The Tsunami 2 EMD PNP sound decoder is a nice replacement for the Athearn PCB. You can fix it with one screw at the front right and Katon tape in the rear. Two layers of Kapton tape at the front and rear are a nice layer of electric isolation. They are also helpful to keep the 1k5 LED resistors off the PCB.
The speaker is a trimmed down sugar cube. Two stiff wires fomr a simple but sufficient support. The front gear box cover is lightly touched but still swings freely (I use a similar approach successful over the rear gear box at GP38 etc.).
The LEDs are pairs of SMD mounted LEDs soldered to tiny PCB to form front and rear light units. The magnificent Kapton tape is my friend again. It is simple to use and can be removed easy if some repair is needed.
It is a very similar approach as described by Coos. Just the implementation is more sloppy and the LED wires re adjusted to my eyes and hands

ps. The knots in the wires are my standard marker for plus (blue)
pps. Soundtraxx has an installation description on the web page for the Atlas Tsunami 1 with the large capacitor and a standard speaker requiring milling etc. The Tsunami 2 solves all that hassle.



Did it four times to get the little blue gang on the rails. They are the prototypical power for the Oak Point yard,

Mike
Just for you, here's the plan for the shed
Track is down and I spent a pleasant hour switching the plant then tripping the cars back to the interchange and picking up the cars for the following day.

It's based on Inland Container in Biglerville, Pennsylvania made famous by Jack Hill and his O scale New Castle blog.

Instead of using the two loops to store off-spot cars I've added a small yard

The plant has a switch engine and crew on hire from the the Brownville & Ashland Railway (BRAR) because on busy days it needs to be switched twice a day.

There are two spur at the plant, the upper dock is the covered warehouse spur. In here finished paper rolls are delivered as well as starch. Obviously to make things interesting the starch hopper has to be placed in the middle of the three spots. The plant receives up to 10 boxcars of finished paper per week, which is unloaded almost straight away, while it only needs around 3 cars of starch, but these take 2-3 days to unloaded.
This means the part unloaded hopper has to be pulled out when the boxcar behind it needs swapping.

The lower dock is an open dock which receives raw pulp paper which is unloaded and goes straight into the storage warehouse behind it. At the far end of the spur is a chemical tank car unloading point. There is space for 3 boxcars and one tank car on this spur, again the boxcars are unloaded almost straight away while the tank cars take a few days. It's easier to replace the empty boxcars on this spur because the tank car doesn't need to be moved each time, but being a Hazmat car it brings its own complications.

Just to add to the mix, there is also a spot for loading scrap paper, which is on the hard standing just outside of the upper dock warehouse.

The interchange is all that's left of the old Highland Park layout. Here the switch crew swap cars with the rest of the world.




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Until I can get working on a layout again I've been working on a few small projects. One of which is an ore boat that will eventually go alongside my ore dock. I'm scratchbuilding the model out of styrene and basing the model off of the Joseph L Block, a ship that frequently visits the ports that ill be modeling. In HO scale the model would be almost 11 inches wide by over 10 feet long, so I'm gonna use a little selective compression and make my model 8x75 inches. Here are some pictures of the start that I have so far.

IMG_2749 by Kevin Krey, on Flickr

IMG_2750 by Kevin Krey, on Flickr

IMG_2754 by Kevin Krey, on Flickr

Sometimes I have too much free time and too many spare parts1 This is G gauge and is used on a push button layout for the kids down at the museum. The cab is from a LGB Porter, the drive is out of a LGB self propelled tender, the boiler is from a Lionel 0-27 tank car. The cowcatcher was scratchbuilt by Rob Watson a friend who also works at the museum. The other things like the smoke stack, steam whistle, air horns, muffler, exhaust pipe and other details are from the junk box or scratched. It runs very well but because it's used on a push button layout it has to be DC and does not have sound. We call it a stesiel !

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WOW, been a long time since I started this thread, hope I don't step on anyones toes doing this

Got a shot of one of the last CNW Dash 9's unpatched rolling through UP's Rock Valley Sub

The brand new HO Rapido GMD-1 with stripes and ditch lights uses none standard configuration for the ditch lights.
They are connected via AUX 5 and AUX 6 of the brand new Loksound decoder (Product ID 86 or better). Those lines are not specified in the Loksound 4.0 documentation and use none documented pins in the 21 plugs.
That was a harsh surprise for me. I ordered the DC version to be used with a Tsunami 2 sound decoder. Everything was great just the ditch lights can not be switched on.

I am forced to use a humming ESU decoder if I want to have operational ditch lights. That makes me really upset.

Hello everyone---I recently purchased a brass locomotive from an estate sale and noticed brown spots on both the locomotive and tender.I visited Doctor Wayne today to get his opinion on this issue.I am intending to have this locomotive painted but there was some concern whether these spots may affect the paint later if they're not removed.Has anyone encounterd a similar situation and if so,I would appreciate any feedback.

I'd like to purchase a camera, on account of I'm clumsy and have managed to break every one I've owned thus far. I would like another fairly cheap one, because, well I'm pretty sure I know what will end up happening to it. I'd say I'll use it 1/3 of the time for train related photos and videos both real and the model railroad. Then anther 1/3 for photos/videos of my four wheeling trips, and lastly before after pictures of jobs I do. I haven't looked at cameras in a long time and was hoping someone here could point me in the right direction.

New additions to the Leetown Division.Local rail-fanners have noticed some new power recently including S2A #3547,N4A #2659 and Central Vermont T3A #705

Hi all,

I've had a retina problem with my left eye since June 11. Long story short, I've now had 4-5 laser surgeries since then and one other procedure. Each time, the doctors thought they'd fixed the problem but it kept worsening and my retina was actually detaching. So, two days ago, I had full day surgery on this eye and the doctors have assured me that the retina is now back in its correct position and well-lasered in. I now have a large gas bubble in my eye which will last 2 months -- it's intended to keep holding and pushing the retina back into place. I won't be able to drive for about two weeks.

Neighbours and friends have been great in terms of driving me around, but I thought I'd try Uber so I can be a little more independent. Has anyone -- especially those living in Canada and in the Toronto area -- used Uber and have any feedback? I've signed up and gone to their website but it seems really expensive, i.e. $10-15 to just go a few miles and around $20-25 to go about 5-10 miles.

Please note that I'm not at all Uber and taxi savvy, as the last time I used a taxi of any sort was in 2012! I'm so used to driving myself around.

I've had to take a lot of time off work during July, so this has given me a bit more time to work on my N scale layout.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Rob