Hi all

Just wanted to let you know that I am subbing in for Deano as co-moderator of the forum for awhile. I've been reading through all the posts, and there is some great stuff here!!! Trying to post responses to all, and about 1/4 of the way so far.

Scenery is one of my favourite parts of the hobby, and although my layout is mostly industrial/urban, I find there are still places where a little bit of scenery goes a long way.

Here's a couple of pix from my layout, by way of introduction.



This is a very early scene from several years ago. If you look closely at the foreground tree, you'll see it's just set there and not really planted. I ended up re-arranging this scene when I expanded the layout.



Another scene that is no more. I like to model grass and weeds with a fair bit of dried earth showing. It gives it that urban flavour of weeds struggling against great odds! On my lawn their odds are a lot better...

Here's a couple of more recent shots. Even though my layout is set in the city, there are some "waste" areas that make for scenic opportunities.







I used Scenic Express grass mats here and I must say that they are excellent. I don't like the mats that have weeds and flowers already added -- I think they're too dense, so I prefer to add my own.

Here's a small residential section in progress, by day and then later on in the early evening.





Well, that's all the pix I have at the moment. It's great to be aboard the Scenic express!

cheers
Val

I am needing to replace 2 shells, as I messed them up... :oops:
I need an Atlas S1 and a Walthers trainline FT shell. The road names are not important as they will be refinished.
I have searched many train shows and swap meets, and have come up short. If anyone has these items, post a pic and your price please.

Thanks,
Matt

Backing out of the in-laws driveway this morning on my way to work when snap...grind....

The big front piece of plastic (that one would call the bumper on any normal car) on my 2002 Honda Odyssey snaps off when it bottoms out on the pile of snow left at the side of freshly plowed road.

I actually don't blame the city or the snow. I blame Honda. This mini-van in recent years has been nothing but a lemon and has just started to remove its peel in order for me to get the bitter taste of its sour goodness. :x At just over 100,000 klicks its tranny drops. $5,000 dollars later we have a replacement and a big hole in our wallets. Just about every time we take it in for service there is something "wrong" with it.

"Your brake pads need replacement." "You need a rad flush." "You need a tune up."

:hey: FRACKING H-E-Double Hockey Sticks!!!

Here is the kicker. We barely clock 10,000 kilometers in a single YEAR on the vehicle! No kidding. Our last vehicle a Civic, which we owned from brand new for four years, when traded in had just over 35,000 kilometers on it. We've used our vehicles as a grocery getters, and park them at the subway parking lots and take the tube into work. A full tank of fuel for this pig lasts me two weeks. In my 16 years as a decent driver, (no accidents, no speeding tickets, couple of parking tickets) have never owned a vehicle that seems, well, so bloody fragile! I fear if I sneeze at this thing the wrong way something will break or it'll keel over while parked in the driveway. Bloody ridiculous.

I despise cars. Literally. Nothing but money pits. I own one not out of choice, but as a necessary evil. You can't haul the kids around in a bike trailer in minus 20 degree weather to grandma's house or to shopping on the weekends now can you?

So tonight in the cold, I get to go home and devise way to strap this sucker back on. I will not take it to the dealer. They will end up charging me a few grand and telling me I need more work done on it. I may just get some metal strapping, some pop rivets and be done with it. I don't care either how ugly it looks either. :x



Sorry...thanks for letting me rant...

The Credit Valley Railway in N scale is back up and almost running.
It is in a new home, a 10x10 spare room. It is now DCC and 8660 square inches.

I am chronicling it here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.muskokacomputes.com/CVR-Home.html">http://www.muskokacomputes.com/CVR-Home.html</a><!-- m -->

I hope you like it.

