Large Scale Central

Repairs and an evening run

General Discussion
#1

Late last fall I was out running my C16 double header. During an inattentive moment I had a derailment causing a bit of a meltdown -

Since new C-16 parts won’t be available for a few months, I decided to replace all the tender pick ups with a set of the aristo wheels with the ball bearing pick ups mixed with the regular aristo wheels. They are a bit larger then the original tender wheels but fit fine. They raised the height of the tender a bit so I had to add screw with a bit of tubing to the front tender truck to keep the draw bar from slipping off. The screw worked great. The old C16’s ran better than ever with this set up and I put them through their paces with an evening freight run. It also gave me a chance to play with a new camera (Nikon S510) in low light conditions. The pictures shot were much better than previous cameras in this low a light level (close to dark). over the old stone bridge

pulling up to O’Brien’s Feed & Tractor Supply

and right past

over the bridge

heading into town

-Brian

#2

Nice pics! What caused the parts to melt?

#3

Great pictures Brian. Are you using a tripod or a super fast ISO setting ?

#4

Yuh gotta do what it takes to get back up and runnin!
Good fix.

Wait till you try double heading with two independently controlled RC locos.
Great phun!
Just like the real thing.
I won’t tell you the results of our first attempt. :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

j

#5

Nice pics and grats on the repairs.
Thanks for sharing
Terry

#6
Ray Dunakin said:
Nice pics! What caused the parts to melt?
Thanks guys!

Ray,

The meltdown happened when the lead loco derailed (laying on its side) right in front of a tunnel portal. The tender was still partially on the tracks getting power. The rear loco also partially derailed. Both were still running when I found them and the melted parts were from the lead loco tender.

Jon Radder said:
Great pictures Brian. Are you using a tripod or a super fast ISO setting ?
Yes, I used a tripod and the only other adjustment I did was playing with the manual focus feature (picking the spot of focus). The rest was on auto (flash off). I did use the optical telephoto on a couple of shots.

-Brian

#7

I talked to Lewis at the GR convention, and he indicated that the C-16 drives would not be available as separate items, since they would not be a drop-in replacement for the old units. He said something to the effect of those with the smarts to figure out where to cut to make things fit properly were so small in numbers that it wouldn’t make sense to sell them. So, if you want the new drive, you get to buy a new loco. (But hey, you get a free caboose in the deal, too–which actually isn’t too bad.) I’m bummed myself, as dad’s got two C-16s that need new drives. Since both are highly customized already, you can understand my frustration at having to buy a new loco just for the drives. But–hey–he needs another caboose, right?

Later,

K

#8

K,
Lewis Polk amazes me sometimes! (Well, most of the time. :slight_smile: :slight_smile: )
The most un-businesslike man in the industry!

j