Moody Christmas Train

beeiilll said:
Beautiful job so far Bob! So when are you going into the train manufacturing business? :biggrin2:

You certainly wouldn't have any trouble finding buyers from the looks of your work! I have wanted to build one but upstate NY is not a great place to try and run a train around when you get 2 feet of snow! :sleepy:

Question for you. What kind of paint are you using on the train? Looks like a beautiful shine on it.
Click to expand...

Hey Bill....

One the cars, I used better grade wood so that really cut down on the prep work ... but
Believe it or not .. its spray paint.... Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch 2X.

On the train engine body:
I used water putty to fill the cruddy ply that I used and somewhat smooth the surface .. (that was MY BAD...)
Sanded
applied sanding sealer
sanded
first coat of paint
lightly sanded
second coat
I may have repeated for a third finish .. honestly .. I don't remember
At this point it had a smooth finish and a nice shine.. .
I then shot a couple of coats to polyurethane to protect it...

That's pretty much it .. the paint really does flow well...

Bob
 
Spyder said:
Looking great. A train build is on my mind for next year. I've been tidying up the garage over the last few days and building racking for storage. Will be building a small bench soon for soldering work and other pixel related mayhem. Maybe I do have space to build a train.

What are you doing for lighting? Wifi controlled pixels to blink with the show?
Click to expand...

Awesome idea !!! but ... no...LOL
There is lighting in the cab and in the caboose.
I will light parts, if not all, of the track along the route..

There might be something riding on the flat car that will color change, blink, chase ... I have several parallax boards and arduino processors that i can load some static 2811 sequence on...

But ... MAN,,, that was a good idea!!!

Bob
 
didjareally said:
Looks really good, how many others watched all the way to the end of the first video to watch him chase it down and unhook the power?
Click to expand...

didjareally......... YES.. I did..
Funny thing is that there really is a video (not published) of the first time i ran the train ...
basic frame. not even the guide rollers yet. just 4 wheels on casters (should have been a disaster in the making)
Battery out of one of my trucks bungee corded to the frame.
two wires with battery clips on them...
(do you SEE the comedy building??)
Did I mention all this is occurring in my immaculately kept and perfectly flat yard? (yeah ... right...)
and then there is Bob... Camera in hand at the ready ...
Clip on the battery and ... They're off!!!!

Surprisingly, the train.. even bumping and jumping around went very straight...
I'm trotting along beside it looking at the camera screen while recording ..
Realizing I now have to catch this thing ..

So.. YES.. it really did happen... LOL ..

Bob
 
This is absolutely pimp! I must say, a project like this is quite an undertaking, and takes a lot of dedication to stick with it even just to get one car built and operational, much less all the track-work. So I definitely commend you for dedicating your entire garage to this project. Looking at all of your detailed photos showing each step of the way was very well documented and impressive.

What I'd like to know is, how do you plan to break-down & store all of this during the off-season once you complete it? That's quite a footprint that would take almost a separate warehouse to store everything.
 
The track sections are 8' long and I think 16" wide .. there are 20 of them .. and they will stack
The corners .. will stand up and lean into the track ..
The train itself can sit on a track section..

YES.. it will take a pretty good foot print to store it.. A few years ago I built a 12 x 16 shed dedicated to Christmas stuff.... and Sandra does a pretty good job of keeping in check from collecting much cr...... ummmm.. non-essential stuff.. LOL ..

On the near horizon is a 30' x 50' shop ... work shop, wood shop, machine shop etc... I will also have some storage there as well ..

You are right on the money though.. it takes space to build and store.. my current shop is 24' x 24' and I'm using just about every square inch of it...

Bob
 
Bob Moody said:
Well... Sandra and I took the plunge into a yard train. Simple oval .. 4 corners, 48' on the long straight and 32' on the shorter straight.

Started in January and this is where we are with it now ..

http://moodychristmas.weebly.com/yard-train.html

a lot of pictures and a couple of videos...
We are not finished yet... but finally at a point where we can show a little of what we have done so far.

Bob
Click to expand...

I only have one comment.....how did you talk your wife into this and can you talk to mine. Lol. That's awesome!
 
Thank you everyone for the support and compliments.
Yes... I have had some major growing pains with this first year.
First off was the profile that was in the PVC brick moulding I used for the corners. The guide wheels would hang up in there and caused many problems.
I cut some filler strips and took care of that.
This reduced the current draw coming out of the corners from about 23 amps to 18.. okay .. progress.
But I kept having incredible wear on the guide roller (left rear front of the drive wheel carriage). It actually self destructed a couple of times.
Finally (with the great help from my dad) figured out I had a "differential" problem.. or lack of ... With both wheels driving, it was driving the casters into the corner and binding. Shear torque would drive them through.
So... I took the 3/4" axel out and took it to a machine shop and had a 1/2" diameter boss turned on one end 1 5/8" long. This allows the inside rear wheel to free wheel and slow down as the engine drove into the corner.
Drawback (if you want to call it that).. is that I'm only driving one wheel.. it slips a little at startup from the torque of the wheel chair motor.
Benefit... it runs perfectly now. Its running much smoother, you can literally push the engine through a corner with your pinky.. and with all cars in tow, the train is drawing about 9 to 11 amps coming out of the corners.
that's approx. 1/2 the original current draw. Also there is no wear on the guide rollers!! BTW .. this train is not light!!! Deep cycle battery, steel sub frame and wheel chair motor... this thing is heavy...
Running 4 to 5 hours a night, every night and its running smoothly at a constant 4mph.
I do have to lube the casters periodically but that's to be expected.
I could not write a book on building a yard train .. but I could write the how NOT to do it ...

Thanks again guys ...

Bob

http://facebook.com/moodyfamilychristmas
 
Last edited:
Bob - My train is very heavy . The Loco weights 120 # by itself. I have cut the amp draw and friction in the turns by 2/3 by bringing the distance between the front and back rollers in as close as possible . Mine were 23 " and now 13 " . Big difference in smoothness and running time . Walter
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top