Easy switching at Crushmoore

Hadn't been up to Malvern in sometime, since it was a nice day I took a break from my cabinet shop, grabbed the cameras and slipped up to see if anything new was going on.  The first order of business was to stop at the local Kwiky Mart to get a foamer snack and a soda before running over to the W&OV's shop.

As I walked out the door I was greeted with a big plume of smoke which could only come from an ALCo!  I jumped in the truck and headed towards the smoke.  I was just in time to see the newly acquired S-2 getting ready to switch out some cars at Crushmoore!

Couldn't have timed it better, I had just enough time to get the video camera setup.

******

I'm in a holding pattern on the cabinets at the moment, waiting on some plastic laminate to show up so I can cover my countertops.  Which is why I jumped on the closet cabinets.

The other day Doug had asked if he could come over and work on some more chip installs on a few of his locos Friday night since he had some spare time on his hands.  I also thought it might be a good time to get downstairs again and get the layout cleared off and cleaned up some more.  So while Doug worked on his chips I dove into cleaning up the tracks in Malvern.  They were just as I had left them last May after adding the static grass, damn I can't believe it's been almost a year!!!

Of course I needed to see if I could get them cleaned enough to actually run something, and since I had the new Atlas S-2 chipped and sitting in the facility, why not?

Much to my surprise the S-2 sprang to life and after a few swipes on the main tracks in town it was running like a dream.  Then I went after the tracks where I had planted the tall weeds....ugh!

I had to scrape the railheads with a sharp blade, then I used a brightboy and finished the job off with a good eraser.  But I still needed to go in after the insides of the rail to get some of the static grass of them.

Several minutes later things were pretty smooth.  I still need to touch up a few spots, but it was clean enough that the cars were rolling smoothly so I tried the    S-2.  Ran in, ran out!  Awesome!!!

I also grabbed a few of the Bluford Woodchip hoppers that I had recently picked up to see how they looked and ran..... they are nice cars!  Might have to get a few more of them?

The only issue I had was with the tractive effort of the S-2.  It seemed to slip a lot as evident in the video while pulling out the string of 5 loaded chip cars with factory weights.  I'm kind of thinking that it needs a bit more break-in time to get the blacking off the wheels and I also need to check the wheel gauge.

All in all it was good to scratch the itch!!!

Looking forward to getting an op session going again here before the end of April I hope?

I might even have the kitchen close by then...

Is that better Rod?