to detail is beyond my OCD! LOL!

Thanks guys.

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

N&W Y-3 2-8-8-2 (cont).

Decoder install and final assembly.

TCS 1517 WOW101 sound with keep alive installed.

8 wire connector made between tender and engine since I want to be able to control each light function:

Headlight

marker lights

cab light

running board lights

fire box  glow: always lighted. 

A 4 wire connector made between engine and boiler for easier PM of engine. 

A 2 wire connector made between boiler and front headlight for ease of PM.

I tried this speaker since the tender is large but it couldn't handle the wattage and 'blew'.

Address downloaded on the programming test track and to insure no shorts and, thus, not destroying the decoder when put on the mainline track.  I'm finding when I can paint engines after drilling out marker lights, headlights, etc, there is less chance of the LED wires contacting the metal housings and shorting.   Some engines are already painted and when I drill them out and, then, paint the housings, the coverage is not as good and the LED wires have contacted the housing.  The fine spray of paint gets inside the housings and does a good job of covering all surfaces plus heating the paint for 2 hours at 200 degrees gives a good hard surface. 

Decoderpro via SPROG used to input data into the decoder. 

The real test: connected the engine up to the mainline and check to see all works well (again, wires to the motor had to be reversed!).  Also, set the chuff rate as it always, seems, to be too high.

Installed my trusty PFM speaker.  Love the sound these make especially the deep, low tones. 

All pretty!

Four sets of running board lights, 2 each side over the valve gear so the engineer can see where to oil.

The fire box is always hand painted.  Too difficult to mask.  Usually needs two applications to remove any brush marks and bare spots.

Cab detail.  Dials white and red valve handles.  The green on the side walls were hand brushed; again, too difficult to mask anything in such tight quarters. 

Roof was spray painted.

Painting the tender trucks with the wheels attached (since there were no screws to remove the truck sides), I was a little concerned that the paint would get into the side axles and block electrical conductivity but all worked well.  Oil applied to all axles during assembly.    The dog house was real close to the coal bin so it was removed to get proper paint coverage in that small, tight area.  Fortunately, two screws held the dog house to the tender so easy to remove. 

Cab roof in place.

Turret detail area.  Looks like I'm 'off' a little when putting the cab roof on the boiler!

Boiler top detail.

Next, need to test by running the full length of the mainline, East and West. 

Also, next: finish up decoder install and assembly of Texas & Pacific 2-10-4.

Making rail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9L-QVLOhLQ

Texas & Pacific 2-10-4 (cont).

Finished up this engine with LED's, TCS 1517 decoder install and final assembly.

Usual procedure: check for any binding during each sub assembly.

The drivers have springs that needed insertion between journals and frame. 

Side rods added and checked.

Piston cylinder assembly and valve gear assembly next. 

Finally, motor and gear box added and ran via DC.

LED wire routing in boiler.

Running lights got short pieces of 1/16" heat shrink tubing (HST) to protect them along the side of the boiler and then one long HST to route wires to motor area.

Same with headlight and marker lights.  Slack left in front so smoke box cover can be removed for PM.  Carpenter's glue over the wires going through the holes.  Supplied lead weight was secured in the boiler.  

All the connectors and decoder wires soldered.

Engine data loaded into Decoderpro.

TA-DA!

Unusual type of trailing truck.

Dials and valves painted along with throttle.

Oil burner.

All piping, etc painted appropriate colors.

Still need to test this engine and the N&W Y-3 on the mainline and then, insure all's 'good' for Saturday's ops session.

Beautiful Job!  That is an interesting shade of green,  It really shows off the piping and other details!!!

@Mark Boyce posted:

Beautiful Job!  That is an interesting shade of green,  It really shows off the piping and other details!!!

Thanks.  I modeled it after this factory paint job:

testing the 2 new engines on the mainline.

Ran both engines both east and west totaling about 850' so a good test.

N&W Y-3 3-8-8-2: Ran well except one spot on a curve and only running west.  Engine seemed to bind on the track.  Checked the gauge and it was perfect.  I used an NMRA gauge for all the wheels and they were, also, perfect.  I checked the side play (movement on each frame) of the drivers and there is, virtually, none.  Most brass steam has about a 1/16" of side play.  I filed the inside top corner of each rail on that curve and all seems good. I've got minimum 48" curves and this engine seems to need 'all of it'.  

