Cotton Broker's Office Change of Face

On February 25, 2016, a posting suggested replicating a Cotton Broker's office on the Black Top Crossing layout. . . which was done.  At the time, the future of the actual building in downtown Rock Hill was unknown; might even be torn down.  Well, no such thing:

Exterior hasn't changed much.

Opening January 28, 2022, the Cotton Broker's office will be selling Rum distilled onsite!!

Cracks at KPSL

 As noted in previous post, the crack between Sections 2 & 3 of the Knowledge Park Shortline needs a little attention.  Made some effort today with poster board, spackling, paint, ground foam, and a few ties.  Could not get the diluted white glue bottle open so painted on some super strength hair "spray" and used a plastic spoon to distribute some "grass".  May want to come back with diluted white glue at some point and also need to insert the warehouse spur rails into the connectors.  But the layout was left with all trains running!

Before (but with wet white glue on fence)

During (with poster board being installe)

After

In action

N Scale Maintenance!

Wow, N Scale is REALLY small.  Lots of water under the bridge and over the dam since the last post.  Significant issues with what must have been a short in the two new sections.  The two straight tracks for the two new sections are now working pretty well.  Disconnected the two tracks from each other, totally, which may have helped.  But to make things "look" like they are connected, installed a straight section between two turnouts just short of the turnouts.  Also, installed a short portion of "chain-link" fence to connect between Sections 2 and 3.

Two "before" shots -- may have to do a little filling of the cracks at some point.

Have to look close at this "after" photo to see the fence just to the right of the partition.

OMG

 Oh my gosh, this guy does great work!  So, while the green loco ran well for a little while, it has slowed down again.  More repairs.  But check this out:

The third section of the Knowledge Park Shortline Railway is complete!

This will finish the model of Knowledge Park as it was in 1953 plus a major portion of downtown Rock Hill, SC.  I wondered why Jim had so many cars on this section of the layout when he had mentioned how tedious it is to make and paint the vehicles.  He explained that it was afternoon shift change and the cars were leaving and entering the too-small parking lot!!

We removed lower display case doors, sliding side glass doors, and unbolted/unscrewed top before the section arrived.  When the movers got there, they helped us pull the end glass out of the frame.

Surprisingly, the section fit well with even a few inches left over.  The "T" shaped layout has a slightly angle bottom of T which might have over lapped the closest right corner in photo.  But we even scooted the whole shebang over a bit to the right!

Sometimes you can get more help than you need and things get slowed down.  . .

Just kidding.  The layout is designed to attract attention and get folks interested in what was "high tech" formerly.

Finished display is outstanding, but operations still have a bug or two to work out.  Street lights and building lighting came right up.  But, there's a bug in the controls for the railroad -- something is generating a short.  Troubleshooting and wire chasing to come.

Shop for Repair

 Hoping to get all locomotives into action at the Rock Hill Museum of Commerce and Industry, but a couple are creating some problems!

The little EMD SW seemed to have come with a whining sound while operating:

Micro-Trains said it shouldn't be whining, so it was shipped out for inspection and repairs!?

The RS2 seemed to hesitate -- even sometimes stop -- as it approached the rear of the smaller loop.  Tried disassembly and cleaning of trucks and some contact points to no avail.  Contacted Walthers and got some good advice from Dan Thomson as well as some input from various Internet sources.  He recommended 

http://www.spookshow.net/loco/llrs2.html

So, disassembled again and this time checked out the contacts for the ends of the trucks:

Dan suggested filing the center tops of these where they make contact with a copper ribbon.  Maybe cleaning and filing helped.  Seemed to be running:

Last ditch effort might be to "spring" these same pieces inward to hold the trucks more tightly. . . . 

The Nest

 OK, so stopped by today to try to improve rat's nest a little with zip ties.  Maybe there's an improvement; maybe not much.  

The green Southern RS1/2 loco was stalled entering the tunnel.  Cleaned wheels on paper towel with alcohol but didn't do too much.  Swapped with little Southern SW. . .  switcher.  No problem up until leaving.

Making a Rat's Nest

 As the time nears for the installation of the 3rd Phase of the Knowledge Park Shortline Railroad, we hope, some adjustments needed to be made.  The control box on the side of Phase 2 was going to prevent Phase 3 from fitting in the display case.

With some effort, rewiring, and sliding of the first two Phases, maybe Phase 3 will fit.

A template of Phase 3 can be seen in the photo, above, with Phase 2 and the template slid to the near side of the display case.  Due to the angle of White Street, the near right corner (not seen in photo) was just inside the far side of the display case!  Easier to rewire than rebuild the case -- and much less expensive with "free" labor.  Note, also, the Rock Hill Station sign and Station "blueprint" have been mounted on wall -- more to come.

Wiring before rewiring from UNDER the display case.

Wiring after rewiring UNDER the display case.  Sure do hope the former high school robotics team members do NOT see this rat's nest of wiring -- they were instructed to ensure the wiring on the robot was run neatly.  Maybe tomorrow a few zip ties will help this.

With all this rewiring, it was amazing that almost everything worked.  And, it might have worked immediately if #9 wire had been placed in the #9 position the first time!  Like this:

In the meantime, the Railroad's Conductor was opening up the far end of the layout for easier view of downtown and doing some landscape decorations.

Note blue wall above, but no blue wall in photo below.  Just like the far end, adjusting some of the backdrop that worked in a garage has opened the layout to view from more angles.

And, as of this am, all three locos were hauling freight: