The weeks news. Moving away from writing about life off grid, and start writing about model railroading
It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest. Other than our little generator dying on us, and having to order a new one, not much is going on up here. I do believe I can revive the old generator, and it will continue to run when needed, but it’s best to have a replacement on hand. Yes, we do have larger ones, but they burn a lot more fuel, so a smaller one is a must.
Since there isn’t much happening, I have decided to start moving away from writing only about life up here on the mountain, and start writing about other things you, the reader, might find of interest. For instance, that of model railroading. Many years ago, when the lovely wife first moved in (before she became Mrs. Lovely Wife), she gave me a train set. This was not just any train set, however, but a Lionel set that had been given to her dad as a child way back in 1947. I was as excited as a kid, promptly set up some track, hooked up the transformer, set the locomotive and whistling tender on the rails, and turned on the power. Unfortunately, nothing happened, not even a whistle. It had, after all, been languishing, untouched, in a box for who knows how many years. I was crestfallen, but packed up the track, building a shelf to show off the engine, tender, two freight cars, and the caboose. There it sits today. I have wanted to get it running but wasn’t sure how to go about it, or even where to start.
Recently, I was looking for some passenger cars to expand this set, thinking that, someday, I would find someone who could get the old locomotive running again. I did find three passenger cars, and they came with a tender that is also supposed to whistle but had no engine. These are from the year prior to the set the lovely wife gave me, so the tender and locomotive are different. Looking online, I found the right engine that goes with this tender and passenger cars, and bought it. It was a non-running engine, but it did give me an idea.
You may or may not know that, the first time I was in the Navy, I was a Torpedoman, and worked on them for years. I have a working knowledge of how things electrical should work, and how to read a wiring diagram. Because of this, I decided that I was going to try my hand at restoring these locomotives to running order once more. I started by disassembling this “new” tender, taking pictures of everything and where all the wires connected. I inspected the parts that make it whistle, discovered they were pretty simple, and I soon had the mechanism cleaned up. Most of the wiring appears to be in good shape for its age, so I will leave that wiring alone. But there are two wires that will need to be replaced before I put everything back together to see if my efforts were successful. I then turned my attentions to the locomotive, downloading a basic wiring diagram that gives me the idea of where all of the wires go. All of the wiring needs to be replaced in this motor, and a thorough cleaning is definitely needed, as there’s almost 80 years of crud built up inside. Once I am satisfied with my work on this one, I will tackle the more important one that sits waiting on a shelf above my head.
Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.
