More Lockdown Projects

The lockdown seems to give many people an incentive to take up lower-priority or even previously unappealing projects. Here are a couple of mine.

Last year I found an Atlas/Kato yellowbox Gulf, Mobile, and Ohio RS-1 on eBay at a good price. But trying to add Kadee couplers taught me a new lesson: the old Atlas/Kato coupler box recesses in the pilots are just a little bit too small to take the newer Kadee 158 style coupler boxes. In my case, I thought if I just pushed a little bit harder, I could get it in. Instead, my hand slipped, and I wound up tearing off a truck with the worm cover.

The accident also broke a sideframe off the truck. I wasn't entirely sure what parts I might need to get things back together. Over a period of months, I was able to scrounge what I thought would be replacement parts from other Atlas/Kato bits and pieces I found on eBay. Very helpful was a set of broken AAR power trucks and a set of worm retainer covers. In the process, I found that the Atlas/Kato RS-1 uses a different AAR truck design for the gearbox and bolster than other Atlas/Kato Alcos. Who knows, maybe this will come in handy one day!

In any case, with a little creativity, I was able to replace the broken sideframe with one from another broken AAR truck off eBay and get things back together with a new worm retainer. The whole assembly is now wating for a Digitras DH165A0 that should arrive in a couple of days.

Lessons: (1) Do not try to force Kadee 158 coupler boxes into an Atlas/Kato pilot. (2) The Atlas/Kato RS-1 uses a different AAR truck gearbox and bolster from other Atlas/Kato Alcos. But now I have an extra set of like-new Atlas/Kato loco wheels.

Photos suggest the GM&O maroon is more red than on the Atlas/Kato model. Also, it looks like the cab roof and battery box should be black. Correcting this and some weathering should make the maroon shade seem a little better. But it looks like the loco will finally go into service. I like IC, ICG, and GM&O, because my uncle was CEO of ICG/IC.

Another project has been installing DCC in some Walthers Trainline FA-1s. These are very basic locos, but they're layout quality, and I've been thinking that installing DCC and LED headlights should make it possible to operate them in multiple with more sophisticated locos from companies like Atlas. The DCC install is hardwire, but fairly easy:

I used a Digitrax DZ126 decoder because I had it on hand and knew it would be small enough to fit. The procedure is to unsolder the motor leads from the PC board and splice them onto the gray and orange motor leads from the decoder. Then solder the red and black track power leads to the traces on the PC board. I also isolated the traces for the headlight on the PC board from the track input and soldered the blue and white wires to these isolated traces.

When some 12V white LEDs with resistors arrive from eBay in a couple of days, I'll solder one to the headlight traces with the blue and white wires.

While the Walthers motor has one flywheel, it doesn't give it much momentum, and it wouldn't be able to run well with Atlas or similar locos. However, I set CVs 3 and 4, DCC acceleration and deceleration momentum, each to a value of 3, which pretty well mimics the momentum of an Atlas loco. I also set CV 2 to 10, which allows the motor to start slowly at speed step 1. Now I can tune its midrange speed to match locos I might MU it with when it's all back together with its body.

I was able to find these locos for $30 on line in the 1990s.