Lately, I’ve been converting my rolling stock fleet to Intermountain metal wheelsets and Kadee couplers. Happily, the entire caboose and locomotive fleet and about 2/3 of my cars are now upgraded.
As I complete each upgrade, I add a colored dot to the car/locomotive/caboose’s box and car card. This makes it easy to tell which pieces still need upgrading. Although, I haven’t added any yet, the color code also provides for interior lighting and markers for cabooses.
Nick
Hey, why not. After all, didn’t the prototype use a big yellow polka-dot to indicate wheel inspection status a few decades ago?
Each of my car cards has that car’s complete maintenance record on the back. Major modifications are entered in red.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Have you noticed the Inter Mountain wheel sets being too tight or too loose in any of the trucks? I noticed this with some P2K wheels I used and someone recommended trying the IM’s.
Nope. So far the IM wheel sets work like a charm on everything I’ve added them to. Also, because they are entirely metal, the I/M wheel sets add a nice amount of weight to the cars.
Nick
Another thing most earlier cars can benefit from is to cut the molded stirrup steps off & replace with Aline metal or Tichy molded ones. If you really want to go all out ,carve off the grab irions & replace with metal…or maybe that can wait for retirement. Jerry
This is geeky, but I take my laptop into the train room which is connected wirelessly to the rest of the network.
When I find a problem with a car, loco or the layout, I note it in a work-order form that is connects to a network database that I use to inventory my cars, kits, etc.
Later I’ll dedicate a whole day to maintenence, print out a report of the work orders and get 'er done.
Geeky, yes, but much better than my old system of bits of paper notes everywhere!
I find they are too tight only on some of my older (Tyco) trucks. I use my tuner to bore it out, and it works every time. I have not had any that are too loose. maybe the truck is warped.
The tuner is definately worth it.
Good idea! Can I steal it?[;)]
When my cars have a problem, what happens next depends on how lazy I am at the moment. If I feel like doing it right, the car goes off the layout, and I might fix it then, (depending on the degree of laziness) or I might put it back on the track and forget it was broken.[:I]
I have a Conrail coal hopper that’s been derailing consistantly on some #4 turnouts, I don’t know how to fix it, so I just say to myself: “someday…”[:D]
I take the laptop into the shop and enter each piece of rolling stock into an Excel spreadsheet. I have columns for roadname, reporting marks, date I built it, cost new, and repairs needed or completed. Unfortunately the laptop is an antique still running Win 98, which is hostile to wireless cards. So good old floppy discs transfer the data from the veteran laptop to a somewhat newer and larger Compaq desktop. I also mark the end of the box with reporting marks and date built.