Fixing the MTH 2 Bay Hopper

...or Sunday afternoon at the repair bench.

So the MTH 2 -bay hopper I'd mail-ordered arrived in less than stellar condition. The weight was rattling internally. The weight may also have dismounted the end walls from both ends of the car. Plus the catwalk had come loose. Hell of a job on shipping boys!  Here's a few shots of what it looked like on arrival.

You can see the disconnected catwalk and the end walls

Another view of the end wall and the catwalk

The more I looked at it the more irritable I became.

 
Sadly as I did not open the box and recognize the issue within 10 days OR save the original shipping box, my return options with the merchant appear to be non-existent.  Fair enough - they have a clearly stated policy.  Guess I'm stuck with it. So...taking the bull by the horns, I set out to fix the damage.

First step - dis-assembly. Most other cars I own have the body held on with some snap-tight system. By spreading the body walls, I got the chassis to drop out and away from the body. Then the loose end caps fell off and out. This left me with five distinct parts.

Body, end walls, weight and chassis.

The only things that appear broken are the mounting pins on the top of each end wall. Even there, a little bit of the pins remain present. You can see where the initial glue has failed and allowed the parts to become loose. The weight was just rattling around loose inside the body.

The weight is a single, stamped metal part with four mounting holes in the corners.

Attaching the weight was just a question of centering the weight over the mounting holes and pressing down. There's enough resistance that the weight almost 'snaps' in place. If subjected to a lot of shaking it could come loose, but should stay put from normal usage.

The weight re-installed on the chassis. The bend in the metal weight allows it to conform to the chassis design. 

Next up was fitting the end walls back into place. They slid in easily, figuring out the exact positioning was a little mysterious, so I cheated and pulled out an old SHS 2-Bay hopper and checked how the parts fit on  that one. Give these are supposed to be made from the same molds, assembly should be similar.

I've fit the part to the chassis trying to figure out how the connecting rod, err...connects to the brake assembly. In the end the SHS PS-2 gave me the pattern to follow.

Included just to show how the L girder extends through the car wall.

You can see the old glue line and the pin slots in the ceiling of the car body.

 I dropped the end walls into the body and applied ABS cement. After it quick set I flipped the body over onto the chassis and installed it. The trickiest part was to align the brake machinery lever correctly, but even that was not too difficult. A quick visual inspect shows the end walls seated properly to the chassis.

Looking better!

The last step was getting the catwalk fixed. The pins had sheared off over about half the car. I placed small amounts of CA glue on the supports along the car roof and then pushed the catwalk down onto the glue. A rubber band held it in place, but I placed two bottles atop the catwalk for additional weight while the CA glue sets. 

All done save the test drive!

 This was a relatively short repair. Maybe 45 minutes total from starting disassemble to completion. I took my time - this included analysis of the problem and defining the solution. In the end, it was easier than I expected.

My only regret is that I should not have to basically do model kit level rough assembly for a brand new ready to roll item. I may buy additional items from MTH in the future, but I'll want to see it's condition before putting down the cash.

Putting up the trim boards

Big accomplishment of the weekend was getting the trim boards up on the exterior edge of the layout AND the hinged walk-thru bridge. It's starting to feel like a train layout! More importantly - the chance of a catastrophic derailing have been substantially reduced.

The bridge and ends of the layout with the trim boards up.

Time to restock the Pizza Hut..or Taco Bell...or KFC.

Adding this board makes the river appear much more complete.

Need to touch up the stain on the left end of the board. It broke off during sawing.

Getting 2015 off on the right foot!

The first week of 2015 has seen signifigant progress being made on the model railroad. Lots of landscaping work is being done along with trim boards on the exterior of the layout.

An aerial shot of the southeast corner of the layout.  Inner loop on the left.

Oblique view of the same scene above.

The apartments have recieved additional trees and the parking lot as a few more cars.

Added the stained trim boards to this corner of the layout.

The trim boards really class up the layout. Adding the road and flocking the corner helped as well!

The bridge was flocked as well, adding to the finished look of the layout.

Added the pine trees along the river bank. The diner is a temporary set up to help gauge in determining what fits in the space and what else can fit (like maybe a post office or gas station). Clearly, more trees are required.

Same trees - different perspective.

What's new on the layout?

It's been a while since the last post. Here's what's new new on the layout....

Picked up a customized American Flyer K5 locomotive recently. The prior owner did a great job customizing it for the Pennsylvania railroad.

The latest addition to the roster.

Marker lights, bell and headlights. Really well done work on this.

Whoever did this added the running boards to the headlight.

close up on the tender. Really nice work on this!

But wait, there's more!

I'm building coal loads for the S Scale America Coal Porter cars.

The GP-35 is fixed and back in the rotation

The Burlington Northern GP-35 from American Models is fixed and again rolls around the layout. If took a bit of detective work and some new power pick up leads, but the motor again picks up track power and hauls the train around the track.

The GP-35 hauling a string of cars. The Railbox car contains the American Models sound unit.

While a picture is nice - a video really shows how well it runs.

A milestone - all the track for the intial plan is installed

The west yard looking southeast. The three mainlines are on the right.

The west yard looking southwest.

 

I picked up a 30B from the Fall S Fest. It works great is fills the need I had for replacing the 4B and 8B transformers I was using.

The urban planning and landscaping continues!

A few more picture and a video or two showing the progress I've made on the town. I do feel like I'm turning a corner as I think there is more 'done' now than 'not done'. Scott's benchmarke question seems to be "can we game on it?". Scott - the answer is now yes, we could game on it. Not all of it, but enough for a game.

Now on to the pictures!

This is the east section of the layout. We're looking north from the south end of the layout. The wall sections in the foreground are from Acheson Creations. The near buildings are from Armorcast.

Pulling back a bit for an overview. The old Marx tower is a placeholder for now. Trying to decide if I like a tower there.

Cheaspapeake Stree takes a sharp turn into town here. It's a light industrial area.

Another shot of Chesapeake Lane, this time at the intersection with Butler Street.

The Plasticville factory has rail service in the rear with the ability to load trailers as well. The yard signs are from Armorcast. They are actually 'business cards' with their name and number embossed in the casting.

Another shot of the Plasticville factory. It marks the start of the industrial area.

Looking north from the edge of the bridge, the Burlington Northern U33C is bearing down on the cameraman. Better clear that track quick! 

MOVIE TIME!

A short video showing the U33C hauling a string of freight cars around the layout.

And another short video as the train rolls through town.