Made a coal load for the tender.  Pink foam shaped, painted black and coal glued on.

Texas & Pacific 2-10-4.  

The engine shorted out on the first 48" curve.  I checked all wheels and the insulated side was good. As with my usual procedure, I took off the trailing truck and it ran fine.  Figured the insulated wheels were touching the frame but still shorted and right in the yard on straight track.  Couldn't find anything so remove the secondary screw that is in the center of the truck (there is another screw attaching the truck to the driver retaining plate which is the usual way they are secured).  There is a slot in the middle of the truck for the 2ndary screw to guide it.  Only thing I can think of is the screw pierced the fire box glow LED wires and caused the short; too much work to take the engine apart to verify it but the engine worked great after removing the screw and the trailing truck tracked with no problems. 

UP M-10,000 mod.

Running this train, the ends of each car would swivel on either side of the track, especially in reverse. 

The 'couplers' swivel on the large shouldered screw so any side force moves the car to the side.  A kadee red insulation washer 'did the trick' and it took up the space on the shoulder so the only pivot point is on the pin (the way it should be).

A good article on weathering in OGR's magazine for Oct/Nov 2020 on page 21.

Track tester lights.

A friend of mine that passed away about 25 years ago had some storage cabinets that his son gave to me.  I found this track voltage tester with a light and some metal tabs on the bottom (only took me 25 years to find it!).  This would be a very cost effective way for making a track tester.  My more expensive one (around 15 bucks) gives audio and visual test plus how many volts are present. 

Thought I'd run a SF E-1 diesel set while waiting for my ops to start and some more testing of the mainline.

I've only got 3 diesel set.  I got this set as it's the 'first road' diesels made.   I like that 'shovel' nose.  These are by BLI and they did a nice job on them (as if I'm some expert on diesels!).  Besides the lighted headlight, the number boards and marker lights are lighted also. 

Fine vent screening. 

B unit.

Wire hand rails. 

It is probably way past time to change the title of this thread.  

GNRW operating session.

The usual 3rd Saturday night at 7 pm.

'First things first': eat pizza

With 3 new passenger tracks installed and 15 passenger trains, running passenger trains was on the menu for the evening. 

Dave ran the NP A-5 4-8-4 and NP light/dark green passenger train. 

Bob took the PRR centipedes and Pennsy passenger train. 

Joe got his 4 powered F-7 D&RGW diesel set ready for the Zephyr passenger train.

Paul ran the GN R-2 2-8-8-2 freight drag while Alan had the PRR T-1 4-4-4-4 with the ACL passenger cars.

The passenger track 'skirts' around the freight yard so the two never 'tie each other up'.

BLI made some very nice zephyr passenger cars. 

Bob's running the PRR passenger train.

John running a B&O passenger train.

Paul's GN R-2 freight at Chumstick canyon trestle. 

GN R-2 coming out of the Cascade tunnel.

Joe doing some dispatcher duties.  The virtual track plan works well showing where each train is located, all signals and able to control turnouts.  With several trains on the mainline (track plan is mostly red), it kept Joe and my self busy setting turnouts to keep trains 'moving'.   For the most part, the engineers need only watch the signals to know how to proceed. 

Bob's PRR passenger train.

PRR centipedes. 

Joe's Zephyr.

Alan doing some yard switching duties. 

We finished off the night discussing 'train stuff' and finishing off some junk food which, surprisingly, the crew ate mostly stuff good for you: pineapple, 3 different kind of nuts and left the 'junk' food (candy, chips) unopened.  'Shop' was closed at midnight.

Some PM after the operating session:

Spent this morning fixing things from last night.

Batteries not charged, fully, led to some throttle problems.  Low voltage was causing some throttles to not transmit to the engine (the white LED light was on the front of the throttle indicating lost transmission.  I always charge the batteries the week before ops but, this time, 3 weeks earlier and they discharged during that time from the usual 10.6-12.0 to a low of in the 9's. 

The newly painted Texas & Pacific 2-10-4 had a problem....

The top rod controlling the input steam into the cylinders is a little too short and it fell out of the cylinder hole.  I cheated and just tied some wire to hold it in the hole.  The other option is to solder an extra piece of brass on the end of the rod. 

