“Now, I won’t hear of it!” roars the CEO. He’s generally an easy going fellow, but this topic has him ready for a fight.

“I’m just saying…” Bill Dimcheap, the Chief Architect starts.

“Oh, I know what you’re saying,” the CEO cuts him off. “And I don’t like it! Not a word of it, sir, not a word!”

“Here, noo,” the Chief Engineer of the Paris to Peking Railway enters the American Suite in the Hotel d’Americain in Paris. “What is all this yellin’ aboot?”

“It’s juicy,” the PR guy says.

“It’s noisy,” the CFO mutters into his scotch.

“Who hired this poltroon?” roars the CEO. “Who in heaven’s name put HIM on the team?”

“Uh, you did, chief,” the CEO guys says, sheepishly.

“I’m just saying…” the Chief Architect starts again.

“I KNOW what you’re SAYING,” the CEO seethes with anger. “I just don’t want to HEAR it!”

“Let the man talk,” the Chief Engineer sits down with his first stout of the evening. “Go ahead, laddie, I’ll hear you out.”

“I’m suggesting we convert the railway to HO scale,” the Chief Architect says quickly.

Stout sprays across the table.

“WHAT?!?” roars the Chief Engineer. “Have ye gone DAFT?”

“My sentiments exactly,” nods the scarlet-faced CEO.

“There’s a good angle here, chief,” the PR Guy says. Bill Dimcheap nods briskly. “Any Joe can have a garden railway in G scale…but how many HO scale outdoor railways have you heard of?”

Bill jumps to his feet.

“Consider this,” he says, pointing at the Chief Engineer. “You get 4.83 times as much track in the same space…that means a parallel main line, and turnouts, and long trains, and everything is standard gauge…”

“Unless you build a narrow gauge subline,” adds the PR Guy.

“Are ye crazy? We dunna have the rolling stock for HO!”

“The rolling stock is cheap!” roars the Chief Architect. “You can pick up half a dozen HO flatcars for the price of a single G gauge car.”

“I like the sound of that,” nods the surly CFO.

“Aye,” smirks the Chief Engineer, “and ye can have me mother’s bloomers for the price of half a can of stout…that don’t prove nothin’. What’ll ye do for motive power, seeing as how there ain’t no way I’m going to be approving of electrifying that much rail in an outdoor settin’? What’ll ye do,” he chuckles, “convert it to batteries? In wee little HO?”

“Why not?” suddenly Bill Dimcheap isn’t bold and strident anymore. He’s calm, and rational. He’s speaking softly. “Why not? We’re limited to this single battery-powered locomotive in G scale unless we make some conversions – why not do ‘em in HO? The per-unit cost of an HO locomotive is nothing compared to a G scale, you can get an accurate profile locomotive for just a few bucks, the cars are cheaper, and, for the price of the rail needed to repair the Parisian line in G scale, you could re-track the entire railway. And don’t get me started on off-the-shelf building components!”

The room is silent for a very long moment.

“But,” the CEO says, tentatively, “nobody’s done it in HO…”

“Why not be among the first?” asks the PR Guy. “That’s good press right there. I can hardly wait to get started on a new press kit!”

“Could be a good source of revenue,” the CFO says. “We need that. A lot of that. Any of that.”

The room is silent again. Many minutes pass as each board member considers the obstacles and challenges.

The CEO rises, slowly.

“Gentlemen, we shall have to consider this thing. At first I was dead set against it. Now…” he looks around the room. “Meeting adjourned…but let us think on this thing, shall we?”

There’s a reason why people do what they do. Musicians are generally gifted or talented in music, painters in painting, dancers in dancing, and architects in, well, architecting.

They say it never rains in California, but, man it pours. We’ve seen a long series of storms, each slamming in on a weekend…and I’m talking rain, here, buckets and gallons and other large volumes. We’re in the middle of a whopper El Nino, a drought-ending series of powerful winter downpours.

But the rain falls on the weekends. And I don’t get home from my job at the Evil Empire until after the sun, she sets. These two facts together mean that the railroad projects have moved indoors.

