December 29, 2008

Craig Bisgeier

Work

Well it the day after Christmas and I started working on a new double cross over for the High Line. It is a long process to build a double cross over but it is worth the work. I also had made a trip with Craig to Model Railroad Post Office and picked up a pair of Bangor and Aroostook refrigerator cars to add to the fleet, a bundle of Micro Engineering code 70 flex track and some more Central Valley under frames.   I started addressing the lend-lease cars that I got from Ralph Heiss by starting to replace the light weight wheel sets with all metal Jay-Bee wheel sets.  I also unpacked a pair of New York Central caboose I got for Atlas last week.  They look great and bring my New York Central Caboose count to six.  Well it has been a long day and I need to call it a night.  I hope to have a work session the Sunday after New Year’s Day.

December 22, 2008

Work

Just got in a new NCE-RB02 From Tony's Train Exchange. The Layout is now Radio Equipped!

December 17, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Ted Pamperin, Wayne Shortman

Work

Tonight is the last scheduled work session of 2008.  My next work session would have been the 31st but I did not want people to come out on New Year’s Eve and work. Craig’s wife, Karen, and my wife Janice put out a nice spread for tonight attendees.  Craig stopped by and completed installing the track at St. John’s Park Terminal.  We pulled up the ties that where there and Craig put in Micro Engineering code 70 flex track.  Ted Pamperin started putting in the power feeder for the Blue Points at the approach to St. John’s Park Terminal. Wayne started doing some much needed wire management at the 28th to 30th Street crossing.  I spent the night putting in Blue Points on the High Line.

December 6, 2008

Craig Bisgeier

Work

Today Craig and I took a road trip to the Model Railroad Post Office in West Milford, New Jersey.  I went there looking for 1/16” styrene to continue building the new Transfer Bridge I have been working on for 28th Street.  While we there I found that Central Valley makes a under frame kit for 40 foot box cars.  I have a small fleet of CB&T cars that suffer from a poorly designed and poorly executed frame that interferes with the movement of the truck causing derailments in medium to tight radii curves like the ones present on the layout.  For just under $5.00 I picked up a pack of 3 frames.  When I got them home and found that I needed to trim 1/32” from the frames on both sides of the long axis.  After making the modifications the frame fits in like a glove to the CB&T car body.  I then added the proper weights to bring them in to compliance with NMRA specifications.  In the next phase of the upgrade I ran the modified car through the trouble areas where the car had failed before and this time the car made it through with no difficulties.  So you can say I took these lemons and made lemonade!

December 3, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Wayne Shortman

Work

I had a small but productive work session tonight.  Wayne came by and we fixed some issues at 30th Street with two turnouts that controlled the approach to the two new arrival and departure tracks. There turned out to be a gauge issue at the frog that a little of filling fixed.  Wayne worked out some additional track issues as I set up Craig to put in power drops for two more turnouts on the High Line.  I put in two Caboose ground throws at the throat of St. John’s Park Terminal.  I also remounted a Blue Point on the High Line that decided to fall out during the great flood of 08!   

November 22, 2008

Work

I spent the past couple of days recovering from minor foot surgery.   Today I started work on the new 100’ transfer bridge for 28th street.  I cut up some Central Valley girder bridge kits in to the side sections.  I also cut a 1/8” styrene sheet into the primary decking for the bridge.  I need to layout the track and solder it to PC ties.  Then after gluing the PC ties to the deck I will fill in the space with additional styrene so the rails will be flush with the deck. 

November 5, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Ted DiIorio, Ted Pamperin

Work

Tonight was a find the bug night.  Ted Pamperin and Craig went over every turnout at 28th Street and found a few issues that needed correcting.  First there was a frog that needed to be redone.  Craig filled it with solder and re-cut the flange ways.  Craig and Ted spent the entire night at 28th street and after fiddling with the yard they got many issues resolved. Ted DiIorio spent the night working at 30th Street yard cleaning the rails and testing the New York Central’s locomotives.  When tonight’s crew departed I got room in to a more livable state with a good sweeping.  Well Friday night is the 4th and last shakedown until the High Line is open for service in January and I’m hoping that the Lehigh Valley won’t be too far behind that!  Until next time!

November 4, 2008

Tom Callan

Work

ELECTION DAY!

