Santa gets some extra help from Conrail's Mercury Service.

   

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

Bruce

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zwE6Uv2F90">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zwE6Uv2F90</a><!-- m -->

Or some of these?

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9G0wKMoE40">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9G0wKMoE40</a><!-- m -->

Or perhaps you prefer abandoned trains and structures?

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf-1xPPLDw4#t=32.148194">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf-1xPPLDw4#t=32.148194</a><!-- m -->

Merry Christmas!

The last large structure for the town of Mauston will be the Tower House.

The hovercraft variant is especially interesting in view of today's obsession with the energy consuming mag-levs.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyBQtFzTU1Y">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyBQtFzTU1Y</a><!-- m -->

Just to start things off, we wish everyone here to have a great holiday season however you choose to celebrate. Our plans for Christmas is to be over at Pat's house (Packey) with the family. We're past the age of having enough energy to play host anymore. That's their Christmas present to us, no cooking, no cleaning up afterwards.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL:
   

I'm looking for an MDc/Roundhouse Old-timer cab for an upcoming project. Anyone have one kicking around in their surplus bin?

Subject pretty much says it all but what hoppers would carry certain commodities?

Hello,

here i will describe my activities with Santa Fe Diesel locos.





The first one was a second hand purchased Kato GP35. The pre-owner has done a lot of detailing like lift rings, grab irons, Mu hoses, beacon, air condition and horns. The only work done by me was plugging in an DCC decoder (ESU Lopi Basic) and fit Kadee scale hear couplers. Meanwihle the missing sunshade is refitted and the yellow paint on the handrails were touched up. That was a nice bargain nearly ready to use.





Last improvements was replacing the antique 1,5V filament bulbs against warm white LEDs. Here #738 has LEDs and #715 has stiil to get them. See the difference. Couplers were replaced with Kadee scale head whiskers.







The very last task was to syncronize 3 screaming EMD Diesels.
Second a GP9 from Athearn Genesis, a bargain with a 33% reduced price which i could not resist. This loco is factory sound equipped and got the same attention as decribed later in this post.






In spring of this year i picked two more GP9s on ebay. Also Athearn Genesis and like new. Both also equipped with factory sound.





Here the shell of one of the units was lifted.





The additional weight removed.





Wormshaft cover removed.





Pay attention to the very fine details.





Both loco were now in parts.





All 16 axle end got additional wipers as pictured. A preventive procedure to avoid hassle with a current unreliable pick up when the loco sum up running time. Here in the forum were some threads and discussions about this problem with an getting more and more unreliable current pick up.





Also the locos got a 3-point suspension. The left ruck has it's somewhat halfmoons removed, the right truck is unaltered.
Each loco got a unaltered and an modified truck.





As replacement for the removed halfmoons a pile of washers cares now for the correct height on this end of the loco.
The purpose is to allow this truck free pivoting. The other unaltered truck prevents rolling motion.
As a result the loco has now a 3-point suspension and has lost it's diagonal stiffness. Also an improved safety against derailing in not so good laid track like on module transitons (aka "Sprungschanzen" from ski-jump) and other cases as they are a lot more than we like it really.


Cheers Lutz