Another day, another update!

Well another day and some progress to report!

I ran a new feeder wire to the section of track that was causing the 'start/stop' telescoping issue and it's helped a lot. I *think* there is still a slight drop, but testing my U33C got pretty good results. Here's a video showing the locomotive traversing the track. (Check your speaker volume - that U33C is loud!)

So with that problem mitigated,  I'm feeling better about the track work. In hindsight, it's really been bothering me and was starting to effect my enjoyment of the layout. So yay - 15 minutes of work drilling a couple of holes, running two wires and a little bit of cutting and splicing.

On an unrelated note, I was in Lake Louise, Canada a few years ago. It is gorgeous country with beautiful mountain vistas, great hiking...and the mainline of the Canadian Pacific running right through town. We visited in late August / early September and each day I could sit at the train station and watch big long unit trains (like 100+ cars) of grain hoppers being hauled to the west coast and the empties being returned to the Midwest to be refilled. At the time I was envious that you could get these great looking cars in HO, but not in S gauge. But no more! American Flyer released a new cylindrical hopper car that captures the memories of my vacation perfectly.

It's a great car with loads of detail. Heck - it even runs on scale wheelsets out of the box which might be a first for American Flyer.

It's a real beauty, eh?

I don't plan on running 100 car trains, but I can definitely see adding a Canadian Pacific grain hopper train to my collection as a memory of a lovely time in Banff National Park.