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The Mechanical department completed a major maintenance project on the locomotives over the past weekend. Here's a brief list: - PRR Pacific 838 AKA "Speedy" has been performing intermittantly for the first time since mechanical acceptance, Dec 25, 2013. No major work has been done to her, so we brought her in and checked her out. First thing we noticed was a disctint bind when the loco was jacked up and the drivers allowed to run free. Removal of the side rod on the engineer's side revealed a minor slip of the driver resulting in slight out of quarter binding. This was remedied by carefully pushing down on the wheel and rotating it back in to position. I did not attempt to loosen the screw. With the wheel back in position, I also took a moment to make the side rod holes slotted using a dremel tool. When I reinstalled the side rod, I noted a slight bind still. So I checked the fireman's side and sure enough, that driver was also out of quarter. I expect this was a result of Luke and I pushing Speedy maybe a little to hard and got that rear driver set out of quarter. I also slotted the side rod on the engineer side. Finally, I cleaned the wheels using alcohol and a q tip. Bench testing showed the loco motor would spin starting at about 5-6 / 100% on the REVO. Ran nice and smooth, no discernable bind. Will keep an eye out for futher wheel slips. - ATSF 1966 aka Strasburg 90: This connie has been a workhorse for us, and I needed to clean her wheels. Man, she runs good. - USATC 610 aka Army 610: This connie used to run great, but somehow, it doesn't run as well anymore. I cleaned the wheels really good, but they weren't dirty. Placed on the test track, poor performance. Back on the bench (aligator clips to tender wheels for power pick up), no problem. Light bulb! Checked the motor board where the ribbon cable from the tender connects. Sure enough, the farthest two wires were disconnected. Also noted a crack in the fireman's side step on the tender. I suspect a major wreck caused both the wire to come off and the step to crack. Repaired the wires by soldering them, check it out on Sunday, worked like a champ again. It is worth noting that both connies run silky smooth. Great locomotives! - Millersvillanova mallet 3177: I have been unsuccessful in securing a new crankpin for the mallet #2 driver, fireman side, so I borrowed a crankpin out of the out of service New Haven mikado. I have been thinking about how to address the loss of supply of these pins, not that you ever really need them until they fall out. I wonder if it would be better to get a threaded hex head screw to match the screws and the machine a nut down to fit in the siderod? Or to have hex head screws cut to length. Either way, it does not strike me as a cheap solution. Stay tuned. 3177's 2k2 sound board died, and I need to send that to Phoenix for a new P8. - Luke #5: This Kalamazoo engine I repainted for Luke was running great one day, then it picked a switch when no one was looking. It must have sat for a little while before Luke got her shut down. By then, I feared we'd stripped the gears (since the engine couldn't pull anything other than the tender after that). I called up Phil Jenson at Hartland, and he sent me a couple of new axles with gears on them. I also bought a new Hartland headlight assembly and bracket. Now, this is an old school G scale motor block. It's split lengthwise, and the motor gets power direct from two brass strips. I have isolated these so that the motor is controlled by the REVO in the tender. But, there's no room for wires for the headlight coming from the output (in the tender). SO, I just wired the headlight direct to the power pick ups. (Darn it. I just checked with Phil, and he said it is a 12v light bulb. Darn it!) So, now I have to figure out if I want to try and find a 24 v light bulb that will fit or can I put in a 12V resistor in parallel with the light? I wonder if a LGB 18v smoke unit in series would work? Anyone have any experience? Next up is FA-1 0401, New Haven DER-1, which has some sort of weird short when it runs forward. Once I fix that engine, all locomotives will be mechanically acceptable.

Hi guys, We participated in the 5th annual Railroad Musuem of PA's Garden Railroad tour on Sunday October 5. The weather was cold and overcast, and rainy until about 10:30 AM. The rain held off until almost 5pm, but it was cold and damp all afternoon. Most of the 250 people who stopped by seemed to enjoy themselves. When I host these events, I try not to be running the trains myself. Instead, friends come and help me by running their trains or mine, depending on how much stuff they want to put in their cars. This year, I had 5 engineers scheduled, but 2 canceled for good reasons. THe remaining three, Jim Miller, Charlie , and Kevin Yutz were responsible for making the operations smooth. Jim brought his new battery powered MTH GS-2 and a modern freight train. Charlie brought dash 9's decorated for the Reading and Pennsylvania RR's (NS Heritage units) and New Hope and Ivyland #40 (aristo 2-8-0) and a coal train. Kevin brought a battery powered Reading and Northern SD-45. I had 4 steam locomotives available along with a freight and passenger trains. My son Luke also ran some trains on the big railroad. I think by next year, he'll be ready for prime time. I actually have two distinct, separate garden railroads: The Millersvillanova and the Pietown and Western. The P&W is a small railroad that was initially built for the kids to operate. That seems to never happen. Seems like I'm always the one running the P&W!! Anyway, we had a decent crowd for the event. Charlie and his wife are professional photographers and were kind enough to put together a video of the event. Enjoy!