Train shed cleanup and work on bad orders

A key accomplishment for me over the Memorial Day weekend was cleaning up my train shed so I can actually use my workbench, which has been in use primarily as one big storage shelf. It was mostly a task of cleaning and organizing, and in the process I even found a couple things I had forgotten about. I added some more shelves on two walls to keep tools and parts up off the workbench. Once I had usable space I got to work on various small projects that had been on my list for a while.

Organizing in progress, with new shelves to hold parts and tools.

I had a few extra laminate floor tiles so I put them in the center of the workbench to create a smooth working surface which will be easy to cleanup. First two tasks were some minor repair work on my fire watch tower, and repairing a truck on my UP caboose which had snapped off when it was damaged in a collision.

Organizing parts so they're easier to find in the future.

Next on the project list was swapping out couplers. I've adopted Kadee 909 couplers as the standard for my rolling stock as they're so easy to use and perform great. This BN hopper has original Aristocraft couplers which are fine if hooked to each other but they don't play well with other couplers.

With old coupler removed, I just needed to drill a small new hole and then assemble the new coupler. It's been a while since I did this so I took a few minutes to remember how to hold everything together without the springs popping out and flying across the room. That only happened three times on the first one.

Assembly is complete.

Testing height alignment of the truck on test track before reattaching to car.

Another car getting a coupler upgrade today.

As I completed work on each car I added it on to the end of my train.

These are the two box girder bridges I built from styrene years ago. A few ribs have broken off so I reattached them with plastic cement.

My final project was creating a second permanent battery car. This shows my first battery car which is a USA Trains BN boxcar. I used this as it has doors wide enough to allow me to get a Makita battery in and out, but as it is 1:24 scale, it looks out of place when I'm running 1:29 scale trains.

I selected a Burlington boxcar from Aristocraft to be my 1:29 scale battery car. The doors are not big enough to allow battery access, so I detached the roof to allow access. Just like I did for the first battery car, I built a cradle for the battery using styrene L-shaped channels to keep the battery centered in the car during train movement.

From the outside of the car, the only visible modification is a small hole for wires.