The Hobo Camp Fire Is going well #IX.. Stop In!!!

[tompm]

Good morning folks

It is a very nice 54 and going up to 74.

It was a productive weekend around the house. We got the raised vegetable planter repainted, set up, filled with dirt, and added plants. I painted the radiator cover for the master bathroom. After my wife’s dentist appointment Saturday morning we went and ate breakfast at our favorite breakfast/lunch place. This was the first time since the pandemic started, we ate breakfast out. During the pandemic we did order takeout from the place numerous times. We ate outside and felt like a little bit or normality returning.

With all the house stuff being done very little modeling got done. What did get done was problematic. I tried running a passenger train with my PRR Erie-Built locos and PRR cars. Between the derailments and constant uncoupling, it was the worst running session I had since I started rebuilding the layout. The derailing was traced to a rail not sitting correctly in a rail joiner and a misaligned piece of track. Once those issues were resolved the derailments stopped. After scratching my head for a few moments, I got out the coupler gauge and began checking couplers. All my Bachmann Spectrum PRR passenger cars have been converted to Kadee’s years ago and they were fine. A recently purchased Athearn blue box RPO was good with Kadee’s. The problem cars are all older (10+ years old) Walthers cars. To my surprise they all have either EZ-Mate of McHenry couplers, and none match the coupler gauge. I thought I had changed them out, but I guess once I realized they would not run on the old layout I did not. My new project is tunning these cars up. The other uncoupling problem is the transition to the Water Tower Diorama and I cannot address that until my Trainworld order shows up.

I need to make a run to PetSmart, the pharmacy, the produce store, and grocery store today. And I need to clean the fishpond filter.

I hope everybody has a good day.