Day Log 46

Saturday November 28, 2009 Lethbridge, Alberta

1:00 PM

I have spent about 3 very satisfying hours testing my locomotives on the mainline routes

Here is a table of my tests:

No.	Locomotive	West/Outer	East/Outer	West/Inner	East/Inner
CN1720	GP7	OK	OK		OK
CN7847	RS-3	OK	OK		OK
CN9408	FA-2	OK	OK	OK	OK
CN6707	FA-2				OK
CN7985	SW4		OK		OK
CN1706	GP7		OK		OK
CN6700	C-liner		OK		OK
CN8400	0-8-0 steam				OK

CN6707 stalls repeatedly. I think this is a problem of dirty wheels.

Steam locomotive CN8400 runs smoothly except for the turnout behind Black Diamond and 2 turnouts near Lone Pine. I am not sure of the problem as the locomotive runs fine at all of the other turnouts. I did a special job of cleaning the turnouts at Lone Pine and the problem persisted. I am going to try changing the turnout with another one from somewhere else on the layout and see what happens.

Basically I have a high degree of confidence on all mainline routes with almost all of my locomotives. Two locomotives give a little bit of a problem. I think the problem with the steam engine is largely due to its light weight.

3:00 PM

I think I have it, but it was a struggle. The steam locomotive, CN8414, is now running flawlessly on the East bound inner mainline. Both the problem behind Black Diamond and as well as the problem near Lone Pine now seem to be solved. In both cases the solution was to add a small amount of cardboard underneath the roadbed to ensure a level surface. At various times I was keying in on dirty track, the roof of the cab was touching the coal car, the weight of the locomotive or the weight of the coal car, but none of these made any difference to the performance. I am impressed at how sensitive all of the components of a working model railway are, and how if any one of them is a problem then the entire operation suffers.

It is quite a thrill to see the steam engine running around the mainline with the sound effects. I still have one diesel unit to get operational (CN6707), but I am pretty sure that the problem is dirty wheels.

4:00 PM

I was partly right - the problem was the wheels. But the problem was that the front axle was loose in its mounting. This was new territory for me. I finally discovered how to release the bottom plate and then it was an easy matter to see how the axle fit into the housing. Once I put it all back together the unit ran perfectly. Thus at the moment I seem to have all my locomotives running smoothly under DCC control (7 diesel units and 1 steam engine). Since there are 3 different types of mobile decoders I still need to learn the commands for controlling each.

There are still 3 major tasks in front of me. One is to make sure that the track is properly mounted in all of the sidings. The second is to test the locomotives in the various sidings and yards. And the third is to test the rolling stock when it is part of a mainline consist. The latter two are operational activities. Thus the emphasis has already shifted to more time moving something than it is building something.

The entire Black Diamond Yard needs to be properly laid out and the track nailed down on top of a foam roadbed. This is the last major track laying project.

8:00 PM

I have finished nailing down the track in the Black Diamond Yard.