The tender coupler on the N&W A was a little low and needed adjustment. 

The main lead into the passenger yard allowed 2 trains to pass before a jumper wire came loose.  Tried to, mechanically, fix it with some spikes but the soldering iron had to 'come out'. 

After installing 3 new passenger tracks, the new placement of the remote circuit breaker reset button wasn't very visible on the clear plastic so it was labeled. 

The PRR T-1 4-4-4-4 couldn't handle all the pennsy passenger cars so 3 were removed.  Since adding the double powered centipedes to the train, the 3 cars were added back into the 'mix' making a nice 14 car train.

Another just painted N&W Y-3 2-8-8-2 shorted out while on the mainline....

Took a little investigating but found that, during the decoder install, after I removed the wire to the draw bar which isn't electrically used with DCC, I left a piece of solder 'sticking out' on the nut on the opposite side of shown screw in the picture and it was contacting the engine frame and shorting out to the tender. 

Was having engines stop, but not shorting at this turnout.  Initially thought the road was causing the problem but, since this is the main lead into the freight yard, it gets a lot of traffic and 'gunk' filled up the frog and was lifting some tenders, especially the short tender on the yard switcher. 

The B&O EM-1 2-8-8-4 was running erratic but seems fine this morning probably due to low throttle battery.  Will have to test run on the mainline for verification.

The SF 2-10-10-2 wouldn't leave it's roundhouse stall but it runs great in the yard.  I'm figuring the low battery in the throttle was the culprit. 

This was the bulk of the problems but still have a few more things to diagnose.  40 year old layouts and lots of rolling stock and engines seem to keep me busy!

More post ops PM'ing:

Well, that will definitely cause some derailments (two items):

1) Ground throw too close to track. 

On the 3 new passenger tracks installed, I put the ground throw too close to the track.

Some piano wire fixed that.

The end ladders on the cars were hitting the ground throw and causing derailments.  Naturally, this new turnout was at the very beginning of the passenger yard!

2)  Gunk on the wheels.  This passenger train was getting some derails.  Checked the trucks and there was 'tons' of gunk on the treads which, definitely, will affect the reliability of the RP flanges.   Q-tips and alcohol used to clean them: left set of wheels clean, right side with the gunk.   Lets see, 12 treads per car, 15 cars, mmm, that's a lot of wheels to clean!

Also, a lot of Q-tips used! 

Used the PRR T-1 4-4-4-4 (which pulled the ACL cars in the 'real' world) to test the PM'ed cars on the mainline.

Much better, ran the entire 400' mainline heading East, uphill with no derailments    The T-1 had no problem pulling the cars.  They are IHC cars from the 70's, very light (I take them straight from the box to the track) so the T-1 can handle the set.

I'm hoping my other 13 passenger train sets aren't as bad as the ACL's were!  Surprised they got so dirty so quickly as the passenger trains are fairly new (obtained in about the last 1.5 years) and they have intermountain metal wheel sets.

That's it for tonight: will check the other passenger cars, tomorrow. 

One more set of passenger cars PM'ed.

The NP were, even, worse than the ACL passenger cars!  It took about 3 hours to clean the 14 cars and test run 850' on the mainline.  Interesting: the observation car with the LED lights (for signaling purposes and train tracking) didn't have much gunk on the wheels; I would have assumed the electric current would attract dirt and not vise versa; on the 'other hand', checking the engines, there is no gunk on the drivers!

Had one derail but, after backing up and running over the same section, all was good plus the car's trucks checked out OK.

One more passenger train PM'ed.

B&O EM-1 2-8-8-4 and passenger cars.  One engine fix and one car fix.

The EM-1's motor was moving but the drivers weren't so it's usually the tubing.  Not sure why I left the original black tubing from motor to gears while installing a decoder! 

Easy fix.  New tubing.

One car derailed.  On one curve the plastic diaphragms were touching each other, binding, and derailed the car.  Re-drilled/tapped a new hole closer to the end of the car for the coupler.

Not scale but functional.

14 more car wheels cleaned and running well.  Looks like I can get about 2 passenger train sets done in a day.   Noticed some freight car wheels are, also, dirty.  Probably will try a paper towel on the track with a solvent and run the cars over it. 

