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The Randall Museum in San Francisco hosts a large HO-scale model model railroad. Created by the Golden Gate Model Railroad Club starting in 1961, the layout was donated to the Museum in 2015. Since then I have started automatizing trains running on the layout. I am also the model railroad maintainer. This blog describes various updates on the Randall project and I maintain a separate blog for all my electronics not directly related to Randall.

2018-03-30 - Doodlebug

Category Randall

Here’s an interesting experiment for the Branchline automation: using a Doodlebug.

This one comes courtesy of Martin Perry, who bought the Doodlebug and coach back in the 2000s. In 2005, he relettered both cars and donated them to the GGMRC for the Branchline operation, so it would be quite fitting to have it run today on the branchline automation. The engine is part of Bachmann’s Spectrum line and ten years later still works like a charm.

Since I have no record of when maintenance was done on it, I should probably open it and lubricate it before using it for daily automation. Right now it’s on “probation” to make sure it works and does not derail on the branchline dual-gauge turnouts… these have been doing fine so far but I’ve had some not-so-great experience running a previous 2-6-0 engine right there a couple years ago.


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