Oh what a night.  First off I would like to congratulate to Barack Obama on being elected to the office of President of the United States tonight.  John McCain, a real American hero who overcame the inhuman conditions and treatment in Viet Nam as a POW, but could not overcome the legacy of George W. Bush and the disaster that we call Congress.   Thank you for your service! Enough said and now it’s back to the railroad’s business.  Tom came over tonight and we went to town on installing and testing all of the turnout actuators for 30th Street and 28th Street.  I had stopped off at Home Depot trying to find this thick wire that Craig uses on his Housatonic Railroad for his switch machines.  The gods where kind to me tonight when I found that they had only a few wires, and not enough to sell as a bundle. To my surprise I was told that they could not sell them as is so they where free!  Tom and I installed all of the remaining actuators and 30th Street is fully operational.  I had last night spent a lot of hours installing the new circuit breakers and cutoff panel and I spent a few minutes going over it with Tom.  Tom started testing 28th Street and right off Loco 308 was not working up to par.  We swapped it out with an atlas S-1 and she had no issues.  We did managed to break a tab on a Blue Point switch machine and swapped that out as well.  Then while tom worked 28th Street I noticed a point needed to be re-soldered on the approach three way turnout.  I got that repaired!  At the end of the short night all of the turnouts checked out fine and 30th and 28th Streets are operational!

October 29, 2008

Tom Callan, Ted DiIorio, Wayne Shortman

Surprise session tonight!  Craig canceled his work session and I was able to send out an e-mail and let the guys know that I was working tonight.  Wayne came down and started helping me cleaning up the place.  Since the disaster of my furnace last Monday morning (October 20th) the railroad has had a lot of tender loving care poured into it.  Ted DiIorio also stopped by along with Tom Callan and we started cleaning track and running trains!  Wayne was able to verify the location and spotting of 30th Street yard.  At this point the railroad is close to being operational.  Until next time!

October 22, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Tom Callan, Ted DiIorio, Ray Louis, Ted Pamperin, Wayne Shortman

Well this week has been disaster week at the railroad.  Monday I had a major failure of my heating system when my boiler suffered a rupture.  2 ½” of water was on the ground by the time I found the failure.  It took 14 hours of using the Shopvac to get rid of my unwanted pool.  Craig, Neil and Ralph cam down on Monday to help me rip out the water logged carpets and get the last of the water out.  Today the good people at PSE&G installed the new boiler!  It is slightly bigger than the old one but the great guys installed it with a lot of space around it.  Tonight Wayne, Ray, Craig, Ted Pamperin, Ted DiIorio and Tom came down and we put the room back together.  As we got boxes put away Craig and Tom started putting in the new turnout actuators for 30th Street. Ray soldered the power feeder on to the turnouts in the mechanical room next to the new boiler. Ted Pamperin and Ted DiIorio put the mole are back together again.  Wayne and I got more of the boxes stored again.  Over all it was a very difficult week and I hope to never have another one like this again!  The biggest bright spot of the week has been joining a great web forum call Model Rail Cast.  They have a great pod cast available via iTunes and as an MP3 from their web site http://www.modelrailcast.com. Check them out and help support this fantastic site.  Until next time!

October 12, 2008

Jay Held

Today Jay Held stopped by and we got some work done on the layout.  Jay was able to spike down one of the sidings at St. John’s Park Terminal while I worked on the new turnouts at 30th Street.  I put in more ties and put in power drops on the turnouts.  The night went well with on disaster! I spilled most of a bottle of flux at 30th Street.  Hazmat came in and made a cleanup.  I’m looking forward to tuning the turnouts (which I started when the spill happened).  This Wednesday night session is at Craig’s Housatonic layout in our round robin.  I have two sessions left until my next shakedown on Friday, November 7th at 7:00 PM.

October 8, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Tom Callan, Ted Pamperin, Wayne Shortman

Tonight we got a lot of work done on getting the railroad back up and running for my November shakedown.  I had built and ready for installation two critical turnouts.  I built a tandem number six turnout for the 30th Street Mole approach.  Tom stepped in to the dungeon known as the mechanical space and was able to put in the connection to the turnouts with code 83 flex.  Here is a technical note on code 70 to 83 Micro Engineering rail joiners; they do not mate the rail heads.  There is a 1/32” bump up.  Not what I expected from Micro Engineering.  This should be fixable with a little filing of the code 83 rail head.  Wayne finished assembly of the drop in section between the Lehigh Valley and Terminal Stores.  All that is left is fitting it and painting.  Ted Pamperin made the electrical connections for the new tracks at 30th Street Yard.  Craig put in the flex track connections between the new turnouts on the lift bridge on the High Line and the rest of the High Line.  Now with the new tracks put in on the High Line the next phase is to build and install the Nabisco and National Refrigerated Cold Storage.  Until next time.

