May 4, 2022
Tunnel canyon Tour Alaska Tunnel canyon

Here is an overhead view of the canyon at Tunnel. After lots of lots of hours the rock mold work in the canyon is finally completed. Blue painter's tape protects the track and road bed.

John purchased a Tour Alaska Ultradome from eBay. This company was the first to run cruise ship rail car tours in Alaska. Long overshank couplers are on order. Rick tested it by hooking it up to a string of Princess Ultradome cars and a pair of SD70MACs and ran the consist forward and backward for almost an hour.

 John makes the first pass of painting the canyon at Tunnel with a black wash. This settles into the crevasses and highlights the shadows, making the colors pop out more. John adds green on both sides and grass will soon be added over top.
Wires
    
Some of the barge wiring is hanging down so Rick ties it into place.  

 

 

May 18, 2022
Canyon Canyon Canyon

John is working on painting the canyon at Tunnel. A total of seven different washes is applied along with four colors of grasses and three different bushes.

Here is an overhead view of the canyon at Tunnel.

The mountain and canyon section is finally finished.
kirtCanyon skirt Tour Alaska Ultradome
Terry finished sewing, hemming and hanging the table skirt along the Anchorage yard. She also finished the table skirt under the Portage depot section. Rick finished the work on coupler boxes and couplers for the Tour Alaska Ultradome. The above video shows it being pulled by his locomotive.
SD70MAC Canyon  
SD70MAC #4011 had some lighting issues. When Rick removed the shell he found the wires had fallen into and wrapped themselves around the drive shaft. After some repair work it has once again returned to service. Under the category of measure twice cut once: Rick discovers the passenger car fleet strikes the canyon walls. John should have measured clearances twice! Rick uses a Dremel tool to remove the offending plaster while John holds a vacuum nozzle close by to keep dust down to a minimum.  

 

May 25, 2022
Skirts
Canyon
 Fixing locomotive

Terry is hard at work on the table skirts and now has them under the TwentyMile section. The next sections for skirts are at Whittier, Eppley's Curve and Usibelli. Unfortunately no open bracing exists so skirts will need to be attached on the back side. Cross pieces will interfere with the skirt so allowances will need to be made.

John painted and placed scenery on the plaster removed by the Dremel which allow Ultradomes to pass. The next step will be track ballast.

We were frustrated that GP40 #3009 worked at Rick's home, but not on the layout. Rick spent time testing the locomotive's wiring to no avail. In the end we realized when we replaced the LM3-S we needed the RailPro handheld controller to "re-discover" the unit. Definitely a head slapping moment.
Fixing locomotives Fascia Fascia
Lighting on SD70MAC #4011 became wonky. After checking all the wiring Rick discovered the ditch light and rear head light wires were loose. A little soldering work and everything tested good. We forget to add a fascia piece to the end of the barge area. Rick measured and cut a section of the fiber board and then sanded it in preparation for painting. Rick did some further fitting and cutting for final placement. John will paint it this week in preparation for mounting.


And of course we are running trains! Here are some passenger train videos for you:

 

 

 

 

Feel free to contact me at john@alaskarails.org
Page created 9/4/17 and last updated 6/2/22