Done Enough

Back in December of 2025 I committed myself to complete the Shifter before tackling any other projects.  I was mostly successful at keeping to that condition, though while the primer was curing and the paint after that, I did begin the Ensminger Building construction.  Happily, this is a hobby, and the only restraints, deadlines, goals, etc. I place upon myself are purely of my own making and can be adhered to or ignored as the need arises.

That said, I really have wanted to get this little gem finished and on the rails sooner than later, and now more than ever in light of my Summer Challenge 2026: Orange Avenue! (the exclamation point makes it more exciting) beginning now.  So while there are a few steps remaining to complete the Shifter such as adding bell and whistle cords, a coal load and some weathering, I'm calling it done enough.

Here's a video:

This has been a long journey - over twenty years in fact - to reach this point.  I'm very happy with how this little locomotive has turned out so far and I look forward to many years enjoyment running it.

The Rolling Road to Recovery

After the challenges of wiring, and once the new decoder had been ordered, I cut the 4 pads on my soldering board to make 8 pads.  Next I soldered the wires in the tender to the pad.  They're a bit long but I can shorten them once I'm sure the plugs work as expected.  I am making this up as I go along using ideas I've seen elsewhere, tailored to fit this specific situation.

Next I decided to re-install the fireman's side valve gear.  I had left myself a note in the past on a punch list of tasks to shim the left side valve gear.  I wasn't very specific about why it needed shimming or where, so I just reinstalled it to find out.  Turns out it works great as-is.  Huh.  Maybe I fixed that issue years ago and forgot to check it off?  Or maybe it never was an issue.

Next I reinstalled the motor and put the engine on the test rollers - a tool I consider essential for working on steam engines.  Immediately the locomotive reminded me to set the angle of the eccentric, as the wheels wobbled and gahlumped.  After adjusting them the motion was indeed smoother with one major hitch in the gitalong once per revolution.  Hmm.  I'll spare you the troubleshooting thoughts; three of the teeth on the worm gear (that's the one on the axle, not the motor shaft) were chipped.  I briefly worried about finding a replacement until I remembered I had once shimmed the motor to bring the gears closer together.  That did the trick.  See the video below - this smooth low-speed running is on DC, with dry gears and joints.

Confident that the mechanism was working well I turned my attention to the male-half of the wiring.  I trimmed the pins ever so slightly to make that connection as short as possible then soldered wires to each pin.  A little heat shrink tubing and it was ready to install.  Feeding the wires through the holes in the locomotive frame wasn't as challenging as I'd expected though it did take some patient work with tweezers.  I joined the two halves of the connection and reattached the draw bar.

The thing worked well as long as you didn't want to go around any curves.  "Bending" the joint between loco and tender revealed that the friction of the holes on the loco frame was enough to pull the pins out of the sockets on the tender.  So, I tried feeding the wires through only the furthest hole on the locomotive frame, leaving slack beneath the cab.  Voila!  It works, and works well.  I trimmed away some of the loco frame, opening the second holes, and now it fits almost as if it was designed to be that way.  I'll need to leave a little slack in the wires between the motor and the backhead, but there's room for that.

 

With that established I can move on to completing the detail work on the sides of the firebox and in the cab.  That'll be the subject of the next post. 

 

 

Wiring Nightmares Can Come True

Wiring is not my favorite aspect of this hobby.  I love the look of bright locomotive headlights and the control available through DCC, and yet despite having enjoyed three years of high school electronics I just don't care for the tasks of cutting and stripping and soldering tiny wires.  I suspect it has to do with the unknown unknowns, that is, I don't know what might go wrong especially since half the time I'm doing something unorthodox.  

These days decoders and LEDs are drop-in or plug-and-play and that's fine for many modern locomotives.  However, vintage 1950 Mantua locomotives are a different matter altogether and adding DCC to such a critter requires ingenuity and creativity, math and formulas and even arcane knowledge.  Perhaps even live animal sacrifice, but I haven't quite reached that level of desperation....yet.

First off, here's what went well.  I managed to get 6 wires prepped and soldered to SIPP sockets.  Next I mounted these under the tender floor, feeding the wires up into the tender through the recently enlarged holes.  At this point I decided I'd hook up the rear light and see how that looked.  I did the calculations to determine the correct resistor value, soldered the resistor to the yellow wire and soldered this to one wire of the light.  I soldered the other wire from the light to the common blue wire pad in the tender.  So far so good. 

Then I switched on the power.

