Widgets and Doodlebugs

Still multi-tasking. One of many advantages of retirement is being able to spend as much time as I want on things you want to do. Very few, if any, people have a monopoly on my time. You can get a lot done on a model railroad when you have 8 or so hours a day to spend on it.

Anyway...The Canon motors arrived. Right away I had to play around with one. I had to modify the widget to suit the motor, but not too much. The performance was quite a change. So much so that I did some other tweaks on the Hustler chassis. Made sure the pulley was square to the shaft, that sort of thing....

Canon Powered "Widget"

How much of an improvement was this new motor? See for yourself...

Travis Drive Hustler 

It runs slow enough. It can run even slower than shown in the video. That's great, but can it work for a living?
Here's the little guy pushing a string of ore cars...

Hustler at Work

Still working on the boxcab shell for the wee beastie. When it's done it will be assigned to hauling ore cars back and forth on the branch.

In other news, Quotidian now has passenger service...

Gas Electric

I got this Bachmann doodlebug off EBay at a reasonable price. It was pretty noisy when it first ran, but settled down after a few loops around the layout. Lighting could be better, it tends to flicker. Themajor problem with it is the beautiful Baltimore & Ohio paint job. I don't want to repaint it. Fortunately, the B&O is one of the railroads I like to model.

Another video, this one of the gas electric...

Baltimore & Ohio Gas Electric

The quality of these videos sucks. I've used my phone to take previous videos with good results. Not so good on these.

Now that the glue has dried on the trusses i can actually build the bridge. Staged it with the camelback...

Web Truss Bridge

Apparently the freelance design of the truss actually works. If not then the only thing holding up the locomotive are two 1/8" x 1/8" basswood stringers...

Tight Fit

If you've been reading this and you remember the basic idea of the layout, Quotidian was a small town with a couple of industries. I hadn't really planned on modeling any real engine facities. Then I found this beauty on EBay...

Revell Engine House

Needs a bit of work, but it was cheap and best of all it's one of those Revell models from back in the day. I've always liked the buildings in the series, with the possible exception of the water tank. Back on the day I would have loved to have a few of these on my layout. They are well detailed and look great. A lot of modelers use them in kitbashes, but this one won't. I gonna make the missing parts, paint it an weather it. Hopefully one day this scene will be a respectable vignette...

Steamers and a Brick Enginehouse

Regards,
Frank Musick