September 24, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Ray Louis, Wayne Shortman

Tonight started off with me cutting up new fascia to replace the one emplace at 30th Street.  The new fascia extends over the bench work about ½ inch since the new tracks are much closer to the edge of the layout.  I got most of it done when Wayne stopped by and began work on removing a trouble spot at 30th Street, the first turnouts from staging.  This is perhaps the worst location to work on in the entire layout room and big kudos to Wayne for jumping in and doing a great job.  There was a bump in the Homasote that after the turnout and after the flex track and turnout was removed, it turned out to be two dips and a bump.  I spent some time filling in the dips after I sanded out the bump.  During my turn in the pit, Craig came down and laid the new curve approach to 28th Street and Terminal Stores. Ray came down and used his electrical wizardry to power the Terminal Store double crossover.  Craig work diligently and he was able to put in two additional Team Tracks in.  These will act as the arrival / departure track for the yard.  At the end of the night I cut the gap in the drop bridge track and installed the last of the Team Tracks!  A full night of work and with the repair of one more turn out the yard will be operational.  I hope to have the new turnouts in place by next session!  I’m looking to have a shakedown for the current work the second weekend or Friday in November.  Until next time!

September 20, 2008

After doing some work during the week I noticed I needed to more bench work.  I spent some time today on adding the additional real estate.  This required me ripping up some more prior track work but in the end of it I think it will be well worth the work.  When everything is said and done two additional Team Tracks will be added as well as a third will be lengthened.  I’m still debating on if I should make these two another runaround tracks.  I have a crew coming down this Wednesday and I will put it to them.   I also picked up off of eBay a couple of new car kits and end of track bumpers for 30th Street Yard.  I hope at the end of this week to have 30th Street back in service.

September 11, 2008

Kevin Katta

Work

Well tonight I sanded the new Homasote flush and remove the track that needed to be replaced.  The ties where removed and the spikes recovered.  The rail will be cut up for the scrap train loads.  I started painting the Homasote when my friend Kevin Katta came down for an onsite progress report.  If all goes well Friday night I will finish painting and then start on the new fascia.

September 10, 2008

Tom Callan, Ted DiIorio, Ralph Heiss, Neil Henning, Dennis Hultay,Ted Pamperin, Wayne Shortman

First session since my vacation to Hawaii and there was a lot going on.  I started off the night by doing some sketches of what I wanted to do as far as improving operations.  This would include physical plant and addition of track.  First order of business is the drop bridge that connects 30th Street to 12 Avenue.  The inherent flaw of my original design was screaming for a major revamp.  This would entail the extension of bench work so that the break in the rail would not fall on a curve.  As the crew arrived I asked them their thoughts on what other improvements could be worked in.  Here are a few of the proposed plans: 1) Replace the hand laid portion with flex track and extend the bench work so that the break in the rails would now be on a straight section of track. 2) Put in a curve turnout and connect the Terminal Stores / AD track to the Perishables track and extend the bench work so that the break in the rails would now be on a straight section of track.  3) Replace the hand laid portion with flex track, extend the bench work so that the break in the rails would now be on a straight section of track and add an addition team track siding.  The overwhelming choice was 3.  So we then set off to make it happen.
Ted Pamperin and Tom Callan built a 2 ½ inch extension for the new team track siding and a 6 inch extension to the landing zone of the drop bridge.  Tom and Ted also trimmed the bridge itself so that it fit the new space.  I set off to cut Homasote to fit over the new bench work.  Ted DiIorio and Wayne Shortman constructed the lift out bridge for the Lehigh Valley / Terminal Stores Crossing.  Neal Henning hand laid an additional siding at St. John’s Park while Dennis put in more power drops at St. John’s Park.  Ralph Heiss came down as well and introduced us to the aforementioned Dennis.  Ralph also helped out with pitching in whenever an additional had was needed.  All in all a lot was accomplished tonight.  After everyone left I glued down the Homasote to the new bench work and with a little luck I will sand it flush tomorrow. 

August 28, 2008

With my vacation to Hawaii no over, it’s time to get back to work on the railroad.  I crossed 6 times zone and I just want to spend a little time spiking some rails down at St. John’s Park.  After a short time the Jet lag kicked in and I’m heading for bed.  Until September 10th and my next session.

July, 30, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Tom Callan, Scott Dunlap, Neil Henning, Wayne Shortman

Busy night tonight!  This is my last schedule work session until September.  I have a long awaited family vacation and some much needed down time.  My first surprise of the night was a delivery by UPS from Model Rectifier Corporation.  My Atlas S-1 with its newly replaced Sound DCC decoder!  I installed Kadee couplers and replaced the cab and hood shells and she was ready for service after a quick trip to the programming track.  Tonight Tom started off the night by cleaning the track for Friday third shakedown.  Wayne came down and started attaching the labels for the clerks rack.  Big and welcomed surprise Scott Dunlop stopped by and he worked on the hand laying of one of the sidings at St. John’s Park Freight Terminal.   Craig came down and installed the DCC decoder in the Proto 2000 New York Central 0-8-0 switcher.  Neil came down and found some wiring issues at 28th Street the he and I fixed.  At the end of the night Neil, Craig and I attack three fast tracks turnouts that where tacked down but not fully spiked in place.  They are now done.  After everyone left I put in guard rails at the drop leaf at 30th Street leading to 28th Street.  Unfortunately the 0-8-0 has issues traversing that curve but that will be fixed in September!  Until Friday’s shakedown and then on to September! 

