The Atlantic and Southern Build Thread Continued, Part 3

[Blazeman]

Thanks for the explanation on how you even the levels, Tom.  That process enables grade crossings to be flat rather than the giant hump so many have.

[S&S RR]

Tom


You have made a lot of progress since my last virtual visit. Your layout just keeps getting better and better.  Very nice work my friend.

[Bruce Oberleitner]

Looks good to me Tom.  I do like the idea of the waste products being put into the river, at least from a modeling point of view.  Maybe you could even have an inspection team there writing up a fine for the pest control place. 

[ReadingBob]

Looks good to me Tom.  I do like the idea of the waste products being put into the river, at least from a modeling point of view.  Maybe you could even have an inspection team there writing up a fine for the pest control place. 

Reminds me of when was very young.  My hometown has a river that runs through it and is downstream from a larger city which was home to a bleach and dye plant.  We always wondered what color the river would be from one day to the next.  Blue, green, red, etc.  It's since been cleaned up but back then it was a dumping ground for all sorts of nasty things. 

[ACL1504]

Coming along nicely Tom!  Nice choice of buildings.

Mark,

Thanks, after a week of the creeping crud, I'm somewhat back at the layout.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Thanks for the explanation on how you even the levels, Tom.  That process enables grade crossings to be flat rather than the giant hump so many have.

Larry,

You are very welcome, always happy to help. And yes, this way, the crossings are more realistic looking.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Tom


You have made a lot of progress since my last virtual visit. Your layout just keeps getting better and better.  Very nice work my friend.

John,

Thanks very much for the kind words on the layout. The summer flu has really cut into my time the past two weeks.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Looks good to me Tom.  I do like the idea of the waste products being put into the river, at least from a modeling point of view.  Maybe you could even have an inspection team there writing up a fine for the pest control place. 

Cousin Brucie,

Dumping pest control chemicals in the river seemed like the thing to do in the late 40's early 50's. Why should the A&S RR be any different? I don't think they had any inspection teams for that back then.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Looks good to me Tom.  I do like the idea of the waste products being put into the river, at least from a modeling point of view.  Maybe you could even have an inspection team there writing up a fine for the pest control place. 

Reminds me of when was very young.  My hometown has a river that runs through it and is downstream from a larger city which was home to a bleach and dye plant.  We always wondered what color the river would be from one day to the next.  Blue, green, red, etc.  It's since been cleaned up but back then it was a dumping ground for all sorts of nasty things. 

Bob,

I was lucky growing up here in Central Florida in the 50'-60's. All the lakes and most of the rivers were crystal clear. We lived on Spring Lake and used to scuba dive, the water was so clear you could see the bottom some 50 feet down. It made finding errant golf balls very easy.

Can't say that anymore though.

Tom

[ACL1504]

A few things to mention before I get going. My 27 year old AC unit gave up the ghost this past week. So my time has been limited in the train room. It is 91 in here now.

Also, some attic critter or critters have possibly chewed some wires so I now have a short in the lights as well. First the electrician needs to check the damage and then I'll find an new AC unit. I'm sure they are much more efficient now than 27 years ago.

Prior to coming down with the summer flu bug, I started to repair all the Walther heavyweight passenger cars. I added the new Walthers LED lighting, some people and replaced all the MCCrappy couplers with Kadee scale couplers.

Here are the IC cars.



On the observation car, I added rear LED marker lights.

Continued -

[ACL1504]

I found two pair of the Tomar Adlake marker lights. However, they had the old 1.5 V grain of wheat bulbs in the markers.



I twisted the wires and removed the 1.5 V bulbs.



One bulb broke off so I used a #74 drill bit to remove the bulb and wires. Easy peasy.

More in a few.

[ACL1504]

I decided to use the warm white LEDs for the markers.



Here is a marker with the new LED installed. I used Canopy glue to glue the LED in place and then touched it up with flat black.



More in a few.

[ACL1504]

It's hot in here so I'm going to forgo some photos and cut to the chase.

On the vista dome car the regular Walthers LED light bar won't fit. I cut a short section off an LED lighting strip. Be sure when running the wires, you solder the + to the + and the - to the -. See photos below.

On the vista dome, I ran the wires along the interior side and soldered them to the light tabs on the end of the car.





Continued -

[ACL1504]

Here's how the LEDs and markers look.

The markers aren't as bright as they appear. I couldn't tone the light done without loosing the contrast.





All in all, I refitted some 15 cars.

[Mark Dalrymple]

The Pullman cars look good, Tom.

We had a hot, dry summer in much of NZ this year with lots of extra food for rodents and there is a lot of problems now as they move indoors to escape the cold.

Cheers, mark.