I decided having that mountain pass up on level 1 was sorta wasting a lotta of good space, so I did some swapping around and moved stuff on Level 1 to Level 2 and vice versa. I think it’s really starting to come together now and giving me the best use of the space.
My 2nd batch of shelf standards and brackets arrived over the weekend so I’ll be finishing that up over the next week or so. My stupid power-drill is dying on me so I may have to replace that first before I can do any futher work.
My Challenger finally arrived yesterday from Tony’s, so I thought I’d give it a spin on the old Scenic Ridge layout sitting in the garage.
When I first opened the box, I noticed a little arm was loose, connecting to the front right cyclinder. The pin was still in the box, so I put that back in. No biggie I thought at first. Well, that was just the foreshadow of what was about to happen.
The sounds are pretty cool and good (little loud though). It ran great on the layout…. for about 10 mins. In the middle of the filming, the arms on the right front axle popped off. You can see the arm hanging off as it rounds the corner near the end of the video before it jumps the track.
I haven’t really given it a good look over yet to see if it’s just something that can be popped back in. Major bummer that an engine this expensive by Athearn is having these kinds of problems not 20 mins out of the box.
Here’s the video though of the Challenger making its brief appearance on the Scenic Ridge layout:
I used some funds I made by selling off some HO items I had to purchase the recently released Athearn 4-6-6-4 Challenge equipped with DCC/Sound. I ordered it online from Tony’s Trains, and it should ship out this week.
I tweaked up the upper level a bit, and gave the lower level an overhaul. Staging was re-split into two different yards to avoid most of the shuffling a single lond yard required. The backdrop on the level will be a sort of split backdrop. The far back with be a full length sky backdrop, and then in front of staging will be a shorter maybe 4-6″ backdrop just give some illusion of a backdrop and help hide staging. I’ll have to mock this up once the benchwork is in place.
The benchwork was also expanded to 15″ to match the upper level to fit scenery, buildings, etc… Haven’t decided for sure if I want to the simulate an interchange on this level or just make another industry. I like the look of a diamond crossing so I may keep it just for show.
I also decided to go with Code 55 track. I like the prototypical look of it over code 80, and I know I’ll probably kick myself for not going with code 55 right off the bat. So I’m making the switch.
I have about 40 pieces of code 80 flextrack I’ll have to toss up on ebay to sell and replace with code 55.