Last year I discovered Google SketchUp and used it to create a pretty nifty track plan. This time, due to darkness and dampness, I decided it’s time to lay out a plan for Paris.

Now, my plan is not done yet, but, seriously, I’ve got about eight hours into this design. There are roads lined out, and I have a general idea of where the buildings will be.

But the problem is with SketchUp. Oh, the program runs great, and it’s easy and fun and all that. The problem is that it’s easy and fun and all that! The program allows you to add all sorts of detail, and that’s the danger! Look at that big building with all those angled roof panels: I spent a good two hours on those windows! You can actually make each pane of glass in the windows transparent…but you have to click on each individual pane on each window to make it so…that’s a lot of clicking!

As you can see, the large three-storied building across the street has yet to be detailed. It is, in fact, in the wrong place as there appears to be no sidewalk. That means the building’s depth will go down, which means I’ll probably just delete it and start over.

Now, about those columns: they sure are ghastly! Perhaps a building-front skin will hide some of the river rocks from which they are made.

The station itself will stretch between the two columns. It will be backed against the fence, with the platform stretching out to the rails.

But, finishing the plan for the station, while critical to the overall success of the railway, requires more hours on the SketchUp. More hours!

In making the plan, it’s easy to get lost in creating a virtual layout…my brother and I said almost the same thing at the same time: who needs to build it if you can lay it out on a computer?

Because Garden Railroading is Real Railroading, that’s why, or, uh, who. We’re modelers, aren’t we? We build, don’t we? Do we plan? Heck no! I mean, yes, but not for the sake of planning, but for the sake of building! That’s why dancers dance and painters paint – because we’re builders! BUILDERS UNITE!

That being said, I’m going back to SketchUp and finish my plan. Because I’m a builder! And we’ll always have Paris, sweetheart.

Now, I’m a simple guy. I like easy stuff. Like those oak-colored vinyl-laminated particle board desks that you buy at the office superstore. You take it home, lug it into the office, take out your Phillips screwdriver, and, boom, you got yourself a nifty looking desk that you built yourself! Yes, you popped the laminate up on the corner, but what do you want, perfection? And the darned thing looks so nice you just want to go back to the superstore and buy another one, because, hey, you can build those things!

Alas, the Garden Railway doesn’t offer many of those moments. I’m always thrilled when my locomotive goes thirty feet and doesn’t pop off the track, or when it makes it all the way around a curve. As I say, I’m a simple guy.

Bending rail, however, is one of the most satisfying things you can do on your railway. Sounds dumb, I know, but there is something about working the brass through the vise…Oh, I haven’t explained that yet, have I?

Last year some time, unless it was the year before that, or the year before that, I realized that the problem with the Parisian loop was that the rails had gone out of gauge. In my infinite wisdom, I tore up the tracks, planning to replace them. The rails did not come up easily, because, as I found out much, much later, in addition to the ties being sunk in the gravelly (amazing how one “L” changes Gravely to Gravelly, isn’t it?) slurry, there was a rather robust screw stuck deep into the concrete roadbed holding down every tenth tie. I’m a simple guy, but one with no patience. Oh, the rails came up, all right.

So, here we are, two years later, woefully short of nice brass rail, and the only rails I have are those that look rather like they came off of a roller coaster. Enter the Vice.

The Vice is a nice device, particularly suited to straightening brass rails. My rails were bent in two dimensions. Here’s how I fixed ‘em:

Zeroing Curves – I opened the jaws of the vice just wide enough for the head of the rail to slip between them, but not so wide as to allow the foot to pass through. Gently, gently, I closed the vice until the rail straightened for the length that was between jaws. Then I loosened the jaws, slid the rail just a half an inch or so along its length, and closed the vice again. The result was a nice, straight piece of rail.

Zeroing Humps – To get the rails to lie horizontally straight and not look like roller coaster track, I put the rail in the vice jaws so that the head rested against one jaw whilst the foot rested against the other, and closed the vice gently but firmly, so that the rail straightened right out. It worked pretty well.