The bulb began to flicker.  Not blink - I know that's a fail safe warning that there's a short somewhere - but flicker randomly like a candle.

I didn't get a picture of the flickering bulb.  Enjoy this lovely image of the moon at sunset instead.

I made sure I had dialed in the loco address, had it in reverse, and had the light on.  Still flickering.  I could turn it off with F0, the lighting function, but whenever I'd turn it back on it would flicker.  I tried adjusting the CVs in case somehow from the factory it came set with that option but no, so I eventually just reset the decoder using CV8.  Now the light wouldn't come on at all.  Well, crap. 

I wondered if somehow I had miscalculated the resistor value, so I once again stuck my meter leads on the blue and white wires.  Huh...now I have 13.4 volts...when the F0 is OFF, and 7.3 volts when it is ON.  I had calculated the resistor value based on 13.4.  Maybe that was too much?  No, the bulb flickered, and a reading of 13.4 would make sense based on typical AC track voltage brought down to DC by the decoder.

I baked this apple pie for Thanksgiving with fruit from our front yard.  My first lattice top, made with Gluten Free crust!  Much nicer to look at than nasty old wiring and a troublesome decoder.

SO, Next I set up a test bulb on a beadboard with a 220 ohm resistor for safety, assuming the 7.3 volts might be right, but also hedging my bets that the 13.4 might be right.  Could blow the bulb but not likely.  This proved my fears.  The bulb burned brightly on the blue and white wires (forward headlight function), but only when the F0 was OFF.

The rear light was still not even glowing unless I caused a short between the blue and white wires...and then only for a brief moment.  Rolling the tender seemed to stop it.  Then the forward test bulb came on when F0 was ON, but dimly, and was bright again when F0 was OFF.

By now I my head was well and truly spinning. 

This is my Mom's kitten, Claire, sitting with our dog Ellie.  They're friends.

Seeking advice online only resulted in more confusion.  I'm pretty convinced the decoder isn't working as it should unless I'm missing something.  It IS 20 years old, at least, though it was never used in that time except to hook it up to the tender.  I probably blew it somehow or I got a lemon, either way, I'm done messing with it.  It has been removed and will be relegated to the someday-maybe bin in the electronics box.  Who knows, the motor control might still work, in which case it could be used for an animation element.

I have ordered a TCS KAM4 LED - that is Train Control Systems' Keep-Alive Mobile 4 decoder set up for LEDs without having to use any additional resistors.  I'm going to modify my solder pad to have 8 individual pads instead of 4...I mean, what was I thinking 20 years ago?  Why not just cut another groove and solder ALL the wires to the pad instead of bundling some with heat-shrink tubing?  Anyway, in the mean time I'm going to continue my adventures in electronics by installing the locomotive half of things, including a two-pin connector for the front light so I can separate the shell without breaking tiny wires.

Updates as they happen.  Thanks for reading. 

 

 

The Return of the Shifter

The time has come, at long last, to finish the Mantua Shifter.  I began rebuilding this little metal monster in 2002 or thereabouts and have tinkered with it occasionally over the years.  Why has it taken me this long?  I have some thoughts about that and will share them in an upcoming post once they've had time to mellow and mature.  Suffice it to say I'm committing to completing this project NOW before beginning any other model railroad project.

 

Obligatory un-boxing shot.  Former notes, parts packaging and bits.

The first step was assessing the state of things and determining an order of operations.  The tender is completely detailed at this point unless I decide to add any other little bits, minus the coal, of course.  The locomotive still needs some piping beneath the cab and backhead details added.  That's the easy bit, however.  The real challenge is under the hood, er, deck plate.

I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking when I drilled holes in the locomotive and tender frames for routing the wiring.  The two holes - one on each side - were only large enough for one wire each.  To wire the headlight and motor will require four wires, and if I want any power from the loco to get back to the decoder in the tender that'll take two more.  (I say IF, because I might be able to get by with only the tender trucks for pickup and a keep-alive circuit on the decoder, but that's still to be determined).

So the first order of business was enlarging those holes.  Here's the result after a few minutes with a Dremel, a sharp drill bit and some cutting oil:

The front tender truck has been pushed back in order to enlarge the holes behind the white strips.

These holes will sit between the firebox sides and the motor.  Just enough room...I hope.

The wires pass beneath the deck plate through these two holes, beneath the brake cylinders.

 
The metal debris has been cleaned from the bench and I've begun setting up for the next step, determining the resistance for the front and tender lights.  After that I'll begin cutting wire and soldering to connectors; not my favorite task, but essential.