Northern Pacific and Black Hills

[Stu]

......so it continued into a second video, seamlessly without telling me!

'Tis the magic of n scale!

[badlandnp]

Good news, my custom decals came in. Bad part, am on vacation for a bit, chasing MRL while they are available and doing the Livingston, (was a good show,) and Helena shows.
On the layout, my oldest grandson turned 18 and wanted to run the T1 and Broadway, so . . . .
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And, yes, we are catching MRL,
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[badlandnp]

Had a great time at the Railfairs and the week off work between them! But it is good to be home! Had to go out and run trains right away, and did a test without cleaning the tracks at all. I am amazed by how well the CRC 6-26 treatment is working!


I did pickup just a couple of things at the show. Took a trade for some older DC diesels, just to resell, picked up some reefers and a set of C-C Milw heavyweights.
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The Kadee "Burp-Oh beer" one is just plain hilarious!
And then finally just had more fun today,


Next up, finishing two more switches, and then installing them here n there!

Oh, and pics of the diesels later, probably in the for sale section.

[badlandnp]

Just having fun while applying new NP&BH logo decals to......

[badlandnp]

And so now, back from the vacation, it is relax with trains time, and letter up my first NP&BH loco with it's new artwork!

[badlandnp]

Yesterday while it was raining, (beautiful stuff!,) I spent a bit of time soldering up another #8 RH and making a possibly clearer video,


And today soldered up the second one. Ran a few trains and painted on the 104 for a bit. Pictures of that later, but here's a vid,

[badlandnp]

Not a lot, ran some trains and worked on the caboose a bit,
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Added some crew,
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And some Z couplers and better handrails,
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[badlandnp]

Ran a triple hitter of steam!!

[badlandnp]

Made more progress on the lettering up this week,
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[badlandnp]

Wow! It's been near a month since posting progress on the layout! For shame!

I have run trains, did some cleaning, put up some stuff, laid some track, built some scenery....well here's some pictures.
Got the 501 running in it's new lettering,
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Cleaned under the layout and moved a leg to install this set of drawers for car and loco storage. Not certain where these came from, but I like to imagine they came from a RR support service,
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Organized my DCC power supply and overload lights,
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Installed this Till, old wooden one from the Judson, ND depot, and the lights for the staging area,
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Switch machines for staging, which need soldered in yet,
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And a removeable butte to fill in the scenic gap, and cover the east side of staging,
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Glued ties to these switches, and have them mostly installed,
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All of this while doing a roof, which wipes me out, guess I ain't as young as I once was!

[badlandnp]

Didn't do so much over the weekend, but did run a train and did a bit more cleanup. Blew some dust around, hopefully mostly to the filter and off the layout. Swapped out the AC, for a much nicer and less noisy one. Cleaned track, and cleaned track.....

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And the 501 rolls along...

[badlandnp]

And just to start the weekend off,


And a proof that my workbench exists! And not just as a catch all!
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An overview looking towards the layout. The Ticket cabinet is from a station near Mandan. The conductors hat hanging is from a local guy that started on the NP and worked through Amtrak before retiring.
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[OTFan]

I wish you continued success in outsmarting the wires

[badlandnp]

Thanks! Soldered some today..... and maybe I got smarter???

[badlandnp]

Made morning time to run a few trains, just because it was a good idea! And relaxing, too, with some morning java.

[badlandnp]

And since it has been a day or two, here's a few pics of some fun. I recieved a couple of ESU Nano's and decided that an Atlas 4-4-0 needed one installed. The install went well,
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And then the first run went ok for a bit,


At the end of the video, you can see that the loco becomes unresponsive, then quits. I investigated the thing this morning, it has cooled down, and it is totally unresponsive now. After looking closely at it, it appears to have an overheated chip. Compared to my other two, it has heated up the plastic wrap enough to be melted onto the chip. Bummer. It is the chip in the top right corner in the 4th photo. I will post a picture of the heated post failure chip laetr.

[mikec6201]

I bet you could get sound in there if the speaker goes in the cab . Mike

[badlandnp]

Thought about that. I do have a mogul, by MDC/Athearn, with a sound board and speaker in the cab. But you can't hear it because of the windows in the cab. So, that engine is on hold for now.

The seller of the ESU Nano is going to do a replacement for me. Sending the fried one in the mail tomorrow.

[badlandnp]

So, since the Nano couldn't handle the motor, maybe, I decided it would be a good idea to test the motor itself. Which was easy being as the engine was disassembled for decoder replacement,


Interestingly, the motor seems okay. I compared it to the extra ten-wheeler motor I have, and it was about the same. Hmmm.

Then it was just fun run time. I try to run a train or two a couple of laps daily, just to keep the mainlines clear of dust and debris...

[Sumner]

Interestingly, the motor seems okay.

I agree sure looks to be fine.

Enjoy your videos, only thing I don't like about them is they give me an excuse to procrastinate and not work on the layout ,

Sumner