For all that vicin’ and straightenin’, I wasn’t able to remove the scar made when I inadvertently smacked the soft brass with my four-pound engineer’s hammer (hey, it is a railroad, after all!)…but I think it’ll be okay.

Workin’ the rails in this manner makes you feel rather like the village smithy, standing ‘neath the old oak, pounding the metal to make it straight and true. Well, I’m sure it makes you feel that way.

Me? I’m a simple guy, and it was really just pretty fun!

Fire in the Hole!

“What’s this?” bellows the Chief Engineer. “Picture day?  What kind of ballyhoo is this?”

“Well,” the PR Guy clears his throat timidly. “I just thought that we’ve had so many good pictures of the garden railway, that, well…”

“He means to advertise the progress on the Paris to Peking Railway by using pictures instead of the usual charming text,” smiles the CEO as he pats the PR Guy on the shoulder.

“You mean the usual snide drivel,” mutters the Chief Engineer. He’s on his fourth stout.

Abandoned Custom-Built Excursion Car

“It’s good to celebrate all the things we’ve seen and done so far,” the CEO counters.

“And it’s cheaper than paying writers,” chuckles the surly CFO.

Bachmann Not-So-Big Hauler

“That’s all a boonch of poppycock do ye ask me!” the Chief Engineer roars. “Why do ye nay tell us aboot the bridge prod-yect?”

“Uh, well, yes, about that,” the portly Bill Dimcheep stands up nervously. “We’ve uhm, well, run into a bit of a cost overrun…”

Checking the Trestle

“What?!?” sputters the CFO, brandy spraying across the table. “What? A cost overrun? Impossible!”

“Well, you know,” Bill says, sheepishly, “the international price of Styrofoam has, uhm, well, skyrocketed…”

“BALDERDASH!” roars the CFO.

The New Bright in China

“What he means to say,” the CEO says, gently, “is that we ran out of the ‘foam, and haven’t yet purchase any more.”

“I should say we won’t!” the CFO has turned red in the face. “Not until we’ve paid off the Isuzu and figured out where the next paycheck is coming from!”

“Well,” the PR Guy clears his throat, “I believe that’s why we’re seeing a, uh, picture day…”

Hey! You Forgot Something!

Ukraine Station by Night

“Well, it just seems like silly self-promotion to me,” the Chief Engineer mutters.

“Preee-Cisely,” grins the CEO. “If we don’t promote ourselves, who will?”

The Mighty New Bright 2-6-0

“It’s quite clear that ye’ve all gone daft,” the Chief Engineer downs his last stout, wipes his mouth, and leaves the board room muttering, “and I’ll have nothing more to do wit’ ye tonight!”

A moment passes, and then he sticks his head back into the room.

“Nice pic-yures, though!”

Trainwreck!

Thanks for walking down the railway with us! I hope you’ll keep reading as more wacky adventures unfold on the Paris to Peking Railway, the railroad that runs from P to shining P!

What you don’t remember is that we suffered a pretty severe rail alignment issue in the China Section of the Paris to Peking Railway. Yes, someone…we’re not saying who, but his initials are Bill Turner…seems to have stepped on unsupported rails right in the very ding-dang center of a turn. And, as the same unnamed fellow kind of broke out the nice concrete roadbed underneath the rails in the very same spot, well, the rails kind of went “sproing” and are no longer in gauge.

Thanks to my careful rail management, now there are TWO problems in China…well, three if you count the crummy landscaping…actually, four if you count the dog poo lying on the hill next to the crummy landscaping…actually, five if you count…oh my God, I’m going crazy! One of the TWO problems is that the rails have been bent thanks to my size 9’s, and the other is that the concrete roadbed has broken and is now sinking. Yes, sinking…but only half of it, so there’s a bit of a ski jump to the China Section. Oy.

My genius brother came over today, and together we pulled out the dinged rails and reworked ‘em. At first we thought we might carefully remove the mondo dip that I put…ahem, I mean that mysteriously appeared…in the rail by a process of gentle bending. But we realized that in fact there was a pretty serious pinch in the rail, caused perhaps by someone missing with the sledge hammer when breaking through the concrete roadbed underneath. We’re not naming names here, but we ARE pointing fingers.

