A tiny switch boosts enjoyment

#622 and I have been working bugs out of the layout. After correcting a gauge issue with one of the engine truck axles, all the faults have been with the layout, and have been easily identified with a track gauge — a track gauge that Ed McCamey had EDM-cut from highly-conductive 18-gauge steel because he […]

Minding the gaps

The common wisdom says that you should put something insulating into the electrical gaps between rails. According to model railroad folklore, without insulators, those gaps will eventually close up with all the humidity and heat-induced rail cavorting, and the resulting short will be remarkably difficult to find. Now, Pembroke’s Presbyterian rails have never been inclined […]

The Pembroke Milling Company spur

The Pembroke Milling Company was situated at the other end of the Pembroke Street bridge. Indeed, the mill was the reason for the dam that meets our side of the Muskrat behind the depot. One of the Pembroke Southern’s founders, William Moffat owned the mill, and he preferentially built a warehouse on his railway. It […]

622 makes it to sea trials

622 is finally back together again. I managed to keep the same electrical scheme albeit with a little less elegance than originally planned. Where svelte insulating layers were incorporated into the frame, I now have beefy sandwiches of nickel silver and epoxy on plastic. Where the frame originally conducted electricity covertly, there are now obvious […]

Wall thickness experiments

I have optimistically put the 3D printer away so I could convert the heavy shop into a paint booth. It’s time to write up my findings as I’ve been exploring the boundaries of this new tool. In particular, I want to figure out how I can make thin-walled boxes like hopper cars. Starting with the […]

When the therapy runs out

On my way home from the recycling depot this Sunday, I turned on CBC radio, as I often do when I’m out, and was surprised to hear Jason Shron of Rapido fame talking to Mary Hynes on the weekly exploration of all things spiritual, Tapestry. Jason’s enthusiasm for active hobbies and model railroading in particular […]

Caught the short

Because the top layer of the front cross-member admitted a gap, I broke the isolating cut into two sessions. Yesterday evening, I cut through the front half, in the hopes that the short was there. It wasn’t so, after the epoxy holding a new frame sandwich together had cured, I severed the back half. I […]

Chasing a short

It wouldn’t be one of my builds without some sort of disaster at the end. On #10, I dropped the boiler on the way to the paint booth, breaking the smokebox off completely. For 622 the disaster is a short that has developed in the frame since the last time I tested the locomotive. At […]

Anchor Tenants

There seems to be a social-media contest for messiest workbench. Many modellers get chest-puffing macho affirmation by claiming that they can still produce amazing work even when the bottles of paint and boxes of partially finished kits are threatening to obliterate the remaining 6 square inches of usable work surface in a cataclysmic avalanche. I […]

Tender side sill details

As I mentioned, the tender side sills were looking a little barren. So, I scurried over to the reference material to see what should be there. Interestingly, this is a point where 622 differs from its stable-mates. The details were straightforward to put together with strips of brass and some Grandt Line nut-bolt-washer castings. Now […]