Sorted

The first pass at my rolling stock was into three major categories.  This image shows the result of sorting those categories into further divisions.  Some of these tubs and boxes near the top contain structures.  Believe me, people, this is progress!

The categories as of this post, 10/23/2026:

• Turn of the Century
• 1920s (pre-depression)
• 1950s (pre-1959 VGN-N&W merger, "transition" era)
• 1980s (right around the N&W-SOU merger into Norfolk Southern)
• "Heritage" fleet (private road names of varying eras built by the original owner)
• Commemorative cars (childhood nostalgia, commercially produced private road name cars, and tourist railroads)
• Passenger equipment and Maintenance of Way
• HOn3
• Freezers (cars, kits and car sides of varying eras)

I'm still processing the process, so to speak.  That is to say, this journey has raised a few questions and has given me perspective on the state of my collection with some real numbers.  For example, I have one tub each of 80s equipment and Turn-of-the-Century equipment, two tubs of 1920s era rolling stock, but 4 tubs worth of "Transition" era equipment, not counting the heritage equipment or reefers that fit into those eras, and passenger cars or MoW stock.  Based on this division, how would I fill the staging cabinet I'm building for my current '20s era layout?  Would it reflect what I own, what I want to run on that layout, or what interests me most at the time?  The answer may seem simple but the fact I'm raising the question means it is not.  Each option has its pros and cons.

I've also been paying attention to what excites me most as I look through this stuff.  It all brings a smile to my face...well...most of it.  Some cars I wonder why I bought them, and some were gifts I wouldn't have chosen.  Some are "sows ears" that would take great effort and cost as much as a newer kit to build into a fine model.  No doubt I'll cull the collection with the intent of buying a table at a swap meet.  I also realized I want to build (and restore) many of these cars but of course can really only do one at a time.  To that end I've made a 5/25 list* and the results surprised me.  Out of the 25 cars I'd be interested in building sooner than later, the top 5 that stood out most weren't all from one era or group, but spread across multiple groups, including a diversity of car types.

I haven't decided on the next step in this inventory work.  When I originally set out to make an inventory I had visions of spreadsheets which quickly morphed into visions of note cards which I could then sort into categories.  Handling the cars by emptying the tubs and rearranging them into categories has been far faster and easier than creating a card for each car, one by one.  Andrew Mellen is right; making these sorting decisions is simpler when all the items are laid out before you instead of handling each one.  So I suspect the next step in the inventory process will become obvious as I get the staging cabinet built; either that or it will hit me like lighting at 3 AM.  Either is possible.

*Falsely attributed to Warren Buffet, the 5/25 list is a way of selecting which projects mean the most to you at that moment, allowing you to be more productive, supposedly.  Once the list is populated you select the top five, focus all your energy on them, and set aside the remaining 20 until the first group is done.  I'm using it as a way to examine my present interests more than select an actual list of projects to build, though I may use it that way when the current Trail Drive is completed.  We'll see.

Rebuilding C 648

I own two Pan Handle Rusty Route cabooses and one is in far better shape than the other.  I'm starting with the most distressed and in need of repair, number 648.  Built from a Silver Streak kit with full interior and lighting, the car is a fine example of what could be done by a skilled modeler in the 1960s to create a car with detail and charm.  Sadly it has seen better days, but happily the repairs needed are straightforward.

While I'd like to light this car again in order to showcase the interior work, that's not a project I want to tackle at the moment.  My goal for now is to rebuild the car to running condition, mechanically sound first, address a "weighty" issue, and get it back on the rails behind #225 within the next month.  I'll leave the roof removable for now in order to add lights eventually.

The chief mechanical defect is a frozen coupler.  I had originally planned to replace it with a nearly identical one from my parts bin but decided I had nothing to lose by trying to unstick this one.  So, I thwacked the knuckle ever so gently with a tiny hammer and it moved.  A few more taps and I could move it, stiffly, with my thumb.  I applied graphite with a mechanical pencil followed by a drop of alcohol to draw the lubricant into the joint.  That did the trick.  After scrubbing away the remaining corrosion and working the knuckle a bit more, the coupler is now functioning and ready to be reinstalled on the body.

