American Flyer's new cylindrical hoppers...a rant

I spent the weekend at the Carillon Railfest in Dayton, Ohio this weekend. Overall, the Railfest was a fun time, but for one really annoying thing. What, you may ask was that?

I'd acquired several of American Flyer's 'new' cylindrical hopper cars. The ones with "Canada" and "Alberta" emblazoned on the sides. Beautiful cars. Nice details, well painted with good high rail couplers...

...and scale wheelsets.

I attempted to run these cars on the clubs modular layout today. Now the track work on a modular layout can be challenging, but the code .148 track is supposedly capable off handling scale wheels. But no. I could not get those cars to make one circuit of the layout without derailing. It's very frustrating to spend nearly $70 on a car and not be able to operate it.

 Why in the world would you ship scale wheels with Flyer style couplers? I mean, hi-railers occasionally run high-rail wheels with kadee 802's that look more scale, but who exactly is the market segment that runs scale wheels and flyer couplers?

Lionel acknowledges they've gone down the wrong path. At the recent York show (Spring 2014) they indicated that future cylindrical hoppers would ship with high-rail wheels and that high-rail wheels would be available foir purchase...at $25.00 a set. So those $70 cars are going to be more like $95 by the time I get functional wheels on them. I am not a happy camper regarding Lionel/American Flyer right now.

It's a shame, as the cars look great. But a car you can't run is not much of a car from a customer standpoint.

Progress on the Spruce Hill environments

I managed to get a little time in on landscaping and got the ground cover on some more of the Spruce Hill area. Here's a few pictures to show the progress.

Add a coat of gloss to the river to 'water' it up  as well as flocked some more ground.

This should off the river with the large rock. The banks need to have trees and shrubs added.

Looking to the left, you can see how the ranch houses back right up to the tracks.

Another shot. The fencing is temporary. Trying to get a feel if I like it there.

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.

What's new?

Just a quick note on what I've been up to with the layout.

Landscaping continues at a slow pace. Part of the layout looks better, but it's got a long way to go before I'll be finished.

Trackwork - I've found an odd power loss on one section of track. What makes it odd is that voltage does not drop in that section, but the locomotives clearly slow down, and even stop at lower speeds. It needs to be fixed or everything that rolls through there will "telescope" as the locomotive stops, then restarts. I'm thinking I might add a feeder wire (but it's not a case of voltage loss, so I don't know if that will help).

Roundhouse - Got the 21165 Casey Jones engine running. I had to resolder the wires to the tender and did some basic cleaning and greasing/oiling. But that's all it took to get the motor turning. It pulls a train fine running counter clockwise. And promptly derails on the curves running clockwise. But at least I've got it running.

One of the American Models SD-60 is making 'growling' noises (again) which have me suspecting yet another cracked U joint or plastic drive gear (again). I love these locomotives, but man are they temperamental!


Keep 'em running!

Done with the ice breakers!

I've knocked out the first two of the ice breaker cars. These were 'quick and dirty' hi-rail cars designed as proof of concept test - both of the idea and my modelling abilities. I'm happy with the results. In the future, I'm going to try some more detailed versions and possibly a scale car for display.

The first two ice breaker cars on the layout of the Miami Valley S Gaugers

NYC icebreaker on the job being pushed by an American Flyer 0-8-0 #343

Another shot of the icebreaker on the MVSG layout

Update on the icebreaker car

It was a good weekend. The weather cooperated, so I was able to lay down the basecoats on the proof of concept icebreaker car to see how my skills held up. The verdict for now is ...so far, so good. Below are a few pictures to give you an idea of what the finished product should look like.

I started with this dilapidated American Flyer 2 bay hopper that had seen better days. It was a cast off from a fellow club member. It's already been repainted once, the steps are missing. It was missing one truck and the other truck was a link coupler attached with a screw and had no wheels.  It's the perfect fodder to construct a MOW car.

Here's one of the car bodies after I've applied several coats of Krylon yellow.  Starting to look a little more MOW-ey.

Here's the proof of concept car after I've installed the trucks and applied a coat of weathering to the car. Comparing it to the prototype, I think it needs more rust!  I also need to use dirty/grime black on the underside of the car to match the prototype.

The same car shot from a lower angle. It still needs lettering and some more weathering. The more I think about it - I should do some more detailing and add the brake wheel and a few more details. Maybe on a future version.

Ice Ice Baby...

One of my winter / spring projects is to model an ice breaker car similar to those used by the New York Central back in the day. It's nothing more than a 2 bay hopper with a raised truss made of "I" beams designed to knock the icicles off of tunnel mouths and ceilings, thus protecting the locomotives and cars from damage.

These cars have been around in O gauge and HO for a while, but I've never seen one in S. It seemed like a simple modeling project that matched my simple skill set. 

I finally found a color picture that clears up what color the car is supposed to loo; like on the website of the canada southern website.

NYC Icebreaker car

Now to finish the project!