On September 13th I made my public debut of my the Central Vermont Brick Railway equipment and structures. Quite a modest showing of it all things considered. One freight train of an N-5-a, three boxcars: one 40000 series, one 42000 series, and a GTW 515000 series, and a CV 4000 series caboose. This was in addition to a model of the White River Junction Station and a handful of fall trees.
The club put on a great layout, the event was a ton of fun, and I had a good time. I also learned a great deal of things about my designs and running things at a show.
N-5-a was a bit of a disappointment. Some aspects of the appearance were a last minute rush job, including the oversized CV logo on the tender. Then, it started the day out by not operating at all. Once it was running, it shed parts all over the layout. When it finally shook off its excess brick, it could only do about 5 or 6 laps before sucking the AAA batteries dry. The L-motor at 1:1 really struggled in the turns and the speed wasn’t all that impressive.
The big takeaway was that I need to really put my drive system designs through their paces prior to even building the model. I think motorizing the tender is going to be the way to go for any steam designs. So I'm going to be working on 1 and 2 motor designs with the XL and train motors. I'm pretty sure the L motor won't suit my needs.
On a more positive note. The caboose received a lot of positive comments, especially from folks in the CVRHS, which I joined that weekend.
