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Dale's Depot

Daley Train Log
Page 9

Tuesday April 28, 2009 Lethbridge, Alberta

1:00 PM

I have spent a good hour getting myself organized around the layout. Much of the mess and spare parts have been put away. It took me awhile to figure out the numbering system I had set up for controlling the mainline switches behind the Jasper Yard with my hand-held DCC cab controller.

One decoder controls the following 4 switches:

• 50 - to Lennox
• 14, 15 - mainline
• 13 - Jasper Yard.

The second decoder controls:

• 09 - mainline
• 10, 11, 12 - Jasper Yard.

Switches 09, 14 and 15 should all be set to 1 (straight through) for a train to pass by Jasper on the mainline.

I ran CN 1706, a GP7 GR-15a diesel with a green & yellow paint scheme. It was pulling a short train of 4 cars:

• CN 445531, a 40' steel boxcar with a white CN noodle and a Manitoba bison on the side,
• HHX191, a 40' wooden reefer belonging to Home Hardware,
• CN 524270, a 40' steel boxcar with a green maple leaf and an oblique "Serves All Canada",
• CN 74009, an orange wooden caboose with a white maple leaf and a level "Serves All Canada" on the side.

The train ran along the long mainline route from Coaldale to Jasper to Black Diamond to Pine Ridge to Queenston to Coaldale without any difficulties. I had the throttle set at 15 and was playing with the various sounds (bell, whistle, rail clickity-clack, radio). I still need a little more work before I am familiar with the different options. At the same time I ran CN 7985, a black S-4 diesel switcher in the Coaldale Yard. This is the first time that I have tried running two locomotives simultaneously. It was very cool, but the real challenge will be when both, or more, trains are on the mainline at the same time. Soon.

The mainline track appears to be in good shape, which is a good sign.

It felt good to be getting back into this hobby.

3:00 PM

I opened up a small kit for a station platform (Atlas #707). There is an option of having one large platform or two small platforms. I looked at the setup and decided that one large platform, placed on Refinery Row, would look best. The pieces are realistically colored and I will stay with that for the moment. It will be easy to change later if I decide to do that. The first real step is to glue the two platform bases together as well as the two roof pieces.

only a few pieces

base & roof being glued together

Now to let the glue firmly set before continuing.

The following three photos of the boxcars that I bought at the SuperTrain show in Calgary a week ago were also added to my data base.