American Flyer Trains: Track Test with riveting, edge-of-your-seat live commentary

I recently finished testing of track electrics on my American Flyer S Gauge layout rebuild. Thought I'd do a video on it for posterity!

It features shots of the test as it happened, though I did do some of editing to make it watchable.

The primary locos used (GP7 diesel and Royal Blue streamlined steamer) are both from the early 1950s. I had to service the GP7 (a lot) to get it ready to run, but the Royal Blue was pressed into service directly from its shelf position of the last three years. Aside from a sticky reverse unit, it ran like a champ.

You'll note a clip of the under-table wiring for the layout; the subject of this test run. It looks a bit random from the video but it's actually quite simple. The black and white wires hook up to the inner and outer mainline track loops, two sets per loop, directly from the transformer. The green wires provide a bit more juice to the tracks just beyond the station spur off the inner loop and the spur off the outer loop. And the levers for the track switches connect to the appropriate terminals on the transformers via a barrier strip. As for those multi-coloured wires, they go from the switch levers topside to the track switches themselves. Simple, right?

Anyway, all this was just a pretense to play with trains and was a great deal of fun. Especially since everything worked rather well!

Thanks to the folks at pixabay.com, featuring music by AudioCoffee (Denys Kyshchuk) -- https://www.audiocoffee.net/

And thank you for spending some time with me here in Paul's Train Asylum!