I was planning on working on this layout over the hot summer months, but have been wasting my time promoting my newest book. I did get a 004 semiscale Hudson and an 003T tender set up with a third rail pickup that works.
The five amp bridge rectifiers fail after an hour or so. I bought 10 amp ones and they have been ok so far. These go in the locos to replace the old stacked leech rectifiers that don't work anymore.
The lionel trucks and couplers are difficult to use because when you pick you the car to connect couplers, the truck swivels. I met a man who will make me 3d printed ramps to put cars on the track, and have spent a few hours figuring out the couplers. Kadee HO couplers with whiskers mount right onto the cars, but need shim washers to get the right height. The shims can go on the coupler or on the trucks. I'm still figuring that out.
The layout is not going anywhere, and I'll be back to it one of these days. I do go down and run the Standard and O gauge layouts. I ran the 392E onto the floor because I left something on the track. Three months later the frame broke?
Terry
The new book is an examination of how we got to today's political climate. It contains a lot of information from Soviet defectors about cold war disinformation campaigns and how they inform today's discussions.
It's on amazon at:
https://amzn.to/3WCvHDj