ok here are some photos of a car one of my boys brought to me. it is cast resin with no makers name on it, it is a heavy well detailed car inside and out weighing in at 8 oz with any added weight the trucks are central valley that's the only thing I found on it was CV on trucks. any ideas as to maker?
Jim

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I recently acquired some trains that were in my friends collection when he died and I have discovered that it is more fun when you diversify your modeling. 
I worked on a railroad and I loved it, but it was work however and there were rules, Model railroading is more enjoyable when it is done for fun, 
I see no problem running a Thomas train or any other item that pleases me and I can change time frames at will, 
Here is a picture of a 3 truck Shay crossing Morris Trestle.     
Charlie

After the realization of the ON30 LUCKY LUKE layout and OSIRIS layout, I was frustrated to not have done an on30 mexican style layout. I was amazed by the beautiful village of San Lorenzo done by Verne NINER that  I discovered in 2014. I'm also very impressed by the 0n30 mexican style of PUERTO BORRACHO and few others. I want to have mine also in a derelict style, mexican with adobe style building, mexican revolutionary period. Because it's an harbour, I will  have a steamer ferry.

Because I made it for exhibition, I will use the same design in term of size as LUCKY LUKE.

Diapositive1 by franck combe, sur Flickr

plan blue print by franck combe, sur Flickr

I made the design of the building

This is the fort and the bank

IMG_0134 by franck combe, sur Flickr

This is the tequila factory and the church

IMG_0135 by franck combe, sur Flickr

This is the station

IMG_0136 by franck combe, sur Flickr

Just as a reminder, today is December 7th, the day that we lost almost 2,500 men at Pearl Harbor. I remember that day 81 years ago, but was still too young to know the significance of what was happening. The next four years were also hard to forget, but remember what it took to keep the enemies from reaching the mainland.

There were these hard to forget final words in the movie, Tora, Tora, Tora, "I can't imagine anything that would infuriate the Americans more. I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." I wonder if we would have that same resolve today.

Please, take a minute today to say a prayer for and thank all those that fought on both fronts...

Taking a break from the Machine shop build to tackle this:
   

A really neat little kit of a Christmas tree dealer. It's available from Interaction Hobbies as a special Christmas give-away if you order 30$ or more. I had my eye on a couple kits from their web site and this caused me to pull the trigger.


   

The kit includes the caboose tree farm shack, three cut-out Christmas trees and signage. I need to get started on it as I promised my wife the finished model by Christmas.

WPMA-40 picking up cars at Pier 32.

Bruce

   

Going to start a new project 
   

I like the large windows and the overall shape of the structure. The main structure has a footprint of 6.2" X 4.8" without the two annexes.  There are the two add-on structures, one wood storage shed, and one brick boiler room.  The kit comes with a number of exterior details, and a second floor, but no interior. I plan to fix that:
   

I've collected a number detail parts/kits from Interaction. I have their machine shop tools for the lower floor and Office furniture and equipment for the second floor. I also plan to build a boiler for the boiler room and add stairs to the interior. I may still scratchbuild a few other parts and add a few others, but the basics are there. 

   

This is what is included in the kit, laser cut walls, floors and roofs. The main windows are plastic castings and there are other 3d printed details.
I should be getting started on this in the next couple days.

Taking on some fuel     
Charlie

Hello Blue


My writing abilities are at the bottom of the scale but I wanted to tell you about my recent visit with Wayne and Ed.(CNnutbar).


I left home at 4:30 AM on Tuesday hoping to make it by noon, and I did arrive at the hotel in Grimsby at 11:30


I took my grip to the room and headed for Doctor Wayne's. We spent several hours visiting over a cup of coffee, and a trip to the train layout provided more time to tell lies and I got time to admire the extensive second layer addition Wayne has done in the last 8 years.
                   




Wayne followed me to the hotel and we went to supper and I called for an early quit to rest for the next day.
The accommodations at the hotel were quite nice and I did enjoy the time relaxing and I caught up on some needed rest.


The following morning we went to CNnutbar's and he became the chauffeur for the day. We made a brief stop at the Kinnear yard and saw a trio of locomotives there. 
       


The next stop was at the parking lot for the Royal Botanical Garden for some train watching from the pedestrian walkway over the tracks. We didn't linger there but we did manage several photos of a GO (Government Ontario) train

       


From there we went off to God's country to visit with Wayne and Ed's friend Gord.
Gord models the 1920/30's era and has some beautiful models of trains and a great model of a ship. Sadly I got so busy listening to these guys very interesting conversation I got very few photos of his layout.
           


From Gord's, we went to dinner then on to Ed's house. I got to see his great model of the Leetown Division. He claims it is more a diorama because there are too many trains to run. I feel the pain as my layout is cluttered with too many trains. Here are some of my photos for your pleasure, though not near as great as the ones that Ed posts.
                                       
 He does have an option for a second layer which he is considering and I wish I had that option but I don't think I have the design to do it.


Wayne delivered me back to the hotel and visited for a brief time and we said our goodbyes.


Thursday I left the hotel before 11 AM and went to Fort Erie to take one of the ladies on our Samoyed rescue group to lunch. She lived in Hamilton when I visited in 2014 and supplied accommodations for my stay then but I cut my visit short before I got to take her to dinner. She recently moved to Fort Erie and her little place has a balcony that you can see trains crossing the Niagara River. I did take her to lunch and then I hightailed it across the border and beat the 3 foot snow storm that hit Buffalo later Thursday. Even at that by the time I got to the NY/PA border Interstate 90 was closed west of the Ohio State Line. I always go south on Interstate 79 at Erie so it didn't cause me any delays and the roads were clear even after a brief whiteout south of Erie.
Charlie

Here I am with another car question (don't worry, I'm still model railroading!) … Since the beginning of October, our 2011 Mazda3 (with 200,000 km) has been making a squeaking/creaking noise when travelling straight at low speeds. This noise is intermittent and seems to be worse after we’ve used the car for 30-60 minutes. 

It also seems to disappear once the cold weather arrives. Just recently, winter has suddenly hit us and the temps have dropped to around freezing or well below freezing. So now the car is not squeaking much if at all.

When the noise does happen, however, it's so annoying, that it’s stressful and distracting. Sounds like the car is going to fall apart.

So far, I’ve taken it to 4 different garages and all say all of the suspension elements are fine:
• local garage (whom I know & trust) — couldn’t find anything wrong, assured me it was OK.
• Midas — same as above.
• Mazda Dealer — also couldn’t find anything obvious, but said that an engine mount and a tranny mount needed replacing. I had the engine mount replaced at my local garage (cost $174). Squeak is a little better but still there.
• Muffler Shop (whom I trust) — also couldn’t find anything wrong but they suggested replacing the muffler (they said, once the muffler gets hot after use, it shifts around).

I think my best course of action is to go back to my local garage and get them to replace the failing transmission mount. 

Open to feedback & ideas!
Thanks in advance.