Hi guys

I got a crazy idea that just sorta popped in my head lol

Has anyone every used real cement like Portland Cement on there layouts? I am doing some highway bridges/ramps and i thought maybe it would be possible to make molds for the barriers on either side of highway bridges and ramps using Portland Cement. Portland Cement is the powdered cement with no aggregate in it. There is also Portland Plastic Cement which is used mostly for walls and such like that. I think either one would work for molds and i was also thinking of lining the walls of the highway ramps and then scribing i some expansion joints and such to simulate concrete. I had originally intended to buy cardstock from a Gal in Canada that sells cardstock sheets with various brick, concrete, street.... prints on them.

How does this idea sound? Am i to far out there on this idea? I dont think it would be very heavy at all since the barriers would be skinny and at the most 5/8" tall. What do you guys think?

I just bought the kit at a model train sale in Ottawa Ontario. Has anyone here built it yet? any tips?
it is a 5 car set, i was wondering if i could run as it 3 car set due tot he fact my layout is kind of small and not a lot of room on it
I am looking forward to building it, just have to buy some containers now
thanks in advance for the tips
stuart

I've had these two classic Plasticville small stations since I was a kid in the early 70's. They were originally white for a long time and then one day I painted them Jade Green to fit my Penn Central theme. As you can see I attempted to make one look abandoned. I removed them from the layout some time ago because I was dissatisfied with their appearance but I still kept them since I'm reluctant to throw away anything with decent looking windows.


A few days ago I got an idea to salvage the stations by "bashing" them into a switch tower, placing one on top of the other. A staircase, some railing, and a few odd details completed the transformation that I'm now happy to place back on the layout. I'm making some cosmetic changes in the area where the tower will be located but I'll post a pic once its in place.







Recycle/Reuse! Just doing my part to be green...Penn Central Green, that is.

Ralph

Fifer personal Sale on Ebay
This is a bunch of stuff I have had laying around and no longer need.
Mostly N but some Lenz HO decoders.
Pull up fifer on Ebay

Thanks , Mike

I wanted to create a thread to talk about unique prototypes.

The DSP&P, NKP, NYC, CSX, etc are NOT UNIQUE. But, a particular location along them may be unique (such as at a particular junction or abnormal operating phenomenon).

My idea for this thread comes from this:

The Crystal River shortlines were perfect for a model railroad. From appx 1900 to 1910, it consisted of a standard gauge line and a 3' gauge line, with a dual gauge engine facility, transfer trestle, and std gauge yards at Redstone. After 1910, there was a std gauge railroad and an electric railroad.

The std gauge railroad primarily operated with a mogul and a 4-6-0. The Spectrum 4-6-0 is a decent stand in for their Baldwin 4-6-0. The trains were usually short mixed trains. The narrow gauge operated with 3 big, outside frame 2-8-0s. The largest was as powerful as the original D&RG 2-8-2s. (these 2-8-0s became D&RGW #360, 361, & 375). The electric railroad operated with what appeared to be outhouses mounted on flatcars. The std gauge used foreign cars and a combine. The narrow gauge used ingoldsby dump cars. The electric railroad used shorty flat cars with curved spoke wheels. The std gauge operated a rotary snow plow, and the electric had an interesting double ended electric powered rotary.

Notably, the Lincoln Memorial was produced with stone quarried in the Crystal River region and shipped out on the electric and steam railroads. Later, the largest stone ever quarried, 56t, was shipped over the lines and became the tomb of the unknown soldier. This Yule marble was chosen for its reputation as the highest quality marble in the country.

HO scale Ingoldsbys: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.riograndemodels.com/Images/LargeHO/3116.jpg">http://www.riograndemodels.com/Images/LargeHO/3116.jpg</a><!-- m -->
S scale Ingoldsbys: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.cimarronworks.com/CRR-210-A-0754.jpg">http://www.cimarronworks.com/CRR-210-A-0754.jpg</a><!-- m -->
HOn3 small 2-8-0: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://psc1.virtualfocus.com/MMI%20C-21%20HOn3.html">http://psc1.virtualfocus.com/MMI%20C-21%20HOn3.html</a><!-- m --> (would need backdating to be CR 101 or 102)
MDC's OF HOn3 2-8-0 is close to #103

The electric locomotives would be built with brass stock for weight, and with NWSL's PDT (or is it Flea?) trucks.

Photos from Photoswest:
ng 2-8-0 under trestle at Redstone:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?11005337+Z-5337">http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?11005337+Z-5337</a><!-- m -->
early photo of std gauge:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10012281+X-12281">http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10012281+X-12281</a><!-- m -->
Unknown soldier:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10012283+X-12283">http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10012283+X-12283</a><!-- m -->
Electric in snow:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?11006662+Z-6662">http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?11006662+Z-6662</a><!-- m -->
Loading at Quarry:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00138456+GB-8456">http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00138456+GB-8456</a><!-- m -->
Quarry:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00071995+MCC-1995">http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00071995+MCC-1995</a><!-- m -->
(These pictures don't always load the first time...refresh a couple times and they'll work)

I am aware of one book on the subject: Sundance's Crystal River Pictorial

Michael

We've had requests to be able to use our logo for business-type cards to hand out at train shows and the likes. I have made up a few sample cards that work, so in order to get some consistency, we would prefer that you follow these examples. The top half should remain the same, what you put down below is up to you. You can have your address and phone numbers, your club name, email address, web site or whatever you want. I will post a jpg blank so that you can download it and add your own details. The card size should come out as 3 1/2" wide by 2" high, that is the most common size. For those of you that do not have the ability to do that, I will make a card for you and put it on an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet, 10 up, (10 cards per sheet) that you can use your color printer to make them with. You can print them on card stock, or even photo paper and cut them to size. I will include crop and cut marks to make that a bit easier. You can also buy sheets of business card paper where the cards are already perforated and break apart easily, but those sometimes are hard to get to line up exactly in your printer. I know, I've wasted a lot of paper that way.

Anyone wanting me to do this, please PM me with the information you want on the card, then give me a few days to make them up and email them to you. And yes, send me your email address as well since I cannot PM them as an attachment.

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In the East every train show has them older bachmann Santa Fe locos you know the ones in the train sets, no one whats to buy because we mostly model our areas trains and well santa fe is not our area.

I remember when I was in sacremento, ca all the hobby stores had only UP, SP, BNSF trains, said it wasnt worth buying others like conrail, csx, ns etc.. because no one wanted them

So I was wondering if all those santa fe F's and GP's, the union pacific GP's, that red MKT hopper, the SF cabooses, etc.. do they actually sell in the western shows? because they just sit over at ours and no one will ever buy them.

Also at our train shows everyone that comes looks for area specific trains, and not much is bought for the UP, SF and other western trains but there is a 50/50 of mixed US trains. I wonder If I go to a western train show will I find the eastern trains, and without the markup since it's not area specific..

The Fox Valley Division has their annual train show at Harper College, in Palatine, Illinois, this weekend, Feb. 28-March 1. I plan on going today. The show is open 9:00-5:00 today and tomorrow.

Is there any way that the posts could linger in the "view new posts" area for at least 24 hours.
I rely on this area to read the new posts and often they must come and go before I even see them.
A separate link to "today's posts" would work, but the former would probably be better and less work.
Charlie

Apparently, I'm not in synch with Google. Where might I find a simple listing of the types of freight car trucks in use and the time periods?