The Carolina Sandhills Lines in HO Scale

[davefoxx]

Seaboard Coast Line U30C No. 2123 has finally decided to leave the RIP track and join the fleet.  I bought this big U-boat about six months ago, and it had a horrible growling in right hand turns.  Seeing it was brand spanking new, I was hesitant to tear it down any further than removing the shell to try to analyze it while running.  Sadly, I could not narrow it down beyond just something in the driveline was not right.

I put in a warranty claim back in December, knowing Atlas was on break until January.  Not a problem since I wasn’t in any all-fired hurry.  On January 3, 2025, I received a call from Atlas (I won’t state the name of the individual), but I was working and could not take the call.  I returned the call several times over the next few weeks, but I never got a call back.  I will state that, until now, I have only had excellent customer service from Atlas, so this is disappointing.  I ended up frustrated and just put the engine on the shelf to deal with it later.

Later came when, tonight, I got to thinking about that locomotive.  Since it’s been about six months that it has been a shelf queen nagging at me, I just decided to try to deal with it on my own.  A locomotive that can only run in one direction (clockwise) on my layout is no good to me, especially since even then it would make the grinding noise in the cosmetic curve in Southern Pines.  So, what have I got to lose by trying, right?

I removed the shell and hand-turned the driveline.  No obvious issues.  So, I unplugged all of the wires, removed the weights, and dropped the trucks out.  The front truck seemed okay, but I noticed a grinding in the rear truck.  Matching the engine’s running characteristic, it was only in one direction.  Hmm.  We’re getting somewhere.  I opened up the truck and noticed that if the last wheelset was pushed off center (like in a right hand turn!), there was a clicking sound.  There it was!  On the inside of the gearbox was what I could only describe as a “pimple”- a tiny blip of plastic that was in just the right place to rub the side of the axle gear’s teeth when the wheelset was pushed to that side.  I scraped that bit of plastic out, verifying no debris was left in the truck, and put the entire locomotive back together.  Fixed.  Just like that.  Whew!  I’m breaking the locomotive in now.



What a relief, because Atlas did this locomotive right in that it has separately lighted numberboards and an independent GyraLight and flashing red emergency light that I don’t have to redo to get them right, like I did on my SDP35 and U18B.  Nice.

DFF

[Philip H]

There’s something about the inherent ingenuity and curiosity of modelers named Dave.

[Dave V]

Nice!

I prefer the self-troubleshooting to warranty work whenever possible in a large part because 1) it helps me understand how everything works better and 2) it's generally faster.

Brave man, though, taking it that far apart! Glad you fixed it! I have much less courage with steam than I do diesel though... Valve gear and quartering are real pains in the a$$.

[TiogaTracks]

Adding to what Dave V said, not only did you figure it out for yourself, you told the rest of us how you did it!  That sounds like a frustrating set of symptoms, way to go finding the simple fix to it!

-Steven

[davefoxx]

Thanks for the compliments, guys!  I appreciate it.

Yeah, taking apart a diesel and getting it to run again is a whole different beast than a steamer.  I’ve certainly worked on steamers- I even DCCed @Ed Kapuscinski’s little HO scale 4-4-0, but I’ve never taken a steam locomotive’s valve gear apart and had to deal with quartering.  I did try building one of those Model Die Casting HOn3 2-8-0 kits about thirty years ago.  It went okay- at least as well as one of those could run.

Thanks again!
DFF

[davefoxx]

The track that was patched back in to reconnect the revised staging yard has been painted and ballasted.



DFF

[davefoxx]

Nice work Dave !  But ya gotta change the road number on that mother to 6427 Otherwise that slug is adopted

All right, @mu26aeh, you called me out on my mismatched mother-slug combination a while back.  It’s all taken care of.  Now, CSXT GP30 RDMT No. 2225 is mated with its proper mother, GP40-2 No. 6427.  Fixed.  Thanks, Athearn! 



DFF

[mu26aeh]

I'm working on a slug right now along with everything else going on in the basement.  I need to add the 2 rear door compartments back to the body, previous owner sanded everything off. 

[davefoxx]

I'm working on a slug right now along with everything else going on in the basement.  I need to add the 2 rear door compartments back to the body, previous owner sanded everything off.