July, 27, 2008

Working on the railroad this week and I was able to get a few cars built and the turnouts finished that Neil started last Wednesday.  I gapped the turnouts and I have the track energized all the way to St. John’s Park Freight Station.  I fixed a derailment issue at the bathroom lift section by putting in some guard rails.  I have a lot to do this week.  My last work session until September is slated for this Wednesday and the third shake down for this Friday. 

July, 23, 2008

Tom Callan, Neil Henning, Ted Pamperin, Wayne Shortman

Tonight Wayne started off by putting in some more power feeders for the High Line.  Tom and Ted took on the task of actually connecting up the feeders to the main High Line sub buss.  I spent the night putting in Blue Point switch machines in on the High Line.  Neil stopped by and put in the last custom turnout at St. John’s Park.  After Wayne left we energized the new section to find that there was a short circuit.  After about 30 minutes of bug hunting Neil and Ted found the short.  I was very pleased with tonight’s work and now all that is left is the sidings in St. John’s Park, Merchants Refrigerated Storage and Nabisco sidings to finish off all of the track work on the High Line.  After that there is The Lehigh Valley 27th Street Yard and the lift section that connects the Lehigh to Terminal Stores.  The next step in the construction process is the building all of the structures required for the layout.  My next work session and last for the summer is July 30th at 7:30 PM and the third shake down is slated for Friday night, August 1 at 7:30 PM.

July, 20, 2008

This weekend I spent some time putting down ties and laying down the remaining track at the throat of St. John’s Park.  Sunday I put in the throw bars on all the turnouts that have been put in.  Now all that is left to do are one custom turnout in St. John’s Park and a few crossovers along the High Line.  I have a work session on Wednesday and another shakedown on August 1st. I hope to be able to put in all Blue Points on Wednesday.

July, 16, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Tom Callan, Neil Henning

Tonight I had a great crew and we got a lot done.  Tom came down and worked on putting more power drops in on the High Line flex track.  Craig began work on the transition section between the High Line and St. John’s Park.  Craig cut in a new switch and set the pre built cross over and the additional turnouts. I created a bunch of ties for the turnouts that went down tonight and I managed to put in a Blue Point on one of the turnouts Bob McQueen put in last week.  I also cut more slots in the bench work for the Blue Point installations.  Neil put in another custom turnout at St. John’s Park and now there is only one left to go.  The High Line is nearly completely laid.

July, 9, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Tom Callan, Ted DiIorio, Neil Henning, Bob McQueen, Ted Pamperin, Wayne Shortman

Last night I took the time to build a new #6 tie jig for the turnouts that I need to be putting in over the next few weeks.  I popped out 4 turnouts for tonight’s session and glue in place 3 of the 4.  Ted Pamperin came down and began installing the power feeder drops from the flex track that Craig and Ralph had laid in previous sessions.  Tom Callan installed the last set of 6 track bumpers at 28th Street yards west end.  Neil was able to start and get pretty far along on building the first of three custom turnouts at St’ John’s Park.  Craig, with Wayne’s help, brought the flex track around the bend up to the hand laid approach to St. John’s Park as well.   Ted DiIorio jumped in and started working on the flex track power drops with Ted Pamperin.  A new comer to the group and first timer to the New York Harbor Railroad, Bob McQueen, dropped by and spiked down the new High Line turnouts that I put into place during the week.  The railroad is now down to two last bench work projects and lot of track work and wiring before the scenery starts to go in. Until next session!

July, 2, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Tom Callan, Ted DiIorio, Scott Dunlap, Wayne Shortman

Oh what a night!  A large crew came down tonight.  Craig and Tom started off by laying more flex track.  They were able to lay enough flex to round the corner and start heading towards St. John’s Park.   Wayne created the styrene separators for the waybill box I built last week.  Ted and Wayne ran the last main sub buss for the High Line.  They were able to put in the quick disconnects for the lift and removable sections.  Scott Dunlap came down tonight and tackled a major issue in the mechanical room.  Scott removed the problematic turnout with a small section of flex track.  I will eventually replace this section with a Micro Engineering turnout.  I spent the night replacing a Blue Point at 30th Street that had a broken tab on the throw arm.  Scott also removed the car card boxes from 28th Street and relocated one to the mole yard.  After the last session it was determined that the car card boxes were not of any use since I will be employing switch list for it and eventually 27th Street.  A great night and we are pushing through for the next shakedown on August 1st!

