A constructive weekend

I am sure I am like many other modellers with a number of projects in various forms of completion or actions to be done. Well, this weekend was one where I tackled a number of them and cleared them off my desk, so to speak.

Firstly, I have 3 Kato Santa Fe C44-9W War-Bonnets. They have been absolutely awesome runners, however, I think they have done one too many shows and were getting a bit jerky and not running at all OK. I opened them up to lubricate the worm bushes as well as the motor bushes. Once complete and semi re-assembled, they went on the programming track. I have 3 Kato Amtrak Genesis locos that programming wise are perfect. I downloaded the CV's from the Genesis and then uploaded them to the C44-9W's. Instantly, they were already running 100% better. All I needed to do next was set the V Start, V Mid and V Max and they were running perfectly.

Next, I have a box with a couple of wagons that needed work done to them in one way or another. One of the wagons is a Bethgon coal hopper that I wanted to fit a body mounted Microtrains coupler. The reason for this is that on the coal train, one of the moves is to push the string into the coal mine. The problem though is that the fixed coupler on the loco pushes the coupler in thus the truck to one side often resulting in pesky derailments. Hopefully, a body mount pushing against a body mount would solve the problem. The truck on the other side of the wagon would remain unchanged  The fix involved removing the truck and cutting a suitable piece of styrene that I glued to the under part of the wagon. I then glued the body-mount coupler to styrene shim that I had glued in place. Then I refitted a truck that did not have a coupler pocket attached to it. Once completed, it was back on the track for a test run. To say everything went well is an understatement. Problem is I now have one more to do on the other rake of cars :-(

Lastly, I have a number of Atlas wagons with the Atlas version of the Microtrains coupler. Problem is, some of them can be a problem coupling, so much so that one of them had been cast into the project bin. Well, I still had some Microtrain replacement couplers from a 10 pack I purchased a while ago. What better time then to look around the layout for any other wagons with the Atlas  "Microtrain" couplers and replace them. 5 were done in total :-)

Then, there was some good old running and switching to end off the day.

Life is good