Walthers BNSF Gon

I recently ordered a Walthers Mainline BNSF gon:

I decided I wanted this car, because run-of-the-mill contemporary equipment isn't all that easy to find. And actually, the Walthers rib-side car itself doesn't quite have a prototype. I did some research and discovered that this is 1990s tooling, originally issued as a Walthers kit, but the rib sides were simply added to plain-panel Thrall gon tooling. You can see this in the photo below, where I juxtapose a CP Rail Thrall car with the BNSF gon:

The closest prototype to the Walthers rib side car is in fact a BNSF, ex BN class:

However, it looks like these cars never had a panel with the circle-cross logo like the Walthers car. And I've never shot one out here, but I've seen many other BNSF gons, so this one is close enough.

To do will be painting the wheels, the truck sideframes, the couplers, and the interior, adding a better COTS stencil, tags, and yellow conspicuity stripes so it comes out a little more like this:

A Look At The Updated Atlas Classic HO GP7

I've been a big fan of the Atlas HO GP7 since it came out as a Kato model in the early 1990s. This was fairly crude by current standards, but it's still a very acceptable layout-quality model, and it runs very well. It was reissued later as an Atlas Classic model made in China, with finer handrails, individual grab irons, LED lighting, and an NMRA 8-pin DCC socket -- all big improvements. A major disadvantage, however, continued to be the tab at the long hood end that attached the body to the chassis. This easily bent or broke, which created problems.

Eventually Atlas withdrew the Classic GP7 with the promise that it would be upgraded. The new releases recently came out, and I ordered an MKT green GP7:

Atlas has always been good at choosing the numbers it puts on these locos. Some MKT GP7s were chop nosed by the time they were painted green, but the ones they chose, including 107, kept their high short hoods.

The problem with the fragile tab at the end of the long hood has been fixed, and the body is now held on like many other made-in-Cina Atlas locos:

However, other than the new tabs that hold the body to the frame, there have been no changes to the body from the earlier Atlas Classic version. The chassis is another matter. The PC board above the motor now has a socket for a 21-pin connector. While there is still an 8-pin NMRA socket, you must remove the 21-pin dummy plug to install DCC. You can see a Digitrax DZ126PS installed in the 8-pin socket here, with the 21-pin dummy plug removed.

The biggest change is to the chassis. The Kato version, carried over into the Atlas Classic model, had a chassis and fuel tank cast as a single unit in metal. The problem with this was that GPs had several sizes of fuel tank, and earlier models, like the 1950s Athearn and the Kato version, reproduced only the larger version, and modifying it to a smaller version meant milling the metal. Athearn set a new standard by making different sizes of fuel tank in its Genesis units. Atlas has now followed suit:

I've heard the estimate that more GPs were built with small fuel tanks than the full-size, which opens the possibility for many more accurate models. However, the Kato cast metal chassis had the advantage of weight. The new version weighs 9 ounces. The older Atlas Classic version weighs 13.75 ounces.

Yard Job YZ222

With the rewiring project 90% complete, I'm taking up operation again. With my new phone, I also added another twist. Here's the switchlist that JMRI Operations generated for the job:

Track 1 is a mainline track that through and transfer freights use to set out and pick up blocks for Zenith Yard. Track 3 is a yard track that handles the blocks. YZ222 is a pretty simple job that mostly swaps the blocks from Track 1 to Track 3 and vice versa. I decided it would be a good way to ease back into operation.

But I also figured out how to send the JMRI switchlist to my phone:

This, at least for me, makes it a lot more convenient to refer to the switchlist. An 8-1/2 x 11 page gets in the way. (I never ever used car cards, which are even worse.)

Here are some interesting cars in the job:

I also got to test the speed-matched Bachmann and Atlas GP7s on this sort of slow-speed switching work. They worked out very well and mean I have a formula for mixing Bachmann and Atlas locos in regular operation.

Kato Passenger Locos And Lights

As I ease back into N scale, I'm learning more about installing DCC decoders in Kato locos. Kato takes sort of a middle-of-the-road approach to lighting functions in both N and HO -- it offers ditch lights, which some other manufacturers don't, but they're lit from a single light bar, so they can't be turned on and off separately from the headlight, and they won't flash alternately. You can fix this with extra work, but so far, I'm not inclined to do it.

Here's a TCS K0D8-A decoder that I recently installed in a Kato P42:

There are lots of ins and outs with Kato lighting, even with the simplified representation. I get a lot of inspiration for working in N from YouTube (and for those who make a standard lament that no young people are coming into the hobby, I would counter that a lot of middle school, high school, and college-age modelers and railfans post videos there). But one thing I note is that few guys install the headlight lenses and numberboards that come as "user installable" on Kato N P42s. They're easy to ignore, but they make a small difference:

One thing that's missing from the Kato N P42 is red tail lights that light up in reverse. However, based on what I see in prototype YouTube videos, their use varies. When P42s run in reverse on passenger trains, such as when there's a cab car. NPCU, or another loco on the front, the red tail lights are normally lit. However, this may depend on the particular rules in effect on the territory. Distributed power freight units on the rear of trains don't have tail lights, and what you normally see is the headlight facing rear on dim with no ditch lights -- this is a standard rule indicating the track is occupied.

