John's Alaska Railroad HO Scale Layout

November 4, 2020

Sitting in the recliner I could view the printed exterior backdrop as well as the painted interior backdrop. Although the paint color I chose wasn't a perfect match it was close enough for government work.	Rick finished mapping out all the power on the layout including the AR-1 (auto reverse circuit). This work proved not to be redundant as over time he discovered incorrectly connected power supply grounds, doubly connected blocks and loose connections.	Tonight Rick connected switch machine operations on the double crossover. Now when an operator throws the northeast switch the southwest one throws automatically. Likewise throwing the southeast switch throws the northwest switch. This saves the operator a step plus can preclude a possible derailment if my memory lapses.

A Fed Ex tractor and 53-foot trailer arrives on the layout tonight. Rick used to unload these trucks, but tonight gives his subordinate orders to do the heavy lifting.	Terry and I found these cushion moss plants while on vacation and thought they would make great HO scale bushes. I water them weekly. Eventually, I would like to find some planters and place them around the exterior of the diesel shop.	Slow moving locomotives stop unexpectedly at both main line switches at the APU/Anchorage depot siding. The CB-1 and AM-1 stay green so we know it is not a RailPro issue (short circuit). Rick uses a homemade LED/clip tester to show the problem is not track power related. Next week we will remove the locomotive's shell and connect the LED/clip tester to its electrical components to trace the power loss.

November 11, 2020

It is tough passing up new products that are closely prototypical. Not only does this triple box set have beautiful prototypical tank cars, but one of them is labeled fire suppression water. Hey, I've seen a pair of these in person. Oh to own one of these! I've been hanging onto my in-laws Christmas gift money for almost 11 months now so I purchased one of the few remaining sets available. My friend Rusty Wonderland does a nice YouTube video of opening up the box and checking out the contents.	Rick spent about 30 minutes re-checking the wiring and operation of the double crossover. I sent him an interesting article several days ago regarding this and he wanted to check out its validity. As it turned out Rick's configuration was correct and the article fell short.	When certain locomotives pass over the switches at the APU/Anchorage yard they stall. Others did not. Why? Rick connects his LED/clip tester and finds there is not a short circuit, but a power loss. He pops open the locomotive's shell and connects his tester. He discovers the power loss may be related to how the trucks pick up power from the rails. He takes both locos home to try swapping trucks between them. More on this next week.

I spent a good part of the evening replacing plastics wheels with metal ones. The Micro-Mart truck tuner reconditions the HO gauge railroad truck bearings so cars roll smoother with less friction.	The Ultra Dome railcars derail as they cross the switch to leave the yard. Do I have yet another reverse curve with which to contend? The incredibly insightful Rick discovers that some of the ultra domes have long shanks while others have short shanks. The short shanks are causing the derailments. Next week we will convert short shanks to long ones and hopefully fix the issue. We also see the air hoses hitting the straight closure rail. The problem is quickly fixed using the Coupler Trip Pin Pliers. However, we might need to do this fix on over 400 air hoses!

November 18, 2020

Rick took #2503 home to make some modifications to resolve the problem of it stopping on switches. Rick says of his efforts, "The left side of the pic shows the bearing that ride on the truck axles. I soldered wires to both sides. The brown side probably didn't need wires. The other side did. The connection relied on the contact between the truck and the frame. The other side was wired. I was not able to swap trucks due to the design. I also want to solder the track joints in the problem area."	We held an early Thanksgiving at our home on Saturday. This gave grandsons Lincoln and Liam a chance to be junior engineers. RailPro's touch screen icon driven tasks are intuitively obvious and easy to learn. Using the controller they learn how to start, stop and reverse a locomotive as well as turn on lights, engine, horn and whistle. Sharing the excitement of model railroading may just spark a life long interest.	I admit I am not an artist, but I need clouds on the inner scenery backdrop. I brought up a Bob Ross cloud painting video on YouTube, bought the required brushes and gave it a try. Yup, they pretty much suck. I obviously need more practice. Or maybe I should hire a starving artist?

In an effort to get more practice I paint a larger piece of facia. I'll watch a few more videos and slop on some more paint. Maybe time and effort will produce an acceptable result.	Rick spent most of train night trying to figure out why #2501 stops on switches. His modification didn't produce a solution so it was back to the drawing board. He uses his LED tester to monitor the power and still can't understand why three of four wheel sides on rails doesn't keep the locomotive moving. A Keep Alive helps the situation somewhat, but even then the locomotive still slows down. Does anyone out there have answers?	John installs the remaining metal wheel sets on freight cars. Only 16 more freight cars need to be converted from plastic to metal wheels. This means the purchase of 6 more packages of wheel sets. $$$$

November 25, 2020

I didn't like my paint brush clouds so I tried using the edge of a sponge instead as demonstrated by this YouTube video. I think they are better, but are just too round. I have painted the other side of this board blue and will try to create clouds with flat bottoms and puffy tops.	I spent the entire train night transferring sounds from the laptop (via Ring Engineering) to the handheld controller to each of the 24 locomotives. They now have the appropriate engine, bell and horn sounds.	Rick spent most of train night using his LED tester trying to find out why slow moving locomotives stop at the switches. He will try working on the motor internals in an effort to eliminate the problem. Ultimately, we may have to fall back to re-installing the Keep-Alives.

Feel free to contact me at john@alaskarails.org
Page created 9/4/17 and last updated 12/2/20