June 18, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Tom Callan, Wayne Shortman

Tonight was a light session.  I had spent most of the weekend and week getting ready for the second shakedown this Friday Night.  I also put together an operations guide for the railroad this week that explains how I intend to run the layout. Wayne stopped by and put in the floor brackets that lock the High Line support to the ground.  Tom stopped by and fixed the leveling issue for the lower mole.  Craig stopped by and worked on putting in some styrene to fill some gaps.  Tom and I cleaned the bulk of the rail on the layout.  Tomorrow Neil should be stopping by and help me stage the layout for Friday night.  Until Friday night.

June 8, 2008

Jay Held

Today  started off with me starting to paint the newly completed bench work covered with Homasote.  I had precut a blank that Ted and Ray had fitted last session.  Last night I glued it down so today I wanted to trim it some more and then paint it.  Jay arrived and we tackled the backdrop issue.  We cut and installed 1/8” styrene for all of the High Line except St. John’s Park and the lift sections.  I also got the back drop cut for the remaining sections of 30th Street and the Morgan Parcel Post Office.  Now that all the bench work is done I need to focus on cleaning for the shakedown on the 20th.

June 4, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Tom Callan, Ted DiIorio, Ralph Heiss, Neil Henning, Ray Louis, Phil Monat, Ted Pamperin, Wayne Shortman

Oh what a night!  A real full house tonight and a lot of work completed!  Phil Monat completed work on the Terminal Stores turnouts.  All but one Blue Point is in and all of the gaps are cut.  It was great to see a master at work!  Wayne installed all of the Tomar bumpers that Model Railroad Post Office had in stock.  I wiped them out!  Ray, Tom and Ted Pamperin attacked the lift section that is in front of the bathroom.  They did an outstanding job.  Craig and Ralph started the installation of the Micro Engineering flex track on the High Line.  It turns out that the basement wall has a curve in it that required some on the fly changes.  Nice work guys.  Neil and Ted DiIorio worked on the installation of ties at St. John’s Park (the last hand laid project on the railroad).  Wayne finished his night off by folding all of the new car cards for the railroad!  Thanks Wayne. Ray stayed for a short time after everyone left and we made some adjustments to the lift section so that it now drops flush. This was a huge crew and we got a tremendous amount of work done! Until the next work session on June 18th.

May 21, 2008

Tom Callan, Ralph Heiss, Wayne Shortman

Tonight the railroad got one step closer to completion.  Tom and Wayne installed the vertical supports for the High Line lift section.  With the supports bolted in to the floor and the layout the next step is the fabrication of the actual lifting mechanism.  I have in stock four twenty four inch drawer glides to start construction the next session June 4th.  Ralph and I worked on removing a set of legs from St. John’s Park so that the door that leads to the storage space under the stairs can be opened once again.  Ralph and Wayne also had time to lower and level the Lehigh Valley Pier section so it matches the rest of the Valley section.  At the end of the night, Ralph Tom and I fabricated the bench work top that will bridge the bathroom door.  With this, there is bench work from the mole to St. John’s Park now in place; The High Line should zip along.  At this time in the construction with most of the major aspects of the bench work completed or nearly completed I would like to point out that none of this would have been possible without all the help of my crew mates.  A big thank you goes out to every one of you that have given so much of your free time, talent and wisdom on this project.  I hope to be fully operational by the end of this year and start serious scenery starting this fall!

May 20, 2008

It’s Tuesday and I found my black paint so it’s off to paint the High Line Homasote.  I was able to paint the High Line and put some more ties down on the Lehigh Valley.  I now have ties from the pier to the double cross over.  Next a light sanding and rail goes down! 

May 19, 2008

It’s Sunday and the Wife and Kids are out of the house for a few hours.  I decided to get some work done on the Layout.  I started work on the removable section in front of my filing cabinet.  I need to get into the cabinet once a year to file away my taxes.  I got the structure built and it works well.  I need to pick up a sheet of Homasote to finish up the High Line!  I hope to pick up a sheet Tuesday before the work session.

May 15, 2008

Tonight Phil Monat stopped by to work on the Terminal Stores switch.  He was able to finish most of the turnout.  I spent the night looking for a missing gallon of black paint to paint the High Line.  I was able to sand the joints of the Homasote flush and get the last switch on 28th Street re-installed.  As of tonight all that need to be done is reconnection of power drops to the Blue Points.  Phil is hoping to stop by on my next session (Wednesday May 21) to put in the points on the Terminal Stores switch.  I hope to have the High Line painted and ready for track.

