I retired 1 January 2001 with two degrees in engineering. I have been a model railroader in N scale for twenty years, branching off into HO the last two years prior to retirement.

Two years ago a friend built a Climax for my switching layout decaled with my road name "Turtle Creek" and the road number 1. I liked the funny looking loco, but it sure was hard on the ears plus being a poor runner - it took almost full throttle just to get it to move. When it did move it was jerky. I have long been a firm believer in fine tuning my N Scale engines, even my KATO's.

The next step was to strip it down and see if I could improve performance, and hopefully quiet it down. When finished I was amazed at the vast improvement in noise level and performance. The time spent in tuning the chassis paid off in a smooth running unit plus the noise level was brought down to an acceptable, muted level. Crawl Speed was less than 0.2 Scale MPH, current draw at Crawl Speed dropped from 380 to less than 50 milliamps.

Several weeks later some friends came over to do a switching operating session. When Wayne was assigned the Climax he appeared dubious. By the end of the session we discussed what I'd done to make it run so smooth, as well as so much quieter. I ended up doing his - he demonstrated it to some of his friends, they wanted theirs done too - word of mouth, that's how my little cottage industry started. During the last three years I have done over a hundred and fifty chassis, learning something new with each one.