You really Have it down pat to pm them so fast.

NYC Niagara 4-8-4 and 14 passenger cars PM'ed.     

Strange in that all these car's wheels were clean.  I cleaned them, anyway, but it didn't take long.

Two cars derailed twice.  Checked gauge, all wheels make contact with rail, no diaphragm binding so I added some weight to them and will retest.  Some cars are by Walthers but the bulk are IHC and don't weigh much.   All the IHC's wheels have been replaced by 36" intermountain wheel sets. 

N&W J 4-8-4 and 6 passenger cars PM'ed.

Once in awhile, passenger cars would derail at this location.  It took months for me to notice that the outside end steps would hit the roadway next to the tracks.   Some sanding fixed that!

I missed another ground throw too close to the tracks that has been moved farther out.

Only a few wheels had any gunk on them but all were cleaned, anyway.  Nice detail on these MTH cars.  The engine is, also, by MTH. 

Test run on the mainline.  No problems but, with only 6 cars, not a whole lot of stress on the front cars.  MTH is bringing out 4 more cars so, with the present 6, will make a nice train.  The cars are lighted with interiors. 

The smoke is either 'candy cane' or 'cinnamon'. 

113 scale miles or 1.25 real miles!    

Have tested 8 passenger trains so far totaling 113 scale miles of mainline running

PM'ed two more passenger trains.

Milwaukee 4-8-4 and 11 passenger cars.

Very nice cars from Walthers.  I like the port type windows. 

Very scale close coupling.

Even have paying customers!

Milwaukee Hudson 4-6-4 and 3 passenger cars. These two trains are on the same passenger track so took both 'on the road' at once.

Anything's possible:  Taken from my GNRHS.

UP challenger and 17 passenger cars PM'ed.

The 2-tone grey 4-6-6-4 is by BLI and most of the cars are Walthers.  Besides smoke from the stack, the whistle, also, smokes.

No problem pulling 17 passenger cars with traction tires. 

New delivery.

DM&IR 0-10-2 by United (PFM).  This is a very old model made in 1967.  They don't come up for selling very often.  One of the few remaining engines that I've been 'looking for'.  Managed to get this off of ebay at a very reasonable price.  The engine will get a grey boiler (like my DM&IR yellowstones) with the 'full works' of LED's and TCS 1517 decoder.

Looks like some light test running.

Being made in 1967, I'll have to add a can motor and see if I have any back head detail parts. 

Considering when it was made, the detail is respectable.  

No coupler was ever added.

SP passenger train PM and test run.

All the wheels were clean with no gung on them.  These cars are by MTH and BLI.  

Used an AC-5 for motive power. 

This is the longest passenger train I have at 18 cars.  Someone had a 'fire sale' on the cars and, at 40 or 50 bucks per articulated set, might as well buy lots of them!

Lead truck came off a couple times to I wrapped some solder around the axles.  Hopefully, that works.  

Cab roof comes off showing the nice interior detail. 

Both MTH and BLI cars roll extremely well with very little resistance in the trucks. 

Also, they have lots of detail.  Here's the center section of an articulated set.

The soft diaphragms make for scale close couplings. 

Interiors are painted, even with white head rest towels.   Need some paying customers in there!

I have one 3 car articulated set which, I believe, is the diner. 

Drum head lighted. 

Had one bad coupler.  Interesting how the pocket is made to accept Kadee couplers. 

The cover just snaps on each side.

I had a few derailments so I'll have to run the test on the mainline, again. 

I lied: I thought I had 14 passenger trains; forgot about the two GN passenger trains in the original passenger yard!

Saw this light rail car on the highway on a semi trailer.

Great looking passenger train!!!  You have so many passenger trains, you can't even remember how many you have!!    I have 2.

Thanks Mark.  Old age is a factor, also!

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

GN passenger train PM and test.

These are the streamlined cars with a GN S-2 4-8-4.  The S-2 is a BLI hybrid and the cars are IHC from the 70's.

One car derailed and found the wheels were out of gauge. 

I had more trouble with the engine.  With 16 passenger cars, the engine was torqueing to the left and causing the front drivers to derail.  BLI puts a lot of side slop between the frame and drivers. 

