Toy trains enlighten overcast, weiry days

 For weeks the sky is grey and there is no proper sun in sight. The best remedy against a weiry mood is to fire up some trains and let them run. In this case a Lionel diesel with some Weaver cars. What a pleasure indeed.

Tribute to Weaver model trains

Earlier this month, Weaver model trains announced to cease production. This news trickled down slowly over the pond, only receiving me a few days ago. From the Internet buzz I understood that the owner is retiring and could not find a successor. Well that is sad news. We will miss Weaver trains for their quality, precision and the new models they placed on the market.

So, I reckoned it was time to get a few Weaver train cars out of the boxes and honour Weaver trains and their employees with a nice picture of some of their quality craft models on the other side of the planet. We will enjoy those model train cars for many years to come. Employees of Weaver trains, thanks for your contribution to the scale zero train model world.

TCA MG Club cars 2012

Already in early November the annual TCA MG Club car arrived. It is a tribute to the recently fallen flag of Birmingham and Southern in the form of a outside-braced boxcar. It has been made by Weaver and has the usually quality features of Weaver; sprung metal trucks, highly detailled and well decorated. Another load of BS. A nice car indeed.

TCA MG Club cars 2011

Last week the TCA MG club cars arrived from Weaver. This year I bought the three-pack because it were Reading cars; 2-bay composite hoppers. Some hand-crafted coal-loads were made by Don and he sure did a great job. They do look awesome.
I hooked the cars up to the SW-1500 switcher and drove them around with some other Weaver cars I had accumulated over the years. The night express run slowly over the attic floor.

The new TCA-MG beer reefer

This week a beautiful beer reefer club car arrived, designed by the TCA member group and produced by Weaver model trains from Northhumberland PA. The beer brand is probably historic "Century beer made by the Schneider brewing company from Trinidad Colorado". The name of the brewing company suggests a traditional beer that is brewed according to the Reinheitsgebot and therefore is likely to be healthy.
Personally I like the pea-green colour, which is a truely old colour for an old reefer. The Weaver Alco FA-2 took it for a ride.

Lumber car

Autumn is well suited for trimming the trees and bushes in the garden. In my garden that yields substantial amounts of leaves and branches. Especially the oak, apricot and ahorn tree render nice straight side branches. I used some of them to fill the 50ft Weaver bulk head flat car. The bark was removed to speed the drying process up and reduce the chance of infestation. I will probably stain them a bit when they are fully dry.

TCA MG Club car 2009 and a roof finished

The TCA-MG club car was late in 2009. But it did arrive in the holiday season and here is it. It is a brown cattle car with nice detail. The doors can not be opened. But then again who wants steers running loose on the layout. The high resolution print details are remarkable and in general more then I can observe myself with my glasses.
During the last months I spend most of my time glueing slates on the roof of the house that I am scratch building. It was a tedious and rewarding process. In the summer we bought a binder with plastic clamp rings. Basically, you put a whole bunch of papers in, it perforates the papers and presses a plastic clamp through. Since, you do not have to feed the perforator with a clamp and it yields more then 20 pieces of paper of roughly 2 x 7 mm (about 1 x 3 milli-inch) it is an easy way of getting lots of roof slates in one stroke. I used fairly thick brown cardboard to get more 3D-structure in the roof and personally, I like the result. The house is one step further to completion. Now, I still have to get drainage pipes, a veranda roof and start painting. Yes, the roof will need a slate grey colour as well, but that is for later concern. Several visitors told me that they liked the result, but that I should better focus on other restoring the many railroad cars that are still waiting. Well, honestly, I liked this monk work. Not so much that I will ever turn into a rivet counter, but it yields a positive feeling reward. What else do we want in this "crisus".

Hoppers

This week a really nice "Golden loaf" flour hopper arrived. So, it is time for a test ride and a line up with all the other hoppers. This PS-2 Weaver hopper was available local and for some reason most European zero-scale modellers still do not appreciate the quality of Weaver cars, so I got it for a bargain. And because hoppers seldomly ride single, it is nice to have it here.
On the web, there is even a photo of the original hopper and although the original was shaped a bit differently, I do not mind Weaver to have improved the overall appearrance. Furthermore, this hopper was the Weaver club car of 2008. So without being an official member, the hopper is here to stay.

new additions

A few days ago some new Weaver Union Pacific cars joined my little layout. A crisp lettered boxcar with "bolster snubber springs" and a 40 foot tank car. The box car runs good on the 027 curves, the tank car required two spacer rings to elevate it a few millimeters and get it correctly through the 027 curves.

Weaver alco on 027 tracks

One of the last issues with the Weaver Alco engine running on 027 tracks was that it derailed the first car it pulls in a curve. To resolve this, I had to make a more flexible connection between the engine and the first car. As you can see, it works fine and the UP Alco has commenced its duties.

Alco running

Although the new FA-2 diesel engine doesnot have QSI, Protosound, Trainsound or whatever fancy hightech sound system, it does have an unique motor sound. Probably caused by the chain drive. Listen to the video and perhaps watch as well.

