John's Alaska Railroad HO Scale Layout

April 1, 2021

F7 #1510 pushes the LED track testing car in addition to pulling a striking consist of cruise ship passenger cars and the converted four axle baggage car. All passenger cars traverse the entire layout without issue except..... at the "Smooth as Glass" curve. This area results in pull-aparts in several of the Ultradome passenger cars.	Rick is an extremely patient and thorough guy as exhibited by once again pulling up all the track and cork bed in the "Smooth as Glass" curve. He uses a belt sander to smooth out the ripples in the plywood as well as ensure a constant elevation increase. After replacing the track he runs the passenger consist through the area and finds the passenger cars lean and rock back and forth. He takes them home to do some modifications.	Jackie continues to work with the bumpy Chenille trimming the shapes and wetting the flat spots. By the end of the evening she has almost 100 trees ready for painting and floral tape bark!

All of our children and grandchildren arrive for the weekend to celebrate Easter and hunt 400 candy and money filled eggs. Grandson Liam continually cajoles me to run the train. On Saturday evening I finally "ahem" cave in and comply. Liam surprises me by finding the controller, turning it on, quickly selecting the locomotive I put on the track, ringing the bell, blowing the horn and firing up the engine. This young man is made for the model railroading business! Master modeler Patrick Durand once told me these young kids are the future life blood of the hobby. We need to give them hands on experience by letting them play on the layout. If they break something then quietly fix it. On Easter eve my daughter Anne watches as her sons immerse themselves in the hobby by playing with miniature people, signs and other accessories as a consist of hoppers pass them by. She actually recalls playing with these same items several decades ago on my previous layout!	At his home Rick continues to tinker with the passenger cars. Each passenger car's height is checked and necessary adjustments are made to the two McKinley Explorer cars. Height adjustment washers are fixed in place with epoxy. This should prevent leaning. The trucks will be put back on the following day and each car will be checked for leaning. A bad long shank coupler was discovered on the Nenana and Rick stopped by the house for a replacement. Hopefully, these efforts plus the belt sanding work will result in a smooth passenger car run. As some of you already know, manufacturers sometime produce cars that don't actually run well right out of the box. Thankfully, Rick's skills can correct deficiencies and provide smooth operations at Clayton's Alaska Railroad.

April 7, 2021

David continues painting sky on the inner backdrop as his work moves into the TwentyMile bridge area.	While David paints the backdrop John continues painting the bumpy Chenille trees. On the left are the unpainted trees.	After spending many hours working on passenger cars at home Rick gives them a trial run on the "smooth as glass" curve. There is still pull-aparts. It is determined some locomotives will need coupler height adjustments and part of the track will require shims.

Jackie continues to work on preparing trees for painting. Her work includes trimming the bumpy Chenille into tree shapes and then wetting them to get out any flat spots.

April 14, 2021

RailPro components have updates from time to time and tonight Rick checks each of them. The power supplies and circuit breakers are all up to date. However, the locomotive's LM-3S modules need updated. Rick updates three of them and leaves the rest for John to do over the next couple of days.	As we work to debug operational problems we find one of the points on several of the turnouts do not have power. Could paint have seeped underneath the rivet and prevented electrical contact to the point? Regardless of the cause next week Rick will try soldering a fine wire from the rivet's base plate to the point to see if this corrects the problem.	Jackie, Supervisor of Tree Shaping and Fluffing (STSF), processed another two dozen or so trees in preparation for painting. Over the past week John painted the two dozen or so trees she prepped last week. Over 100 trees are now available for placement on the layout.

April 21, 2021

At home Rick perfected his switch wiring technique of soldering a hair thin electric wire from the rivets to the points. He stops by during the week to solder all 15 turnouts along the mainline. Therefore, if something prevents power to the points his fix ensures a proper flow of electrical current.	Rick asks if I would run a locomotive over every turnouts on the layout and list those who need his switch wiring technique. I find another five need help. --- I love the above video as it shows the smooth operation of a slow moving locomotive over the turnouts. Nice!	Also during the week I finish melting and floral tape wrapping the rest of the bumpy Chenille trees. They are now ready for Jackie, Supervisor of Tree Shaping and Fluffing (STSF), to do her magic.

Last week Rick discovered all of the locomotive's LM-3S modules need updating to a new version. During the week I perform the update to the entire fleet. The transfer takes about three minutes per locomotive.	Several days before train night I finish the current track "to do" list. Five turnouts need the thin wire soldering technique, the double crossover has a short circuit,there is no power on the diesel shop tracks and several turnouts need motion help.	On train night Rick begins by tackling the loss of power to the diesel shop tracks. After some testing and measuring Rick discovers the problem. A table mounted reed switch and magnet (inside the small brown shack) serves as the on/off for diesel shop and passenger car tracks. Move the shack to the left or right and power is removed. Put the shack back on and power is restored. However, the shack must be oriented so the roof lines run east to west. Turn it 90 degrees and power is lost to the diesel shop. Who would have thunk it?

Originally Rick cleverly wired the double crossover so turnouts were thrown in pairs making it one step easier for the operator. However, the power draw seems to cause a short circuit. Rick disables this feature and the power problem goes away. So for the time being the operator will need to throw two turnouts to reverse the train's direction.	Rick solders the thin wires from the rivets to the points on five turnouts and finds the locomotives cross satisfactorily. Note to self: don't let paint get near those rivets or re-use old turnouts! One of the turnouts in the APU causes derailments and Rick fixes this by putting a tie under the turnout.	It's been a busy week and so much was accomplished! Also, Terry was finally able to obtain a bolt of black fabric and will soon install the skirts for the rest of the tables.

April 28, 2021

The couplers at each end of F7B 1517 are different heights. Why would the manufacturer do this? How do we easily correct this deficiency? Someone turned us on to the fact that Kadee makes three heights of couplers - over shank, center shank and upper shank. I purchased a 9/32" under shank coupler from Amazon. Rick installed it and we found it passed the Coupler Height Gauge test.	Rick continues to work on swing gate modifications in an effort to keep adjoining tracks aligned. Tonight he installs a wood block in preparation for twin dowel rods which will fit into alignment holes.	In an effort to ensure smooth operations Rick solders thin wires from the rivets to the points on three more turnouts. Testing reveals continuous electrical delivery to the locomotive.

I believe gremlins visit the layout in the wee hours of the morning. Things that worked previously now gives operational problems. The newest problem is the south Anchorage yard turnout won't throw. Rick spends 1.5 hours checking the turnout throw, Tortoise switch machine and its spring wire. Everything works correctly. Next week he will install a different turnout to see if it fixes the problem.	Jackie, Supervisor of Tree Shaping and Fluffing (STSF), processes the remaining 128 bumpy Chenille trees in one evening. Wow! I will paint these over the next several days which will bring our grand total to 400.

Feel free to contact me at john@alaskarails.org
Page created 9/4/17 and last updated 5/6/21