The summer hiatus is over...

It's been awhile since i've updated my blog. 3 months to be exact. So, what have I been doing? Well, some may say procrastinating. I tend to think of it as doing other projects. 

This summer was really hot outside. That makes if difficult to weld. And that's where I stopped. Soldering of feeders on the East Staging yard is done. Test trains have been run and I'm pretty confident with the trackwork. Next up was to weld more benchwork. But it was too hot to don the welding gear.

So what have I been doing then? 

The SP Exeter Branch is still going strong. I'm running 2 sessions a month. We have our third Desert Ops event coming up in October and I'll be hosting three scheduled sessions and two extra sessions. I had so many folks choose the Exeter Branch as their first choice, I added an extra session just to satisfy the demand. Many are repeat visitors. I'm flattered that folks enjoy the railroad that much. 

My modular club, the Arizona Modular Railroaders, will be set up a Rail Fair in Scottsdale the second weekend of October. i try to improve my modules for each show. That ate up time adding roads and dirt to my 24' of modules. My technique is fairly simple. I use sanded tile grout. I have had great success with it. I use an earth color of brown for the dirt. First is to add some drywall mud to the surface to break up the flat plane of the plywood. I then sprinkle the grout everywhere I want the dirt. I then spray it with wetted water and then apply a 20% glue to water mixture. Once it dries it turns out great. For roads, I use charcoal gray grout. I makes fantastic asphalt, I'm very happy with the result. The wood boards and lane stripes still need to be added to the asphalt in upcoming weeks.

I addition, I have been working thru my boxes of rolling stock. I apply my quality control process to both kits and RTR equipment. The key elements of my process are: 

1) Adding of Kadee #5 couplers. Yes, I'm still using #5s as I already have a major amount invested. I'm not a fan of mixing 5s and 58s, so I'm staying with the 5s. I have added the new whisker couplers, but for the most part still use the standard 5s. I modify the centering springs for better and more reliable centering. as well as modify the spring to better fit into the draft gear. That'll be in a future blog post. 

2) Add metal wheels where needed. I always check my wheelsets with the NMRA gauge. Whether they are the wheels that come from the factory or are aftermarket I still check. I've traditionally used P2k wheelsets, but have now moved to Intermountain exclusively. Thus far, the Intermountain wheelsets have been all in gauge. For the P2ks, I found about 3-5% needed to be adjusted. Atlas and Athearn factory metal wheelsets are around 5% out of gauge as well. In the past, I found JayBee wheelsets 20% or more required the gauge to be adjusted. 

3) I make sure the wheelsets are free rolling. If not, I get the reamer out and ream all four journals on each truck. My test is to ensure the once spun, the wheel comes to a natural stop to spinning, not an abrupt one.

4) I ensure the car height is correct using my Kadee coupler height gauge. If the couplers are low, I add metal washers to adjust to the proper height. 

5) I make sure that each truck is free moving and that one of the trucks has some vertical flexibility as well.

6) Last is to ensure the cars are properly weighted. I use the NMRA standard weight. Although I think it's a bit heavy, I use it for consistency. I measure the weight in grams and have a reference chart available based on car lenghts: 40' cars are 108g, 50' are 128g, etc.I try to hit the weight as close as possible, +/- 2 grams. I use a variety of weights, but my favorites are pennies. 50 cents a roll. :) I also use lead shot where needed usually on the underside of sealed cars. 

All of the items above have been used for equipment on the Exeter Branch which operates very reliably. I do get the occasional 'weird' derailment. But, most derailments are the result of operator error rather than equipment or trackwork.