That didn’t work, but my genius brother’s not-so-bright sibling was able to conjure up some old rail that we could straighten and use to replace the dinged section.

We reassembled the twisted rail section using ties from the discarded track…it was straight track, but by cutting the little web sections between the ties on one side…I believe they’re called spiders, those little web sectiony things…you can twist it around a curve.

Wouldn’t you know? I have enough track to complete the Parisian Section. It’s a little twisted, but only twisted in the relation of one rail to the other…the rails themselves are not twisted. A little bending there, a little snippity-snip here of the spiders between the ties…Step into my Parlor said the Spider to the Ties…and, voila, you got yourself some snappy track.

So, that takes care of problem number one. Next I’ll see about building a leveling layer to sit on top of the sinking concrete to eliminate the ski jump. Plaster? Mortar? Thanks going to take some thinking!

“Just toss up a Styrofoam facade,” Bill Dimcheep, the Paris to Peking Railway’s new chief architect says. “It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s cheap, and, hey, it’ll probably keep standing!”

While the board’s thunderous applaud echoes around the room, the PR Guy takes furious notes, looking for a way to package quick, easy and cheap so that it sounds like durable and economical to the stockholders.

Building a quick and easy facade seemed almost embarrassing in its simplicity. As the problem with the existing Kazakhstan bridge is only one of appearance, why go through the hassle and expense of replacing it? Why not just apply a simple Styrofoam sheet facade? We’ve got some nice ‘foam here, even though it is of the popcorn variety, not the good blue stuff. We’ve got some glue, some scrap wood, and some good ol’ American know-how. What the hey? Why not?

I had to work at the offices of the Evil Empire on Saturday, so my bridge building day was Sunday. Sunday was also the drain clearing day, the clean the garage day, and the fix the rabbit shed so that it doesn’t leak so badly on the few rainy days of the year day. I’m not complaining, mind you, although I do miss that Saturday. This coming Saturday is open, and I’m expecting to do great things…lord knows I didn’t do ‘em on Sunday.

Anyway, it was windy on Sunday. Not breezy, but out and out tear-the-siding-off-grandma’s-house windy. There was so much wind, in fact, that my ‘foam facade rather folded in half when I was dry-fitting it. Years ago my nephew and I took a Sevylor inflatable raft out to the Ventura breakwater. It was a really choppy day, and the sea was pounding over the breakwater, causing yours truly a great deal of trepidation. My nephew, however, thought it was great, and said “dude, this boat folds like a taco!” So, my ‘foam facade, too, folded like a taco!

I have a nice supply of 1x.5×9 inch slats from an old shelving unit in my wood collection. My wife calls it the woodpile, but that’s because she doesn’t use the wood. If she did, she would appreciate its utility. I believe she has a yarnpile. My daughter was playing with the LGB passenger cars on the railway, and I was staring at my folded over facade. She suggested I put some wood behind the ‘foam, and, voila, an idea was born! Why not reinforce the ‘foam!

Because it’s a buttload of work, that’s why! The slats fit perfectly behind the ‘foam structure. They’re glued to the ‘foam, and then screwed to one another. I used my staple gun to attach the ‘foam to the wood from the front, very carefully shooting staples in the grout lines between the bricks so that they wouldn’t show. I got about 14 staples in before I realized that I was shooting ¼ inch staples through ½ inch ‘foam! What we have here is a failure to penetrate!

But I found some crappy old galvanized steel staples that you drive in with a hammer…those guys’ll go through anything!

My little girl helped me with screwing the wood together, explaining that she was a good screwer…it took all my control to leave that one alone.

So, the sun set on Sunday, hours of labor went into the building the framing behind the facade, scribing the facade, hammering in those crummy staples to keep it together, and dang if I don’t have enough ‘foam to complete the inside of the arches! All that work and ran out of materials!

The clutch blew out on the Isuzu today, and will cost most of my house payment to repair. The budget and finance committee is going to have a hard time justifying any railroad purchase, due to the overwhelming financial burden caused by this automotive failure. Dang.