I used to purchase items from them on a very regular basis when I was into airplanes. They also sell MRR items. I ordered a few items from them recently, 2 USRA box cars, and some trees. The items I ordered where in HO scale. They sent me N scale. They tied them up in a plastic bag, which became a balloon, then stuffed them in a box that was about 10 times larger than what was needed, and added 3 more balloons for "package safety".
Then they sent them via UPS from Illinois to Michigan to a USPS facility to ship back to Illinois.
I received the items yesterday, only to find that they sent the wrong items, and one of the cars is destroyed due to their lousy packaging job. I have called them, and sent an email.
I have not received a reply to the email as of yet, and the girl who answered the phone told me a manager would call me back before the close of business, yesterday. Well, I have not heard back from the manager a full 24 hours later.
It is dissappointing. In today's economy, it would seem to me, that customer retention would be an important thing to consider.

Is it just me, or have companies forgotten that the economy is in the dumper, and customer service is all they have to rely upon to continue to generate revenue?

Let's take another example. Standard Hobby Supply. I have made several purchases from them. The last one they sent me an email stating that they only had one of the 2 cars on my order. The order consisted of a loco and 2 passenger coaches. I told them that as long as they had one car and the loco to process and ship the order. 3 days later, I had not gotten a follow up email, so I sent a polite request as to the status of the order.
The response was, "The car you are looking for has been sold so we canceled your order." That was the entire email. No thank you, no I'm sorry. Not a greeting, or closing. They may have canceled the order, but the charged my card. I am still waiting for that to be corrected. I have faith that it will get corrected, but they have lost a customer, as has Tower Hobbies.

It is my most sincere wish that these companies would correct the rectal-cranial inversion, and treat their customers better.

Matt

Just want to compliment you on this site! I havn't taken the time to really go through it in detail, but every time I get over here I find a new FACET that really impresses me! I mean podcasts? birthday announcements? online chat? this is the most underrated train forum on the web in my opinion, given exposure it sure will grow! Good Job !
(No, I didn't get paid for this)

Posting this across a couple of forums hoping to get some quick and good advice:

Okay so I have been playing with a scratchbuilt cab on a Bachmann Mike to do a freelanced back date on it. I have now made 2 attempts to apply an .015 wrap of styrene that I studiously embossed with rivets. The initial application looks good but after a few minutes the solvent cement starts to attack the .015 causing wrinkles and bubbles. Second attempt I used less solvent but with the same result. I was using Testors liquid cement as in my experience it tends to be the least potent of the ones I have worked with (plastructs and ambroid being the other liquids I generally use).

I have now had to re-sand the roof of my cab twice and I am not sure if my nerves or the cab roof will take another failed application. I know some of you apply styrene wraps to scratch built tenders with success so what am I doing wrong? the cab took a few hours of messing to get the roof line right and it looks amazing except for the missing rivet details.....

I do not want to give up on this!

HELP!

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This one is especially for Dave harris and Ray M I had an old MDC 3-truck shay that I never got running right. It sat in pieces in a box for years awaiting rebuilding. One of my issues was the third truck I could never get right; and because my layout had short sidings, I decided to make it a two-trucker. Originally, I tried converting the cast white metal frame with moderate success. I wasn't completely satisfied with the way it came out, so I decided to build a new frame out of brass. I have a new motor and a new NWSL gearbox that I will install, and it should run much better.

I hope this posting stays, because last night there were two things i thought I posted only to come back a few minutes and learn they werent there

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When I was a youngster, and I'm going back 60 years to 1949, I had a friend, (only one?) and his father had a small 4x6 HO layout in his bed room. It was not completed, and he was hand laying the track, but what was done was very nicely done. We moved from that town before I ever saw it run.
What I find interesting today is the fact I can picture the layout, and I could take you to the exact house, but I can't remember the kids name.
He only had a few cars, and they were built from wood. I don't remember anything about the trucks or couplers, but I do remember the things were nice and this was the beginning of my interest in modeling. I never saw any locomotives either. He probably kept them under lock and key.
Now, my question. Does anyone else have similar memories?
I remember buying HO car kits and building them before I started to model HO. These would have been available around 1955. I bought them at the 5 and 10 cent store. (Today's Dollar stores)
I still enjoy building as much as I do operating, and I'm really looking forward to getting started again.
Has the hobby moved from modeling to buying models?
Charlie