I finally got a project finished that has been waiting for over a year. The roof on my engine house was beginning to grow moss and some of the shingles were starting to fall off. Last year when Dave and I replaced the roof on the covered bridge I purchased enough materials to do the engine house also. So a few weeks ago, I figured I’d get to it before the snow falls. Next spring, I need to give it a new coat of paint.
I’ve been wanting to make new cylinder drain cocks because I was never really happy with the ones on my Consolidation. My last run solidified my decision when I derailed and shared my tubing. Just finished four new ones. I made them for another locomotive and they always worked flawlessly.
I took a few shots as I ran last week. Check them out below.
Here is a little video I took at the WLS annual meet on Saturday.
A really important part of a steam locomotive is a clean tender. Last year I was having a problem with my injector. I finally pulled the top off my tender and low and behold, it was loaded with rust. After 12 years of running, it was time to do a deep cleaning. The rubber coating failed and rust was everywhere. I cleaned off as much of the rubber I could and used a rust removing solution called Evapo-Rust. The product did a great job, but there were areas I couldn’t get to the rust and rubber. I finally made the decision to build a new tender our of pvc sheet. I build one for my 1″ scale Atlantic and it really worked well. I decided that I didn’t want to go through this again in another 10 to 12 years. I finished my project today, in time for our annual meet at Waushakum this coming weekend. Only one mistake. I screwed on the top with my flashlight inside. Tomorrow my decals will arrive and be installed.
I have continued laying stone on the Blueberry Pass Extension, however I did have a setback due to kidney stones. Leaving that aside, I’ll post some pics next week. Along with work on the extension, I’ve also done work on the tender for my Consolidation. Last summer I had difficulties with water intake. When I took a look in the tender there was a whole bunch of rust and crud on the bottom. I began working on rust removal but came up with I think is a better solution. I’ll finish it up on Monday, just in time for our annual Meet weekend at Waushakum. I do have some great pics of my progress. I also wanted to update my railroad’s logo for the side of my tender. Just finished that up last night. I’m having vinyl stickers made, but I don’t think they will arrive in time for the meet. Here is a picture of my new logo below. I removed the locomotive and replaced it with a slice of rail. I also changed the font to Times New Roman. It’s much cleared to read. I really like it. Look at the logos side-by-side. What do you think?
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Happy Steaming!
The extension is completely connected. Next week I’ll get ballast. Once this is finished, Mountain Division goes into high gear planning. Many ideas are swirling around in my head. Come spring, it’s time to begin building a 250′ trestle. Looking forward to laying track on that extension. I’m going to use AccuTie Rail System. I can probably lay at least 100′ a day. Anyway, here is a video (a bit shaky because I did it walking with my iPhone.). Once the ballast is down and track is leveled, I’ll record a new video.
Since my last post there has been a lot of progress even though I was unable to work for a few weeks. I completed fixing the area wiped out behind the house. It’s not connected into the cement crossing. Between yesterday and today, I cut 357 ties. Also laid 80′ of rail on one side of the tie, I’ll complete that the the remainder of the Blueberry Pass next week. After that, it will be time to order a load of stone. Here are a few pictures.
In the past two days I managed to install about 100′ of track. These were old sections removed from another area. I removed screws and rail from one side of the tie, get everything in place and reattach the other rail. I also gathered ties from here and there giving me enough to complete some sections with no ties. Next week I will connect into my cement crossing and begin repairing the area wiped out by the tree a couple of years ago.
