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

Starting on page 52 of the Feb '09 Model Railroader is a presentation of a layout titled Steaming Through The Winter Wonderland. It is a nice layout, but it wasn't built by the owner; it was commissioned from Raildreams, Inc., a commercial firm.

My feelings are that this isn't a proper display of a layout made by an owner or club, but essentially amounts to advertising for the company that did all the work. From a modeler's viewpoint, I'm uncomfortable with the way this was presented, but maybe I'm too much of a purist.

I'm interested in the opinions of other members.

Hello everyone,
I am building a shelf layout based on the B&O operations in Baltimore City. I decided to opt for a relatively narrow shelf as I want to convey a close to the tracks type perspective, so the average width of shelf is 16", and I have 30 feet of shelf built with certain areas a bit wider. I took a few pictures of the area on my layout that are down by the docks and uploaded them to this thread. The pictures are not the best as I need to get used to the florescent lights I am using in the basement, but it will give you all an idea of how things are coming. One of my goals is to be able to operate equipment from different eras, without looking to out of place on the layout. The area in the pictures will be the older part of town, where steam and first generation steam will operate. In other areas {except the waterfront}, I will strive to make the scenery ambiguous enough to run B&O, Chessie, and CSX as there are still plenty of places in Baltimore where they all operated at one time or another. As far as trackwork goes, I will be using all #6 Fastracks turnouts I will be building with their jig. All non turnout trackage will be handlaid with the PCB ties and wooden ties. After admiring other peoples work on the forum, I wanted to give a progress report on what I have been up to as of late.
Thanks,
Stuart

Anybody have a SM card they can part with? Not many cameras around anymore that use these. They came in sizes from 32 MB to 256 MB.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=6626409">http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?secti ... id=6626409</a><!-- m -->

North of Phila. PA

PM me if you would like to join...

I hope that we really can talk about anything here. Any Vets ( animal Dr.) here?

I have a Shepard-Akita -Chow mix dog. he is about 15 years old & weighs just over 30 Lbs.

Tank is in pretty good health except for artharitous (sp?) I was recently advised that Ibuprofen would give him a lot of pain relief & enable him to move much better. I gave him one 500MG dose a couple of days ago & it really did work wonders for him. He was like ten years were gone from his age. the results are still evident today. My question is, can I give him an Ibuprofen every 2-3 days without any problems coming from it?

A little history lesson for anyone who doesn't know about this little borough: (borrowed from the Wiki)


Centralia was incorporated as a borough in 1866.
In 2002, the United States Postal Service revoked Centralia's ZIP Code, 17927.

Centralia is a borough in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, United States. Its population has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to 12 in 2005[1] and 9 in 2007,[2] as a result of a mine fire burning beneath the borough since 1962. Centralia is now the least-populous municipality in Pennsylvania

The anthracite coal industry was the principal employer in the community. Coal mining continued in Centralia until the 1960s, when most of the companies went out of business.


The borough was served by two railroads, the Philadelphia and Reading and the Lehigh Valley, with the Lehigh Valley being the principal carrier. Rail service ended in 1966.

More info here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania</a><!-- m --> and the town it claimed <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrnesville,_Pennsylvania">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrnesville,_Pennsylvania</a><!-- m -->

Without further ado:



















MY Wife saying hi to everyone