May 13, 2008

After a great work session in which the crew built the High Line bench work, I followed up by cutting and gluing down Homasote to the bench work.  I ran out of Homasote after finishing up the Eastern wall of the layout.  I then finished up the night by filling the gaps of the Homasote.

May 7, 2008

Tonight Wayne and I started off the night by putting in the valance base along the new section of the basement wall.  Ted, Tom and Neil arrived shortly after and then the work started in full swing.  Tom and Ted started on the new section of the High Line that runs along the back wall.  Wayne built the bench work for the High Line that is to be mounted along the outside of the bathroom wall.  Neil planked the LVRR pier while I supplied the crew with tools and materials.  In a lull I was able to get the Blue Point remounted for the west team track lead.  Neil finished planking the pier and then set out to complete the Lehigh Valley to Terminal Stores turnout.  All in all we got a lot done and the next session is May 15th.

April 23, 2008

Tonight I finally started feeling better from my allergies.  Wayne arrived early and he attacked the bookshelf and emptied it of all its contents while I completed my task of moving construction remnants to the garage.  Tom stopped by and between the three of us we where able to move the bookshelf into the garage. Neil and Craig came by and we split up into teams. Craig, Tom and Wayne worked on putting up the paneling that we moved into the basement on Sunday.  Neil worked on the pier.  He was able to apply the 1/8th inch plywood to the top of the pier that I had completed the substructure last night.  I spent most of the night looking for the Bosch Jig saw and trying to re-install a Blue Point at 28th street.  At the end of the night the pier was decked in plywood, the wall was up and I still need to finish the Blue Point installation.  Until May 7th!

April 22, 2008

Tonight I completed the substructure of the Lehigh Valley pier. I have installed everything except the plywood and deck planking. I also took the time to move the folding work table to the wall where the old oval table was.

April 21, 2008

Phil Monat stopped by and began the work to replace the wye section of the Terminal Stores turnout. This extremely complex turnout was on the bug list from the first shakedown. Phil was able to tear out the offending portion of the turnout and put in the first leg of the reconstruction. I was under the weather tonight as I was on Sunday when Neil and Wayne stopped by to bring in some paneling for the basement from the garage. I worked on the pier while Phil worked at warp speed. It is away nice to see a master at work! Being that the bullet proofing of track work comes first, I decided to push back the second shakedown until the end of June from May 16. Sorry for the delay but smooth track work is worth the wait.

April 20, 2008

It's Sunday and I feel terrible. Allergies have me knock out today. I had asked for some help in moving the wood paneling in to the basement from the garage. Wayne arrive early and he brought his Laser level with him. With the laser we where able to set the height of the High Line on the far wall. Neil arrived and we moved the paneling into the basement for Wednesday's session. We finished off by moving the Oval table into the garage as well as a few boxes. Seeing that I was out of it the guys left and I crashed for the rest of the day! I have to thank both Neil and Wayne for giving up a couple of hours on Sunday to help me out. Thanks guys!

April 14, 2008

Today I received three sound decoders from Tony’s Train Exchange for the New York Central fleet. Two decoders are for the RS-1 fleet and one decoder for the S-1 fleet.  First up is the drop in decoder for the Atlas S-1.  This is the new decoder from MRC (MRC 0001663) replaced an NCE decoder I had in place.  The first issue is that it will not work properly with the upper weight in place.  With the weight removed the decoder worked perfectly, although a bit loud.  The second sets of decoders are for the Atlas RS-1.  These decoders are from SoundTraxx (DSD-100LC).  These required the installation of a speaker in a sound box but actually went together rather quickly!   Now I will order the remaining sound decoders for the remaining fleet!

April 10, 2008

Craig Bisgeier, Tom Callan, Ralph Heiss, Neil Henning, Ray Louis, Wayne Shortman

Ray came over and started off by shopping the last of the cars built that needed to be shopped.  The last eight cars are done and now I’m down to new car kits.  At this point all the rolling stock have metal wheel sets, Kadee #5 couplers and meet NMRA weight standards.  Wayne came by and cut down the 12” piling stock to a more manageable 2 1/2” piling stock.  I started of by pounding them into the layout.  Tom stopped by and started working on the turnouts for the Lehigh Valley.  Ralph and Neil stopped by and we cut up the plywood that Neil and I picked up on Sunday after the Kingston train show.  Craig put in a couple of rows of pilings down for the new Lehigh Valley pier.  Neil finished up the last of the pilings and I need to make a run to AC Moore for more wood to finish off the Pile caps and cross supports.  I am hoping to have the pier finished before the next session in two weeks.  I also need to start work on the Howe truss float bridge.   Here is to a busy off week! 