So, quick it aint, easy it aint, and now it aint going to be cheap! Darn you, Bill Dimcheep!

“Now, let’s have your name again, please?” the CEO leans forward across the boardroom table, almost spilling his brandy.

“Bill,” the applicant for the Chief Architect job says, crunching his cigar. “Bill Dimcheep.”

“Well,” the CEO slaps the table, “I like the sound of that!”

“My motto is ‘Why waste money on quality?’” Bill pulls the cigar out of his mouth and smiles broadly at the assembled boardmembers. He’s not a tall man, and quite round. His natty green pinstripe suite makes him look rather like a melon with a grape on top. A bald grape at that.

“Yes,” the gruff CFO looks closely at Bill’s business card, “I see your trade phrase here is ‘Buildings for Tomorrow, and Probably the Day After’. Hmph. I’m not so sure…”

“Poppycock!” The CEO stands up. “I like this fellow! You, sir, are HIRED! Gentlemen, may I present our new Chief Architect, Bill Dimcheep!”

My brother looked at my plan for the Kazakhstan Bridge in the last post and came up with a brilliant suggestion; instead of cutting squares of Styrofoam and stacking them up to build the bridge, why not just cut a whoppin’ big Styrofoam facade? It would take far less ‘foam, and only we initiated folks would know! I’ve attributed the idea to Bill Dimcheep.

“Plus, since it’s just a facade,” Bill pops the cigar out of his little mouth and waves it around for effect, “you only gotta build one side! Nobody’s going to look on the back side of a bridge!”

“B..b.but that bridge is nay safe!” stammers the Chief Engineer.

“Poppycock again, I say” the CEO blasts. “It’s perfectly safe…it just looks ugly, and this will fix that. This will put it into scale!”

“Oh,” pops the PR Guy, “I like that. New Construction Method Scales Down Bridge Problem! I’ll get on that right away.”

Well, I happen to have just enough of the Popcorn Flavor White Styrofoam to build the facade. I have almost exactly enough, although, because of the shape of the ‘foam, I’ll have two pieces and a big seam…I’ll fix it with a drain pipe or something.

Now, this white ‘foam is a little tricky to cut; don’t treat it like styrene or you’ll have a popcorn snowfall. Instead, jam that old knife right on through both sides and cut it like a man…make sure your blade is sharp and GO TO!

I used the end of an “L” bracket from some other project to emboss the shape of the stones into the face of the ‘foam. The stone blocks are two inches wide by one inch tall, and, my God, it took forever to get ‘em in there, but, once done, look pretty snappy!

Pictured is about 60% of the entire facade…the remaining piece of ‘foam has yet to be treated.

Puzzle Part Two: how to attach said facade to said existing bridge structure.

Oddly, Bill Dimcheep hasn’t said much about that!

But let’s roll the clock back to good old 1910. Although not so good for Kazakhstanis, it was part of the Russian Empire. Huge, rural, with massive natural resources, and a great big part of the ride to Peking from Paris.

You’re Hinton Bartholomew, Chief Architect on the P-to-P line, and you’ve got to span the Darya River, and your bridge has to stand up under little to no maintenance. Although the forests are rich with timber, wooden bridges take a lot of work to keep standing. What’s your building material? Stone, of course, right out of the local mountains! It might take some labor to build it, but once it’s done it’s a maintenance-free structure that’s going to stand for a hundred years.

Okay, so much for the real-world fantasy. We know Garden Railroading is Real Railroading, so it’s nice to have a back-story for our decisions. But, let’s get to work, shall we?

The current issue of Garden Railroading Magazine has a very cool article on using sheet Styrofoam to build convincing stone bridges. Of course one could use real stones, but what’s the fun in that? Plus you have to stick the stones together, and that involves mortar and real work. No, sir, let’s just consider this Styrofoam thingy.

Now, the Kazakhstan bridge as it stands today is an eyesore. Oh, sure, it’s wooden, and it’s quaint, and all that stuff. But it spans a positively HUGE gap with no middle support. In fact, the darn thing bows down in the center ever so slightly…just like real!