Weaver UP Alco #6540

About a month ago, I received a beautiful Weaver FA-2 Alco diesel engine in Union Pacific livery from Northern Saskatchewan. Although produced in 1990, the windows and horns were still not glued on yet. After it stood on the tracks and received some AC-current the lights lit up and the motor made a snorring sound, but the engine did not move.
After dissembling the hood, a missing gear wheel was directly appearent. After inspecting the box a small fragment of a plastic gear wheel was found.
Based on this fragment a new 8-teeth gear wheel from brass was made by drilling a center 4 mm hole. Then a circle was drawn on 3 mm distance of the hole with a ring and with high-school triangle 4 lines through the center and 45 degrees apart where drawn. On the eight positions where the circle crossed the line small 1.5 mm holes were drilled and afterwards the rough gear wheel was cut out of the brass plate. After sanding and soldering and sanding, the new gear wheel was mounted on the main drive rod, but unfortunately the motor did not run good. The chain tension was too high and consequently the torsion was too high.
In order to reduce the chain tension 1 mm was sanded from the plastic positioning plate for both main drive rods. The mounting holes for this plate were enlarged and after re-assembly the chain could move much more easily. The a special spacer was made from a K&S brass pipe of 4 mm internal diameter and 3 mm width. This helped to position the upper gear wheel precisly over the bottom gear wheel.
Now it finely runs! I must acknowledge my local Lionel train friend for giving me the repair suggestions that proved to be the right ones. The engine runs on my 027 layout, but does not like the Lionel 027 switches, because it touches the switch-house with the lower middle hood when it runs over the curved track of the switch. Furthermore, the couplers can not remain centered on 027 track, meaning that they will derail the first car connected in a 027 curve. This can be circumvented with a elastic rubber band over the open couplers, but it is not nice. What is nice of this engine is complete skirt: and not two single parts where the light shine through.

P&LE Boxcar

A beautiful Weaver PS-1 boxcar has joined us. It is a jade green NYC system Pittsburgh and Lake Erie boxcar made in a special run for P&D hobby. The doors can slide open, but sufficient force needs to applied to get them moving. A well-detailled little treasure train car that emerged locally. What a small fortune indeed. This boxcar was already suited for 3-rail operation and hence does not need to be converted to the right amount of rails.

Hopper time

A colourful PS-2 Hopper joined us and it came in beautiful old cardboard box. It is just nice to enjoy this 'out-dated' design. I am not sure but it looks seventish to me.

TCA-MG Club car #2

This week the 2008 TCA-MG club cars arrived and they are handsome indeed. The designers chose for the new 40' flat cars of Weaver with wooden crates on top. The details of the wooden crates, the dull grey colour of the weathered planks and the details on the flat itself (stake holders, steps, texts) are well done. The crates apparently contain Electrical components from the Electrical Generator Company in Windfall WV. According to the text they are heavy and should not be lifted with hooks. Surprising content.

The flats run smoothly on straight rails but were obviously not designed for my 027 curves. The wheels do then touch the central beam under the flat and this results in friction. The flats do not derail as my 50' flat does in 027 curves, but they are merely slowed down.

Changing trucks

A few months ago I was lucky to purchase some Weaver cars here in Europe. However, they we fitted with 2 rail trucks and Kadee couplers. Well nice cars but of little use on the tubular Hi-rail layout. First, I inquired directly at Weaver to get some replacement trucks and couplers, but the shipping cost exceeded the object costs. Then it took me some time to find a fine Train shop in Minot ND with just the couplers and trucks I needed and willing to serve me with real shipping costs. The items arrived here in no time and I had quiet some fun removing those Scale trucks and couplers. It is clear that my renovated 3-rail version cars stand higher on their wheels. Time to let them run.

Train signal and new cars

Two new cars have joined us. Two 2-rail Weaver cars to be more precise. A B&O #302522 50' bulkhead flat car from 1996 and a Reading #U3806 3-bay offset coal car from 1998.

So, these will have to be converted to 3-rail first, since these small flanges wheels do not track on hi-rails. This is than an excellent moment to make it diecast sprung trucks. Simultaneously, I practised my soldering skills a bit and made a train signal. Kind of fantasy signal, since only two lights is not very common, but I suits the needs of the layout and to make a signal in front of the crossing.

Weaver hoppers

A beautiful Weaver hopper car has joined the layout. It was available locally and that seldomly happens, making this a unique opportunity. Weaver is still relatively unknown in Europe as compared to Lionel and therefore there was hardly any competition.

It is a #71353 Great Northern PS-2 Hopper and it gladly combines with the #80003 AC-2 Hopper. The new one is clearly older. It is still has plastic trucks without springs and there are less rivets to count on the body. The light blue GN paint job is a rather simple two-tone as compared to the orange-black-white decoration on the DTI hopper. Nevertheless it is a great hopper that runs smoothly on my 027 layout. If anybody knows when the GN PS-2 hopper was produced I would be grateful for letting me know.

B and O Lionel freight express

This rainy weekend was very suitable for playing with Lionel toy trains. With the help of a tripod and a little natural sun light I was finally able to produce a reasonable video.

On the photo and for those with sharp eyes also on the video is the new orange AC-2 covered hopper from DT&I. It arrived this week. This club car from the TCA-MG forum is for blended sand only and was specially produced by Weaver models. It is amazingly detailed and has die-cast trucks and springs. It is still a light weight car. It states that is for 031 curves, but it runs perfectly on my 027 layout as well. The hopper is precisely 1:48 scale, so up to now I have only run it with the few 0 scale cars that I have. But the mismatch with Lionel cars that are a fraction smaller is only minimal, so I think it will run with some more trains soon.