March 26, 2008

Tonight start off fast.  I painted the Erie pontoon painted and installed when I got home from work.  Wayne stopped by and started working on the remaining cars needing to be shopped. I got the bulk of my cars weighted and re-wheeled (212 new metal wheel sets), and I replaced most of my couplers to Kadee No.5.  Neil and Ted came down and we started work on the High Line and 28th Street.  Neil started working the Lifshultz 1 and 2 turnouts Craig work on last session.  Ted started putting in a new Fast Tracks crossover onto the High Line.  I started putting in the pilings for the Lehigh Valley piers.  Craig came down and took over for Neil at the Lifshultz turnouts.  Craig finished up the last frog for Lifshultz 2 and tested it.  Now all that has to be done is the resetting the Blue Points switch machines (next week).  Neil started putting in the double crossover at Lehigh Valley.  At the end of the night 28th Street is very close to operational. The High Line is ready for a battleship yard and it may be operational for May’s shake down.  Wayne got the bulk of the remaining cars shopped and I got all of the pilings drilled out and started putting them in!  Until next session.

March 12, 2008

Today was a quick work session for me to paint the Lehigh Valley bench work. After redoing the track plan to match the prototype I had to get rid of the old plan that was painted on the bench work. I got that a fresh coat of flat black down and then I started construction of a Libby McNeil & Libby refrigerator car.

March 12, 2008

Tonight I came home with the new track plan for the Lehigh Valley section.  In all of the years of working the plans, some how, I got it wrong.  I was preparing for a presentation for the Railroad Prototype Meet at Malvern PA the end of the month when I found (well really re-discovered) the track plan from the B&O Sentinel magazine.  I quickly drew up the plan and most of the problems that I had with my plan where fixed.  I passed the new plan around during the previous week and the group agreed that this was the plan to go with.  So after I drew it to scale in CadRail 9.05, I printed out 1 to 1.  I rolled out the plans on the Lehigh Valley bench work and placed the previously constructed turnouts on the plan.  I now have a list of turnouts I need for construction to begin.  Neil came over and built a new #6 crossover turnout for the new plan.

Craig spent the night getting Lifshultz 1 turnout back in as well as Lifshultz 2. Craig was able to reuse the original frog for Lifshultz 1 but it looks like Lifshultz 2 will need a new frog.  With these turnouts moved, the ladder will now hold four cars in the run around position instead of three.  This will help out the operation of the yard.

Wayne came down and spent the night cutting out all of the re-sized car cards for the entire fleet.  I was a big job and now I will replace the cards as the cars get shopped.  Speaking of shopping cars, Ted DiIorio stopped by and he worked on shopping the cars to the proper weight.  It was good to see Ted again.

Tom Callan worked on moving a Northeast Coast Engineering DCC decoder from a Pennsylvania Railroad RS-1 to one of my new acquired New York Central RS-1.  I have two sound decoders for my RS-1’s on order from Tony’s Train Exchange.  Hopefully they will be in soon.  Tom then helped me get the Blue Point turnout controller for Terminal Stores fixed.  After some fiddling and replacing the first cable (it was too short) we got it to work. 

March 11, 2008

Tonight Craig and Neil stop by to lend a hand in trying to get some issues squared away for Wednesday work session.  Neil and I worked on the new switch throw that the people at New Rail Models came out with for the Blue Points.  We spent a few minutes dropping the Blue Point and slipping in the new mounting plate.  The mounting plate is a small piece of sheet metal that is pre drilled and bent to attach both the Blue Point and cable linkage.  We where able to get everything mounted but at the end of the night the Turnout was not working.  Craig worked on getting the waybill software working.  There was an issue of getting the laptop to work with the industry database that I was using on my main PC.

February 27, 2008

This session was the first work session after the shakedown on February 16th.  I got a pretty good punch list from the shakedown.  Most of the physical plant ran well but there are a few turnouts that needed attention.  The biggest request was the widening of Lifshultz 1 and 2 on the western ladder.  Craig worked on that issue and he was able to put a big dent in the on the move.  Craig also tackled a power problem and a broken point on 28th Street's three way turnout.  I spent the night on getting the fleet up to NMRA specification for weight, gauge and coupler height.  I got 13 cars shopped and I have another 70 to go!  I also started off the night getting waybills ready for my next shakedown that should be in late April early May.  Neil came over and attacked my punch list for new turnouts for the Lehigh Valley project. At the end of the night Neil finished 3 number six Fast Tracks turnouts.  Speaking of witch, new number four double slip switch jig arrived from Fast Tracks.  40 pages of instruction but I could not resist.  After Neil and Craig left, I started building the first of two that I need.  The instructions are well written and the step by step photos helped a great deal in construction.  Wish me luck!  Besides the double slip jig I also picked up a code 70 Shinohara three way turnout for the Lehigh Valley as well.  I also found a great document that shows how to make it DCC friendly.  Until next time!