I’ve been fighting a battle with asparagus fern…you pay big bucks for this plant at your local greenery store…but I hate it. It grows in long, thorny tendrils precisely where I don’t want it to grow. And the tendrils are woody and hard to get rid of and in fact it grows in big nasty root balls that are a gazillion feet from where you’d think it would be and you end up tearing up your railway to get to the root ball that turns out to be just one of a bazillion of the darn things…reminds me of a joke: George Bush is approached by one of his advisors who tells him that five Brazilian soldiers were killed. “My God,” he replies, “how many is a Brazilian?” But I digress. The A-fern likes to grow through the ties on the current bridge, and I hate it. It won’t grow in Styrofoam, which is the best reason I can think of to build the bridge this way!

Now, there’s a cool program called Gimp 2 that you can just plain get for free that is among the best image manipulators I’ve seen out there. Did I mention you can get it for free? Well, I used Gimp to manipulator my picture of that ghastly bridge, turning it into a work of art, if I do say so myself:

Instead of cutting bridge sides and a deck out of one big old piece of ‘foam, this author’s idea was to cut the ‘foam into the individual layers of stone that make up the bridge. It’s a really good idea, because, at the end of the day, the weight of the rails and the passing train actually rests on the flat side of the ‘foam, not the edge…much more reliable and sturdy.

Although his was made of blue foam, the good stuff, I have the white “popcorn” version on hand. I’ll show you a picture of the progress as it, well, as it progresses!

As you recall, I’ve been working on planning the Paris Portion of the Paris-to-Peking Railway. I don’t think we’re really going to end up in Peking…the China Loop on the railway is so rural, and makes such a nice contrast to the hustle and bustle of the Paris to Be.

But this is Paris of 1910…not quite the Paris to Be but the Paris What Was. Photographs of Paris are easy to find, but most of ‘em are tres moderne, not pre-WW I Paris. Out of the blue, however, an inspiration swoops in and says “dude, I’m, like, here!”

I had a bad Friday. Wasn’t feeling well. My wife was cranky with me. I forgot our anniversary. I picked up a couple of CDs I thought she’d like, just as sort of a little “oopsie” kind of a thing. I was quickly and swiftly notified that this was unsuitable as an anniversary present. I really didn’t mean that it was supposed to be a bonified anniversary present…but, move over, Rover,there’s plenty of room in the dog house. It was a bad Friday.

Saturday the missus spent the day at her mother’s house, cleaning and cleaning and other stuff. I spent the day at our house, working on the Bachmann Not So Big Hauler and building these pretty cool shelves for the living room and hanging out with my eight year old daughter. We watched The Penguins of Madagascar and Spongebob on Nickelodeon in between our various tasks. Now it was evening, and mumsikins still hadn’t returned, which meant dinner was on dad. Not having two nickels to rub together, I cranked out a batch of macaroni and cheese with a can of tuna in it…see, The Idiot, the little black Prince Edward mix puppy, swallowed something he shouldn’t have, and it cut his throat on the inside, so he spent the whole day making a honking noise like a goose trying to barf up something that wasn’t there because he’d really just irritated his throat. I figured I’d give him the tuna juice out of the can and dose it up with olive oil to make his throat feel better. And if it made him shut up, why, I would feel better too!

So we sat down with our mac/cheese/tuna combo, which, if you haven’t tried it and are not faint of heart, isn’t bad, and put on a movie; let’s watch something old, she says, you know, on video.

As you know, I’ve been trying to get a handle on designing the Paris of 1910.

For our movie my daughter picks out Disney’s The Aristocats. Now, just take a wild guess as to where and when the film takes place…go ahead, I’ll wait. I could not believe it!

Of course you realize that the US Government sent Walt Disney and his artists on a goodwill tour of South America in the 1940’s…it was all rather hush-hush, as we were in fact trying to buy goodwill with glitz and Mickey Mouse (el raton Mickey). Disney’s cover story was that he was doing research for a new movie, which would eventually be Three Caballeros. It was pretty intensive research, involving a lot of parties and drinking.

