My focus this week has been to tidy up the railway room, and get a little bit more order into things – that has resulted in two black bags of junk going in the dustbin.

But I came across some interesting odds and ends, some of which I’d forgotten that I had.  Including some replacement PC boards. I realised that I’d ordered those for my Atlas Baldwin VO-1000’s, nearly ten years ago.  This was necessary after one locomotive had made a short sharp trip onto the Methodist Church floor at an ESNG show, and the following year I’d managed to blow all the boards in my DCC fitted locomotives (and I still don’t know why that happened.)  I’d also bought a replacement locomotive for the one that went flying, as I do very much like the prototype.

I took them apart, replaced the PC boards, and got them back together again.  An instant success, and they are now nicely running under DC.

Here they are ready for action.  They run a lot better than the little Life-Like SW9 switchers I was using before.  They represent two out of the five owned by the Lehigh Valley.  I may go back and have another look at the broken one that still won’t move in due course, as it looks repairable.

Emboldened by my success, I then looked at my Atlas Central Rail Road of New Jersey Fairbanks-Morse H-15-44.  This line paralleled and rivalled the Lehigh Valley in a number of places, and had some interesting locos like this one.  The model revved up like mad and only moved in one direction.  This seemed to be a mechanical problem, as current was getting to the motor, that was happily spinning in both directions.  Again, I took it apart, and carefully put it back together, making sure that the bogie drive trains were in mesh.  It now runs perfectly.

Finally, this Atlas EL Trainmaster.  One of my first N gauge locomotives – so it must be nearly 20 years old – but it still looks good.  This seemed to have blown its DCC board, but fortunately one find this week was a mysterious Atlas board, and it turned out to be the DC one removed from the Trainmaster.  A quick replacement, and this locomotive, too, is running again.

All in all, a profitable morning’s work.  And it has given me the confidence to take N gauge models apart – and put them back together again.  However, this probably only applies to some brands……