I put two washers on each side of the back driver axle but that didn't help.

Also, added some weight to the front trucks. 

I have two of these hybrid engines so I put the 2nd one on the passenger train and it ran fine.  Later, I checked the drivers and I had, already, put washers on the front and back set of drivers. 

Weird results of the engine entering from the staging power to the yard power where the engine would, by itself, stop and reverse and once past the same point, do the opposite, indefinitely.  

I cut the common rail dividing the two power districts just past the new turnout....

plus, about 4' down from the turnout, the common side rail solder connector was broken.  Not sure which fixed the problem, if not both were needed, but all's good, now. 

Added a light to the passenger yard throat as it was difficult to see if equipment derailed.  The commercial turnouts, finally, seem to be working well. 

The box that my new engine came in had some mice 'chewings'.  The large hole got some paper glued on the inside. 

The missing paper was, then, filled in with carpenter's glue and micro-balloons (an RC plane product). 

GN 'heavy weight' passenger train PM and testing.

The passenger cars are, mostly, brass so the term 'heavy weight' is literal.  The GN Z-6 4-6-6-4 is heavily weighted (Engine alone weighs 43 oz) but it can't handle the 16 passenger cars going through the cascade tunnel thus, the GN Y-1 electric pulls the train through the tunnel.   I turn off the chuffing to simulate the procedure.  Also, no sound makes it easier to sync the two engines to run at the same speed. 

The cars and engine did well.  Two cars had coupler height problems that were resolved.  One negative with large numbers of cars is the couplers can be aligned correctly for height but, due to vertical play in the coupler box, the stress can make a coupler rise above the next car's coupler.  This is exasperated when the coupler has a plastic shank which can bend.

Starts out at Skykomish. 

Tunnel finishes at Tye but we continue on to the end of the passing siding due to 'grade'.   There are two electrics stationed at Tye  (right behind building) as well as two at Skykomish. 

Close to the end of the passing siding.

Here, the electric uncouples and takes the siding to return to Skykomish. 

Electric heading back to Skykomish. 

Y-1 'back home'   The electrics have dedicated throttles.

The passenger train can, now, continue to St. Paul.  The rise in elevation from Seattle to Tye is about 15" covering 160' and from Tye to St. Paul is about 7" covering 240' so ruling grade from this point is modest. Seattle is 36" and St. Paul is 58" above floor level. 

All but one or two have Central Valley trucks which roll pretty freely but the amount of weight per car makes for a heavy train, especially when 16 cars are involved.  The painted cars are plastic. 

I really enjoy follow your thread. You seem to cover just about everything involved in building, maintaining, and running a model railroad. In a way that's entertaining, and informative.

I'm also a fan of the era you model. The large steam locomotives have always fascinated me, and is one of the things that draws me to model railroading.

Thanks for the kind words.  Ditto, I love steam, especially articulated and multi-colored.  

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

The last passenger train that needs PM and road testing!

This is another heavy weight 'empire builder' passenger set.  These cars are in the original 2 track passenger station next to the Seattle's freight yard.   A 16 car set where about half are plastic. 

The 16th passenger train needs no testing as it is 19th century early cars which is a set of 5.  These cars were made by Labelle.   The Seattle's passenger station is on the next upper level going over the tracks with steps (no escalators in those days!) leading to the tracks. 

'

Practicality trumps scale!  Had some Kadee scale couplers on some of the cars and they were uncoupling due to height differences to the they were replaced with the  'regular' Kadees.

This is a very nicely detail GN RPO car.  I prefer the new quality plastic passenger cars that are, presently, on the market but there's not a big demand for GN heavy weights in dark green!

One scale coupler to be replaced.

GN 1st class coach. 

One car was shorting.  Turns out the insulated wheel side was touching some piping so some tape was needed.  Strange: it took about 160' of mainline before it decided to short!

This time I used a GN R-2 2-8-8-2.  This engine is, also, heavily weighted but the electric was still needed to get through the Cascade tunnel. 

Again, passing through Tye after exiting the Cascade tunnel. 

Electric uncoupling and going 'light' back to Skykomish. 

'Empire builder' continues to St. Paul. 

