This One Went A Little Sideways: Wood Pellet Train on the MLBK

Today on the Mill Brook Railroad (MLBK), a “simple” wood pellet run turns into a bit more of an adventure than planned. We’ve got a full one ton of wood pellets to haul on our 7-1/4" gauge railroad, and our little 500W locomotive has a damaged traction motor from last winter’s snow plow duty. What could possibly go wrong? Before we even get to the wood pellet train, there’s real switching work to do: spotting a pair of gondolas at the ballast pile for future track work, parking a tank car on the enginehouse lead to clear the line, and then loading the pellet train one bag at a time. The plan is simple: get the pellets up to dry storage so they don’t get wet and ruined. Out on the line, that soft, under-ballasted spot I never had time to fix comes back to bite me. The pellet train derails, I get an unexpected workout unloading and reloading one car. Then, you’ll see the loco jack in action putting everything back on the rails further down the line. Then comes the real test: the last steep pull up to the sugar house. The locomotive is at full throttle and barely moving, the remote starts acting up, the traction motor starts smoking, and eventually it quits altogether. The traction motor is also the only brake on the train, by the way. The cars have no brakes. That makes for a tense moment while I wrestled with a train that desperately wanted to roll back down the hill. If you like honest backyard railroading, real failures, and seeing what happens when a small locomotive takes on a big job, you’ll enjoy this one that went just a little sideways. Support the railroad on Patreon:   / millbrookrailroad   More about the Mill Brook Railroad: https://www.millbrookrailroad.com