Next I turned my attention to the supplemental weights John had added into the body.  I'm guessing the car didn't track well or perhaps didn't make reliable contact with the rails to keep the light from flickering.  Either way, he felt a bit more weight was necessary, as these lumps of lead appear to be later additions to what was a neatly laid out interior arrangement.  I decided I could keep those weights in the car by modifying the details in such a way as to hide the weight in plain sight.  

I began by milling out the cabinets under the cupola seats to accept the two largest weights.  I used a small Forstner type bit and a straight cutting bit in my Dremel tool to remove the material.  Next I cut the remaining weights into smaller bits that would replace parts of the seat and table bases, taking care to keep the weight balanced on each side of the car, as best I could.  Finally I resorted to slipping one chunk of weight between the underbody tool box and center sill.  Once painted this will be invisible from a normal viewing angle.

This is a good stopping place for this post so I'll continue the caboose repair report in the next.  Thanks for reading!

225 Rolls Again

This is the first installment of my Fall 2026 Trail Drive during which I will restore the equipment I've collected from John L. Oliver's Pan Handle Rusty Route and Earl Benteler's Allegheny.

Having successfully reorganized my workbench and created space for the staging cabinet beneath the layout, I decided it was time for another Trail Drive.  Click HERE for the post that explains the Trail Drive concept and HERE for the current posts with that label.  There's a specific reason for undertaking this particular trail drive at this time but that'll be explained in another post.  For now I'm starting with 2-8-0 #225.

The United "Santa Fe" 2-8-0 is one of the most popular brass locomotives from what some consider to be a golden era of brass imports.  John Allen had one, along with similar 2-8-0s from United based on other prototypes, and they were popular with his crews.  I can understand why.  Beautiful detail, well balanced, and no doubt when new, smooth reliable runners, sure footed and strong.

But time has not been kind to many of these models.  While this one was in excellent condition cosmetically, it ran with a significant grinding noise.  After removing the motor and gearbox - a simple matter of removing a few screws - the wheels rolled freely and the valve gear motion was smooth.  The issue was the motor and gearbox.

I had purchased a "can" motor from an eBay seller several years ago, not long after acquiring the locomotive.  I knew I'd likely be replacing the gearbox but postponed that purchase until I could get the thing on the bench and look under the hood.  Now that I'd done that I could see the model would benefit from a better gearbox but funding for that purchase is not available at present, so I'd have to make do with the new motor and some model airplane fuel tubing for a "universal" joint.

A bit of research revealed I'd be in for a challenge removing the brass collet from the gearbox shaft.  Some persistent heat and pressure from a Northwest Short Line Puller II made the task relatively painless.  I reinstalled the gearbox and after some cogitating decided it best to mount the new motor using A-Line's double sided mounting tape.  This is by no means a permanent solution but for a proof of concept it'll do nicely.

And prove the concept it did!  I made a video showing the difference in the locomotive's performance before and after the remotoring.  This is without any supplemental lubrication so I expect a slight improvement in performance with some oil.  I disabled the lights as the old cloth insulation on the wiring was a little sketchy and I didn't want to risk a short.  Someday when I upgrade the gearbox I'll probably install new lights as well but for now this is enough.

Nearly There

Does it look any different?  See this post here for the "before" images.  Beneath the layout where the two white boxes are sitting is where the "staging cabinet" is going to live.  That's a project for this Fall, and one I'm really looking forward to.

Decluttering is a skill that, when learned well and practiced regularly, is able to rewrite the brain.  The greatest takeaway from this reorganization has been the realization that I deferred way too many decisions.  That's the essence of clutter - "I'll decide later".  The more I can decide now, the easier it becomes to keep doing that, and the less cluttered my workbench becomes.