My wife went to San Diego for a continuing education seminar (R.N.) that was Tuesday. We just got in. We went down on Monday and stayed at the hotel where the seminar was being held. We went to Balboa Park Monday and went to the some of the museums she was interested in seeing. Today while she was in class, I went to the Model Railroad Museum for the day. In the morning I was talking with some of the members who were operating trains. About 12:30 or so I stepped into the gift shop and picked up a couple of books, and then went to lunch. After lunch I went back to the Museum, and a couple of the guys I had been talking to invited me to come in for a tour and to operate on the layout. I ran a long freight with an a-b-b-b F-7 unit lash up up the hill from Caliente. Then at the top of the hill we took the F-units off the train and put together a shorter train with a Gs-4 in black. I got to take it down the hill to Bakersfield and back up to the siding above Caliente (Alray, I think) before I had to go pick up my wife to head home. What an awesome layout. First time I ever ran a train on a fully signaled railroad with a dispatcher. For anyone who has been to the museum and thought the operators were being rude, I can tell you that even at speeds under 25 scale mph, an operator is very busy running the train even with what is a relatively small crew on a weekday when most of the operators are retired. On weekends when the people with regular jobs are available to operate, the layout may be crowded with trains making the operators even busier! Man, that is one huge layout! I suspect that the aisle is all of 100 yards from Bakersfield to Mojave, and it shortcuts much of the layout!

Next week, Tuesday night 9pm EST, on Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe learns how to operate a loco.
Set your DVRs!

OK - all you who know the secret of laying flex track laser straight...what's the secret? I've tried straight edges made from wood (which wasn't accurate enough) and metal tubing (which was way too long and not a piece I can cut to length). I'm just trying to get the yard tracks and mainline tracks that parallel them as straight as possible. I know in prototypical yards the tracks aren't necessarily the straightest in the world, but the mainline tracks always seem to be perfectly straight almost anywhere you go. When I use the Mark-1 Eyeball test, there's just a hint of wave to the tracks. Short of using a laser, what's the secret?

I pains me to do this, but I must post a negative report on Tichy Kits.

I recently purchased the Tichy N-scale Rotary Plow kit, which turned out to have a missing part after it was opened. (*Note here that store policies preclude opening and inspecting these kits prior to purchase.) Naturally, in direct obedience to Murphy's Laws, it is an essential part, not one that can be easily replicated using sheet styrene or such.

The Tichy site lists a phone number, e-mail and fax number; after repeated attempts to contact anyone at any of these contact points, I am forced to conclude that I made a mistake buying from them. BTW: Mr. Tichy himself is the voice on his answering machine.

I need a break from the bowser builds. I have a massive pile of structure kits.
I have a generic background building, a roundhouse, a turntable, a coal dealer, a coaling tower, a cinder pit and conveyor, a gas station, a power plant, a gas plant, and several pieces of rolling stock (in kit form, and some just undecorated). That is just the tip of the iceberg, there are many more.
I really need to structures so I can move them around to get the best use of them, and the space. It will make track planning much easier. I just don't know which kit to begin with...

Matt

Here's my first post in this forum. I'm crawling a bit on using the new bulletin board software, but I'll learn how to use this.

The following pictures are taken from my layout. I must concede they are not well made in the photographic sense because I couldn't seem to work well with the interface of the camera I used. But I really want to show you guys how a hell-bent model railroader in the Philippines could do. There is presently no model railroad shop here in the Philippines, so I had to find some way to get the trains and the tracks. My present collection of model railroad equipment took more than 10 years to acquire. Most of my structures are paper models that I could easily buy and download in the internet. I got some trees and rose bushes from architecture supplies stores locally. The 7-Up trucks I used claimed to be 1:87, and most of the other vehicles are at 1:72(which is close enough to me). The grass on my layout is basically green felt paper that looked like golf course grass. I'm planning to make my own ground grass out of saw dust in the future to improve the look of my layout.

My original plan for my HO layout is a fictitious 1950's era railroad in New England, but acquiring the right items had been a problem for me. So there are many anachronisms in my layout, but I hope to fix those in the future.

Here are the pictures.

   

   

   

I thought ther was a thread on here about how to use the woodland scienics or similar type of long grass. I can't seem to find it though. I looked on the "other" site, but I don't like the way there new search engine works (to many adds)

If anyone has a good way to "plant" some grass, please let me know.

Thanks

Have been watching coverage on the Web of the wildfires in Victoria and NSW, Australia. The severity of the destruction and the great loss of life due to bushfires magnified by drought and high temperatures (and possible instances of ARSON !!) brings concern for members, families and friends Down Under. Here's prayers and hopes for the safety of all in this dire situation. Any news from you lot will be appreciated. Bob C

...so far.
Every once in awhile, my father sends me a "care package" from Arizona, with train related magazines. The box usually contains issues of Trains, Railfan & Railroad and Railpace Magazine.

In the November, December 2008 issues of Railfan & Railroad is a two part article on the devoplopment of EMD's "E" locomotives. I've been reading the first part(In the white seat reading room), and even though I'm not a fan of transition era railroading, I'm finding this article pretty imformative and an excellent article.

If you don't have a subscription, to R&R, I highly recommend finding someone who does, or seeing if your local library has them. Of course...I will share my copies (after I'm done) with anyone who requests them.

SOLD