The JSSX This Week 9/29

I posted previously about GMTX leaser locomotive 2001, which had suddenly suffered an apparent electrical failure. After extensive troubleshooting by the JSSX shop staff (me), it seems that the original Atlas Dual-mode decoder had given up the ghost, although I couldn't see any sign of anything on the decoder being burnt or scorched or anything like that at all.

So, shop staff removed the decoder and replaced it with the circuit board that Atlas now offers as a replacement.  This problem has happened to me once before, so that time I had a little foresight and ordered two of the replacement boards. The thing is though, that it's a circuit board only and requires an after-market decoder be installed as well.  I have had one basic 4-function Digitrax decoder in the cupboard as a spare, so I simply used that. Once I got around to actually working on this problem, it took only about half an hour to finish.

Pictured below is the replacement circuit board from Atlas after I had installed it into the locomotive.  At bottom left is the original dual-mode decoder and jumper plug, and beside it the 4 function plug-in Digitrax DH166 decoder, with the wiring harness.  Once I had it plugged in to the receptacle and programmed, my leaser engine ran perfectly, so I'll be happy to see it rotate back into service on the JSSX shortly.

Also this week, I began putting together a Walthers Modern Cold Storage building on behalf of Brian.  A pretty nice kit, everything has fit together really well. The worst part of it being trying to understand what the instructions are trying to get me to do.

There are lots of extra parts to this kit, so that's pretty nice too.  I started out by assembling a bunch of the detail parts.  Below are 2 cooling towers and piping, 4 rooftop air conditioning units (3 are extra), 2 transformers(one is extra), front stairs, 4 heat exchangers, 4 roof vents, 2 side stairs, and 4 rail door seals (2 are extra).

The photo of the finished model on the kit box shows only 6 truck bays, but with 2 extras included in the box, plus other extra wall panels, I decided to expand Brians' Cold Storage to be bigger than expected.  The only problem with doing so is that the 2 roof panels provided would not be enough.  I cut a piece of .040 styrene to make up the difference and sprayed all 3 with Rustoleum grey.

This is the building as it it sits at the moment on my workbench.  For the time being, the rooftop assemblies are just set loosely on top.  The rail doors are at the back of the building.  I'll show them next time.

And finally, for this week, I saw this cylindrical covered hopper with an interesting weathering pattern sitting in C-Yard just across from the station platform on Wednesday.  Is that a tack board on the side of the car, between the 2 middle discharge bays?