My Champ decals arrived today. I'm disappointed in the passenger car details.

My order:
-2 packs of NKP steam locomotive lettering
-2 packs of NKP caboose letter, the High Speed Service version in their catalog is actually the steel 400 series cars of the 1950s...of minimal use to me...the plain white & black lettering version is what I thought the High Speed Service version to be...appropriate for the fleet of hundreds of wooden cars...and should work fine for me in the pre-High Speed Service years by leaving off that portion of the lettering.
-NKP Dulux gold passenger car lettering...for coaches
-NKP aluminum lettering...apparently they didn't plan on anyone using them to letter sleepers or Lounge cars...which was my reason for purchasing them... I might have to get custom decals printed for the car names...unless their are blue decal sheets out there...
- And a my primary reason for ordering was a set of Signature Series 1938 20th Century Limited decals. It only included the lettering details...none of the complicated striping!

For those whom don't know, the 1938 20th Cent Ltd was a very complex paint scheme. Aluminum stripes were at the top & bottom of each car (3/4" thick IIRC). Above and below the windows was painted light gray. The windows were particularly complicated. The series of stripes were at the window level. The car was dark gray at the windows, with 3.75" thick (iirc) aluminum stripes near the center, and had 2" (?) blue lines as borders above and below the windows. The following year, it was switched to a simplified scheme with the 3.75" lines becoming .75" lines and the blue lines became aluminum. The lines at the top and bottom of each car were dropped in 1940 or so. The more modeled paint scheme is the 1948 version with the grays reversed and simplified line work. Only a few cars served on both centuries.

Any ideas on sources to supplement the decals with aluminum & blue striping, or am I stuck using masking tape?

Any ideas on a source of blue letter transfers for HO cars? I suspect that Woodland Scenics Dulux Gold transfers will suffice for my future heavyweight fleet.

EDIT: as a happy note, the 20th Cent Ltd decals included non-'38 cars...such as the 1939 Commodore Vanderbilt Bedroom-Buffet-Lounge car Chittenango Falls which will be serving of my layout...my single favorite car of all time.

Hi guys, here is the tutorial i have been saying i would be doing for the past few months lol

Ive had several people ask me how i did my roads and crossings from this picture:



Well this tutorial will not include any pictures of doing a crossing, but after i finish this post on doing regular roads, i will do another post in this thread explaining how i did my crossing in the picture above with Woodland Scenics Smooth-It.

Before i begin, id like to not that
USING WOODLAND SCENICS SMOOTH-IT TAKES PATIENTS!
Please don't hold me responsible for your roads not turning out the way you would like them to when following this tutorial



TOOLS YOU NEED TO DO THIS:

• 1. Woodland Scenics Smooth-It
  2. Woodland Scenics Paving Tape
  3. Some kind of spreader (i used one that came with a package of paving tape and modified it to make it longer, see picture below)
  4. 3/4" Putty Knife
  5. 3" Putty Knife
  6. A mixing container with a lid
  7. A large cup of water
  8. Steel Ruler
  9. A Sharpie or other pen or pencil

For convenience sake, and to get like forums together, we've moved "Getting to know us", and "Mugshot spot" to the "Hobo's Camp" as sub-forums, and added a new sub-forum there for all to display their Gauge and Big Blue ID cards. Now, all the forum sections that deal with our members can be found in one place.

Also, "Forum Announcements" has been moved to the "Dispatcher's Office", since logically, that's where it belongs.

Nothing major, just a bit of housecleaning that we do from time to time.

after posting a photo of a large fire box i was thinking(OK i know its dangerous) the grate area of a up big boy is 150.3 square feet. now think of a room in your house that is 10 ft wide and 15 ft long and that's the grate area not the fire box size just the grate's.one fine train room
jim

Another advantage of having our Logo finalized is:    

One day my son had asked me to take some pictures of where I worked and what type of job I did. Although I've been laid off now for about 2 weeks I did work this job for quite a while. Basicly what the job entailed was to bring in the rolls from the mill, the purpose of these rolls are to basicly either directly or indirectly squish a thick plate into thinner plate into either rolled coils or single plates depending on the company placing the orders.My job was to run the crane and\or build the rolls, when I say build the rolls it means take the chocks off the rolls after the rolls come in from the mill and get them ready for the grinder to grind down to a finished surface. We then put the chocks back on and back out to the mill.The crane job also entails not only handling the chocks to be put on the roll ends but also to very very carefully place the 30 ton rolls into the grinders and back out when ready to be built back up. Hopefully this helps someone thinking about steel mill modeling.

Greeting,

Now that I have the "N Scale Model Tech Clutter Pack" I don't have a clue on how to paint it.
These are cast resin, see photo. Any ideas are appreciated.

Joe

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Excerpt from bill online at :
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/politics&id=6660103">http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?secti ... id=6660103</a><!-- m -->

It's 4 parts and about 1000 pages long if you want to go read it


Amtrak: $1.3 billion to improve the speed and capacity of intercity passenger rail service. The Department of Transportation’s Inspector General estimates the North East Corridor alone has a backlog of over $10 billion.

High Speed Rail and Intercity Passenger Rail Grants: $8 billion to advance the development of high speed rail and to improve the intercity passenger rail service in corridors across the nation. The States for Passenger Rail Coalition estimates that there are over $1.5 billion in projects that are ready-to-go.

Airport Improvement Grants: $1.1 billion for airport improvement projects that will improve safety and reduce congestion. An estimated $49.7 billion in eligible airport infrastructure projects are needed between 2009-2013.

Transportation Security Administration Explosive Detection Systems: $1 billion to install Aviation Explosive Detection Systems and checkpoint screening systems in the nation’s airports, improving security, and making life easier on travelers by speeding security lines. Funds are competitively awarded based on security risk.

Border and Ports of Entry: $720 million to construct GSA and Customs and Border Protection land ports of entry to improve border security, make trade and travel easier and reduce wait times.

Coast Guard: $240 million to rehabilitate and repair Coast Guard infrastructure and obstacles to navigation.

Tuesday Feb 17th.. Locomotove restoration on Dirty Jobs 9:00 PM Eastern

Dirty Jobs
Locomotive Builder
TV-PG (L)

Mike heads to MotivePower in Boise, Idaho to build and restore locomotives for his 200th dirty job.

Just came across this site today looking for pictures of bridges....

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Thought I would share because it's Canadian rails, and it gives a lot of history on a specific area of our country.

Some AMAZING pictures in here.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://railways-atlas.tapor.ualberta.ca/cocoon/atlas/Photos-9-1-1/">http://railways-atlas.tapor.ualberta.ca ... tos-9-1-1/</a><!-- m --> for example