GN had solarium cars at the end instead of observation cars.  The last several windows were very large for good observation of the country side. The open platform observation cars were cool but, once speed increased, they weren't too popular plus all the cinders will make those white cloths, grey!   I didn't think I would have this car as the 'going rate' is a lot more than I wanted to pay for it.  Several years ago, a person in Europe was selling several GN passenger cars and I was able to obtain them at a very reasonable price.

This business car will be stripped and redone as a GN business car. 

PRR J-1 2-10-4 painting and decoder install.

I'll be painted my remaining two PRR engines, the other being the S-2 6-8-6.  I purchased these engines because I, either, consider them iconic or representative of the latest steam power. 

This is a Westside model made in 1977.  The open frame motor gets replaced with a can motor.  First I tested it on DC power to insure the engine has no binding. 

Disassembly.

Parts that will be baked.

Parts that will be air dried. 

Parts removed from engine which includes the brake pads since they are plastic.

Came with a huge lead weight so engine, already, has plenty of heft. 

While cleaning the parts in vinegar and soap the cab moved: surprised that it was removable and very well executed. 

'J' slots in the side of the cab.

Matching 'J' slots in the cab deck.

Engine only had a blank backhead.

A PSC backhead (32321) was added.  Some filing at the bottom of the backhead was necessary to fit the cab floor. 

All receptacles getting LED's were drilled out, ie: headlight (engine/tender), marker lights (engine, tender), cab, running board lights plus slot made in bottom of tender's front under the deck for the decoder wires. 

Masking off parts.

My tweezers weren't picking up the masking tape efficiently so the insides were pulled against some 220 sandpaper, folded over, to get them to be parallel to each other. 

All electrical contact surfaces masked off. 

Tender axle ends are always fun to mask!

Painting.

The PRR Brunswick Green is, virtually, black and one can only tell if it has some green is to place it next to black.

Boiler, cab and tender got the 'green' while everything else got black.  Into the toaster over at 200 degrees for 2 hours.

Air dry.

GN Y-1 electric pulling GN passenger train through the Cascade tunnel video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKu1w0K9Xnw

Sam, That is a great looking train.  As always your scenes are an excellent background for your wonderful trains!

Thanks, Mark.

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PRR S-2 6-8-6 disassembly, paint, decoder install.

This is an ALCO model and made in 1977.  PRR only made one of these turbines.

A can motor was already in the engine.

Every truck, tender and engine has the side frames soldered so unable to remove the wheel sets.

Had to drill holes for the speaker. 

Usually, I like to make a hole below the tender deck for the decoder wires but too much stuff under there so I enlarged the slot under the coal doors.   There were only two small tabs sticking down from the doors so it was easy to remove them.  I'm guessing the 'tabs' were for when the tender was full of coal, some would come out the bottom for those few scoops that the fireman may want to fill in the corners of the fire box. 

Tender lights drilled out for LED's.

The hand rails were soldered to the front smoke box stanchions so I had to 'wick' the solder out so the front could be removed.  Nice that the keystone is red and numbered.

The lower set of piping had to be resolder to the running board.  Surprised I could use my 'station' soldering iron to repair it.

The 'elephant' ears were not mechanically attached to the boiler.

They are now!

Had to drill and tap for some #90 screws. 

Fortunately, ALCO models made the 'elephant' ears with 'L' tabs so I drilled through those and into the running board.   I needed to make them removable in order to paint them, properly. 

Unusual way to secure the side rods to the drivers.  It's scale but needs a special tool to fit the two outside slots to remove them.  I've never encountered this before as they are either slot or hex head screws.  No tools were in the box so don't know if ALCO models, initially, provided one. 

I just removed the drivers as a set and will not paint the tire rims.  Fortunately, the inner wheel is black.   Not a lot of parts to remove on this engine. 

One of the spring castings was loose and needed resistance soldering. 

Not a lot of parts to paint, either. These will be baked.

These will air dry.

PRR J-1 2-10-4 got a second coat of green and black.  

The PRR green was too dark and I couldn't tell it was green so I mixed in some dark GN green with the PRR green.

By itself, the boiler looks black until next to something that, actually, is black. 

Samparfitt, all I can say is you are super ambitious, a super modeler, and your layout is a super layout, a really fun to watch from the sidelines Railroad. Thank you very much for posting all these remarkable pictures. Happy Railroading Everyone