February 6, 2008

Tonight I started off the evening cleaning up more of the room when Ray arrived and started checking out the progress that I made since his last visit.  We got a lot of the stuff put away when Wayne arrived and we began work on cutting up some deck bridges that I picked up at the Springfield Train show.  These girders will go to replace the current “High Line” structure that cuts through 30th Street.  Neil arrived and began work on putting ties down at St. Johns Park.  Craig and Pat arrived down as well. Pat is new to the group.  Pat jumped in and took over for Neil on the tie strip production.  Neil went straight away and started production on the #6 Turnouts needed for St. Johns Park.  Craig started installing the new tie strips on St. Johns Park and between Pat and Craig my supply of standard ties where exhausted.  Neil and Ray used up the remaining supplies of PC ties as well.  I spent the night putting power drops on the 200 foot car float.  Wayne left after he cut up all of the Atlas girder bridges and Pat finished the clean up on the girders.  After most of the crew left I place a Fast Track order for PC ties and a new #4 double slip switch template.  I also need to place a large order for standard ties!  I also spent time finding a power issue at 28th Street and started track cleaning.  I’m having a shake down for 28th Street on the 16th.  So until next time I will be working on the railroad.

January 28 , 2008

Post Springfield work session.  Tonight I spent some time working on the railroad while listening to the State of the Union.  I started off by photographing the entire ready to run stock that I picked up at this past weekend Springfield Train Show!  The fleet grew by 14 new cars.  There was an additional six kits picked up and add that to Neil and Tom dropping off 8 newly constructed kits!  I also picked up a new throttle and PSX2 circuit breaker from Tony’s Train Exchange as well as the cleats for the car float model I’ve been working on.  I was not able to find any commercial #4 Code 70 double slips switches so I will need to build two from scratch.   I was able to get some work done on the car float drawer as well as adding the much needed support for the float bridge by the pier.  Until tonight, the rail was the sole support of the bridge where it meets the pier.  As of to night I am quite satisfied that the drawer will be “THE” solution for 28th Street.  As far as I am concerned, 28th Street is ready for the test of fire, its first operation session.  It looks like February 16th is the day.  I also found some time to glue the side panels to the 300 foot car float.  It looks like I will as Craig to cut down the height of the float to match my piers. The decking makes it about 1/8th inch too tall.

January 23 , 2008

Last night I painted the new water section of the Lehigh. Tonight started off with Wayne and I working on putting down the template for the car float approach to the Lehigh Valley yard.  My original design needed to be canted about 15 degrees to clear a doorway.  Tom and Wayne began work on a set of draw glides that will replace the current car float support system.  This new idea was hashed out a couple of weeks ago and tonight I had the hardware to start the project.  Neil put the template down for St. John’s Park.  While he started cutting out the template I cut out the template for the turnouts the lead off the Lehigh Valley’s car float.  We got the templates painted and the templates pulled by the end of the night.  Wayne and Tom got the glides in.  Now I need to design and build the supports for the float.  Neil started installing the turnout controls that Ted Pamperin showed us last session.  The look easier than they are!  The evening ended as Neil was working on a Fast Track turnout for St. John’s park.  Until next session.

January 9 , 2008

Tonight started off with a manhunt in the back yard looking for my daughter’s iPod  Wayne and I started the railroad portion of the evening installing the pier bench work of the Lehigh Valley.  Ted Pamperin and Ted DiIorio came down and began work on attaching the track plan to the Lehigh Valley.  Craig and Ted P. cut out the track plan so I could paint it as a stencil to help in the placing of the ties latter on.  Ted D. and Wayne cut the styrene that will cover the water portion of the pier section.  Ted P. Started installing a different turnout controller that he used at another layout.  Ted D. and Wayne ran the power sub buss for the Lehigh Valley.  Craig began decking the 300 foot car float.  Neal was mister fix it repairing various turnouts that where damage during the ceiling install.  We got a lot done and a lot of new projects for 2008 are now underway! 

January 8 , 2008

Happy New Year! This starts the third year of construction on the New York Harbor Railroad. We are approaching my first operating session in February. Tonight I got home from work and painted the Lehigh Valley module bench work.