Don’t forget the additional door just behind the cab on the engineer’s side.  You can see it in my photo above.

DFF

[davefoxx]

With SCL U30C No. 2123 finally joining the fleet (see first post on this page), this changed my plans slightly.  I had listed Union Pacific U28C No. 2806 for sale a few weeks ago at a really attractive price, but, thankfully, it didn’t sell.  No. 2806 would make a good pairing with 2123, so I unpacked 2806, reinstalled its Sergent Engineering couplers, downloaded the ESU sound file I had used before putting it up for sale (custom settings and speed matching), and MUed it to 2123. Now, I can do this, as run through UP, SP, and Frisco power was sometimes seen on the SCL trains:



DFF

[Dave V]

I'm really digging that weedy siding in front there...

[davefoxx]

It was a whirlwind tour to Athens, Georgia, this weekend for my niece’s wedding.  One of the first things that we saw as we rolled into Athens on Friday felt strangely familiar, kudzu and all.



Speaking of kudzu, “Is this heaven?”
“Nope, it’s [Georgia]. 🤣



The trestle in the first photo above is an abandoned Central of Georgia bridge.  On another concrete underpass owned by CSX just up the street . . .



. . . the “Seaboard” name cast into the concrete was still in immaculate condition.



DFF

[wm3798]

You can tell that the "S" runs CSX.  Within minutes of the merger, the classic B&O capitol domes cast into their bridge piers all over Baltimore were plated over with tacky tin "CSX" logos, which have been left to fade.

Lee

[davefoxx]

You can tell that the "S" runs CSX.  Within minutes of the merger, the classic B&O capitol domes cast into their bridge piers all over Baltimore were plated over with tacky tin "CSX" logos, which have been left to fade.

Lee

Hahahahaha!  It’s funny, ‘cuz it’s true!

DFF

[davefoxx]

On the GP40-2 mother No. 6427 (shown several posts above), I had bought that Geep as DCC Ready, because I went the el cheapo route.  That is, I didn’t want to pay an extra $80 or $100 for a decoder that I would immediately rip out and replace with a LokSound V5 decoder.  Unfortunately, this meant no speaker.  That, in itself, usually isn’t a big deal, but, in this case, there was no provision for a speaker to be added.  A weight would have to be removed.  Now, that hasn’t stopped me in the past, as I would usually build a shelf over the rear truck with styrene where the weight was to have a place to secure the speaker.  But, this locomotive was different.  It has lighted rear numberboards and class lights in addition to the rear headlights.  These extra LED lights are mounted to the rear weight.  A weight-delete also takes out where to mount these LEDs.  I probably could have figured out how to mount this to a styrene shelf in place of the weight, but they would need to be located perfectly to prevent light bleed.

Scale Sound Systems to the rescue.  I looked at their website when I had made the startling discovery that this would be challenging and discovered that they had already redesigned a speaker with a mount for the numberboard LEDs.  So, two nights ago, I attempted the installation after receiving a new speaker.  The speaker is practically a drop-in, but there’s a boat-load of wires in there.  It’s also almost as wide as the interior of the shell, and I managed to pull one of the class lights out in my first attempt.  D’oh!  Try as I might, I couldn’t get that LED back in place without three hands, so I walked away to try again another day.

The next day (Friday the 13th!), I went at it again.  First, I put a small dab of canopy glue in the class light housing in the shell and pressed the LED in.  It’s difficult to get in there, but I managed to line it up without further damaging the fine wires.  The canopy glue worked, as it grabbed the LED, holding it in place.  Earlier attempts without the glue failed, because the LED would just pop right out as I tried to get the tweezers out.  I walked away again, to let the canopy glue dry.

When I came back after a few hours, the LED was solidly in place.  Cool, back to trying to get the shell on without further damage.  I pulled the dynamic brake blister out of the shell, so I could better guide the wires.  I also carefully worked the rear end of the mechanism into the shell first and at as much of an angle as I could to avoid those LEDs in the shell.  This worked.  A test of the speaker and the lights on the programming track was successful, so I reinstalled the dynamic brake blister and couplers.  Although, I’m not running the early CSX era on the layout presently, I let No. 6427 and slug No. 2225 run some laps last night.  All is well again, and they sound great!  Challenging, but worth it, although I hope I never have to pull that shell ever again.

DFF