I realize this is all a long diatribe, but there is a point; Disney did his research, because he was big on accuracy. Because he did his research, he’s done mine, too, because I’m big on lazy! Now I have a really nice reference as to what Paris of 1910 looked like! Of course it’s not a business district in the movie, but the architecture will be similar, and there’s an unmistakable feel in the film that will be great to capture on the PtoP.

You know our motto is Garden Railroading is Real Railroading. I’m not sure how a Disney movie about singing cats fits into that…I’ll let you figure that one out!

“Here, now, I tole ye I’d find it,” the Chief Engineer says proudly.

“No one said you wouldn’t,” the CEO sniffs.

“Well, I did,” the CFO says quietly.

“After all,” the PR Guy says, “it did take you an awfully long time.”

“Ye dunna ken to how difficult these things are, lad,” the Chief Engineer is uncharacteristically nice this evening. He’s only on his second stout.

I figured the short would be in the electronics in the nose of the Bachmann Not-So-Big Hauler, as when my brother and I installed the radio from the Ferrari we didn’t have a working soldering iron or any electrical tape. So we used the old twisty-wire, masking tape combo and hoped for the best. You’re not talking high voltage coming out of half a dozen D cells, so masking tape is kinda okay.

So, the plan for the day was to try out the new Weller Soldering Gun on the Bachmann and FIX THAT SHORT! Ah, the best laid plans, eh?

Now, I remember that saying as: the best laid plans are aft gang aglay…and I think we can attribute it to Robert Burns…no, not George Burns. Say goodnight, Gracie. I think that’s the quote…looking it up now because I’m curious. No, it wasn’t George, it was Robert, written in 1785, and here’s the quote: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men/Gang aft agley”. It’s from a poem he wrote called To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With the Plough. Now you know something you didn’t now before, unless you already knew that, in which case I’ll go on with the story about the Bachmann.

The nose of the NSBH is just too cramped to allow soldered joints in the wires…everything has to bend in order to fit, and I rather fear the connections will break, as, from what I’ve seen, soldered joints aren’t all that flexible. Enter Wire Nuts. These guys hang on tightly, protect against cross-connection, and just plain look cool. So I replaced all of the twisted wire/masking tape combo joins with Wire Nuts. And it looks cool!

Once I  put the thing back together I discovered, much to my horror, that the short still prevailed. She ran fine until it hit a bump, and trust me, on the Paris-to-Peking Railway you can’t go more than six inches without hitting a bump, and then she’d stop. What in heavens name?

Off came the body shell…now, on the battery-driven Bachmann Big Hauler, the aft end of the boiler has this massive snap-on door that closes the battery compartment…the batteries are stored in the boiler. This is one massive piece of plastic, and Hercules himself has been known to complain about how hard it is to get that door open.

“I have?” Hercules says from Mt. Olympus.

“Shhh, it’s just a figure of speech. It’s those mortals,” Zeus says.

The battery door is firmly attached to the body shell, not the chassis, of the NSBH. With the body shell off, there is no way to test the electricals, as that door provides the cross-connection between the battery sets. Got it? So the way to test your electricals is with a knife, making the cross-connection yourself. I did that, and, wonder of wonders, the thing ran! And I couldn’t stop it from running until I removed the knife.

Picture Edison in his early years, before he invented the electric light bulb. What popped in above his head when he had an idea? A match? A lantern? Maybe a phonograph.

Here’s the source of the short: it aint no short. There are two little screws that hold the body shell onto the chassis. Somebody put tanks on the sides of the body shell in just the right place to occlude those screws…in other words, you can’t screw the body to the chassis. As the boiler door, which provides cross-connection, is attached to the body shell, any bump causes the body to vibrate away from the chassis, and, bzzzt, no connection. There’s your short, Napoleon! Or is it; There, you’re short, Napoleon…sorry, I’m in a weird mood.

So, I screwed the body on with a nasty looking screw in the aft end, where all nasty screws should take place, and, voila, she runs like the dickens! However it is that the dickens runs…don’t have time to look that one up.

“Here, lad,” slurs the Chief Engineer, “ye’re aft gang agley!”