I've seen P42s running on the rear of trains on YouTube with the headlight on dim facing rear and no red tail lights as well. I also see YouTube videos of prototype light engine moves on the CSX Boston line with the unit facing rear with both headlight dim and ditch lights lit, but no red tail lights. (This is also a reminder that light engine moves do happen on Amtrak and can add variety to model operation.) I programmed the TCS K0D8-A decoders on my Kato P42s to allow the headlights to dim in reverse:

Note also that DCC allows the headlight to be turned off completely on the trailing unit.

The slightly newer Kato N MP36 has headlights-ditch lights that light forward and red tail lights that light in reverse:

The MP36 also comes with numberboards and headlight lenses installed.

The Kato N Sumitomo cab cars have headlights-ditch lights that light when the car is running forward on analog DC and red tail lights that light up in reverse, again on DC. With DCC, both sets of lights are constantly lit.

Kato supplies a limited-function FL12 decoder that allows the headlights and tail lights to be controlled in DCC. I haven't installed one in the car above yet.

More P&LE

More than two years ago I posted on my then-new Bachmann P&LE GP7. After I worked with it for a while, I realized the Bachmann factory decoder had very limited features and a compulsory speed curve. (Some earlier Bachmann GP7s and 9s had factory decoders with NMRA plugs, but newer ones like the P&LE have boards with integral decoders). I gradually replaced the factory boards in several, but then I discovered the NCE BACH-DSL decoder that is specifically meant to replace Bachmann boards with integral decoders. This makes the job much easier and includes replacement LEDs.

After that post, I renumbered it from 5676 to 5682. As far as I can tell, P&LE freight units had Pacemaker green bodies with, in the 1950s, gray lightning stripes. Passenger units like 5682 had black bodies, so by renumbering to 5682 I solved two problems, avoiding the conflict with my Atlas 5676 and making the black body more prototypical:

Here's the new BACH-DSL board for 5682 in place:

With the new board in place, I speed matched Bachmann 5682 to Atlas 5676. I had to fiddle with the vMid CV6 to get it to run fast enough to match the Atlas, as well as increase the momentum values CV3 and 4 to match the freer-running Atlas unit. Now they run pretty well together -- wouldn't have happened without DCC:

Here's a Howard Fogg postcard of P&LE GP7s:

Here's a P&LE boxcar I found at the Simi Valley swap last Saturday:

Railfanning The San Joaquin Valley

I made a quick trip with my wife up to a favorite place in the San Joaquin Valley last week, and in the process I got to do some railfanning. The prime sites like Cajon, Tehachapi, Donner, the Coast, and so forth tend to overshadow some good spots in the Valley. Here's the recent Amtrak/CalDOT Bakersfield depot:

This replaced a primitive AmHut that I photographed in 1995:

The Amtrak/CDOT trains run on the BNSF line from Bakersfield until they get to the Bay Area, where they transfer to the ex-SP UP line to Oakland. It parallels California Route 43, which is much less intense than Route 99 (which parallels the UP). It's much easier to pull to the side of the road and photograph oncoming trains. In addition, since the line hosts 79 mph passenger trains, there's more variety, with interesting signals.

Here's a grab shot from the car window:

An interesting MOW scene at East Angiola:

An Amtrak/CalDOT southbound meeting a northbound BNSF. An ex-F40 NPCU leads

The train is made up of ex-NJT Jersey Arrow cars. Today it's being pushed by an Amtrak P42:

On the way home I caught new San Joaquin Valley Railroad power on the Bowerbank Local with my new phone:

Models And Early Railfan Days

By 1960, I was in my early teens and had begun to look more closely at trains, which fascinated me from early childhood. Over the next several years I was able to ride the PRR main from New Brunswick to Philadelphia, and then much more frequently from New York to Washington. One of the things that fascinated me was the PRR's hopper cars, and as I got more interested in modeling, I began to realize that the most common models, the Athearn bluebox quad hopper, the harder-to-find Varney twin, and the impossibly expensive and hard to locate Ulrich cars, didn't look like anything that ran on the PRR at the time.

In high school -- this would be 1965 -- I got a case of mono and spent several weeks in bed. By then I'd located diagrams of the PRR H36 and H39 hoppers, and with lots of time on my hands, I began to build models from cardboard using the dimensions in the diagrams. I eventually finished three of them. I still have the bodies, but the only available decals were Walthers, pretty bad. They were also flimsy and light, and I never was really able to operate them. Over the years I made various efforts to make them operable, but so far, still no success. Here's one in its current condition:

Almost 20 years later, I made a second try at mass producing the kind of PRR hoppers I saw in the early 1960s. This time I had access to a table saw, and I found some scrap lumber at a nearby construction site that I was able to cut roughly into PRR H39s. Here's an idea of what I did:

A finished one is behind it. Not long ago I found another one of the roughly half dozen I finished in the early 1980s, fixed it up a little and got it in running order, but I still have to touch up the paint:

If I can find where I packed the others away, I'll work on them, too.

But at the same time I worked on mass producing these, I decided to do what I could to upgrade the cardboard H36s I did in 1965. Here's one where I got a certain way with removing the cardboard sides and attaching them to a newly-built wood sub body:

The biggest obstacle to finishing these is finding either plastic or wood T-section shapes for the side ribs.