1120 Gets a new Decoder

Open house mania is not finished as I’m expecting another visitor in just over a week. So, I’m wasting as little time as possible in getting 1120 running again. The new connectors arrived from Mouser almost overnight, and I drove out to the Far East to pick up a LokSound 5 decoder from Intercity Trains […]

Bachmann Connectors

If there is one good thing about the decoder in 1120’s tender blowing up right in front of Steve Stark’s eyes, which he brought all the way from Victoria so he could point them at Pembroke, it is that I get to replace the six wires between tender and engine. They may be 28- or […]

The Stock Spur

With the PNR regional meet bearing down on me, and needing to get the roundhouse back in its seat, I was feeling pressure to finish the stock spur while it was still convenient. So, between coats of paint on the outside of the house, I bent some lengths of rail, and soldered feeders to their […]

Engine sand

Even today, locomotives want a small amount of dry sand for traction. All my resources are tacit about where they kept engine sand in Pembroke in 1905. There is also zero information about the purpose of the third stall in the roundhouse. For years, I’ve thought there was probably a pile of sand somewhere and […]

Concurrent projects

Days to go until the big train meet and I have a crash of concurrent projects consuming space in my office. On the left we have the roundhouse with its new floor receiving some repairs. In the distance, the track crew, who also happen to be the roundhouse repair crew, are working on fixing a […]

Last puzzle pieces

I don’t recall why a former me decided to leave the stock spur as a short stub. I’m sure it seemed reasonable at the time. Maybe I planned to build a stock pen together with the spur. In any event that part of the layout has been a piece of 12 mm foam core for […]

Roundhouse Gets a New Floor

I’ve never been happy with the roundhouse floor. Being made from a thick layer of ballast, it was not flat, and some of the rocks were real ankle-turners. As a result, details like work benches and water barrels were crooked. As I had the roundhouse module off the layout to protect it while working on […]

Turntable Improvements

To avoid any nasty crunching sounds as I was disrupting traffic on the main these past few days, I undid the three screws that secure the turntable module and levered it out and onto an open drawer. While it’s accessible, I will be making some improvements. First of all, the lock has not worked properly […]

Major Service Disruption

After determining the source of my derailment was a sudden twist to the track, I spent a few days pondering how to address it. Should I shim or should I sand? Which rail needed to move? The Trackwork Torsion Testing Tool (TTTT) told me where the problem was, but not exactly what the problem was. […]

The Trackwork Torsion Testing Tool (TM)

While almost every derailment on Pembroke can be traced to a gauge problem – typically too tight – a couple of sites continue to defy explanation. Backing south into the heel of the south siding switch, for example, the rear (now leading) drivers of 1120 gently drop off the rail and onto the ties. Going […]