I'm currently working on an N scale Terrains For Trains layout and I got the pond a little darker than I wanted it to be.
Ok... A LOT darker. I wanted a light brownish tint to it just to look as if there were some sediment in it and instead it ended up looking like coffee with cream in it. Since the Terrains for Trains layouts are polystyrene instead of the traditional styrofoam and plaster, I'm wondering if I can just peel out the realistic water and start over?

i want to start the upgrade of the box car fleet.
all the kit cars i have are the basic athearn,walthers,roundhouse , accurrail, and maybe a few stewart kits, so what size metal wheel sets do i need to start making the change over?
what brands are better for changing over to?
i will being them in sets maybe to do 5 cars at a time. trying to do this on a budget, the leasing company is earning its keep lol

Hi All:
I started this topic in the "other" place but wanted to bring it here as we hope it is going to develop into a neat module.
dwight77

We have an N-Trak modular layout at our club (Scale Rails of Southwest Florida - Ft. Myers, Fl) and we wanted to be able to add some switching. We hit upon the idea of adding a module that would have both a Time Saver and an Inglenook switching puzzle. Since we are predominately DCC, we also thought it would be great if we could achieve our goal and we could have two people working a different puzzle at the same time, maybe.

In order to get two working at the same time, we decided to "T" the module off of our regular modules....thus allowing two members to be on opposite sides of the module, one working the Inglenook and one working the Time Saver.
We developed the layout and a view from the top looks like this:

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AHHH now this is more like it...in the good ol summetime:

I am going to a train show/swap meet this Sunday, and plan to hunt around for some bargain hoppers. My problem is that I don't really know what I should be looking for as it relates to my layout. I have a Glacier gravel plant that I will locate on the layout, and am not really sure what kinds of hoppers would have been brought in and out of this plant. Time frame is 70's or so. Would these hoppers be covered or uncovered. I saw a really good deal on some 34' covered hoppers online (see pic below), that would work great (as I want to predominantly model Rock Island), but I don't know if these are the types of hoppers used to transport gravel.

So, can anyone tell me what hoppers were used in the 70's to transport gravel?

Thanks.

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When I was searching my storage shed for my floquil a while back I ran across my first ( adult) scratch built railroad model. I built a couple things for my Marx set when I was about 7 or 8., but then moved into aiplanes & cars.
I built this to prove a point , I was in a hobby shop one day in the early 70s & some guy was complaining that model railroading was too expensive , the MOST expensive hobby & NOTHING could be done for a low cost. I told him that was not altogether true & bet I could build a railroad model of something for under 3 dollars.
There was a model contest coming up at a shopping mall & he challenged me to do that AND have it be good enough to enter the contest. I don't usually do contests but agreed.
This is what I built , I had no plans or pictures, I drove by the railroad yard & looked at a tank car for a guide. I am aware this does not prove to be accurate in all details, but at the time I WAS NOT really a model railroader . The only thing I bought for it were the trucks & couplers, the tank is PVC pipe, the dome a copper tube cap with something out of the scrap box glued to it-- an army tank hatch I think.
I formed the convex tank ends by using styrene which I sandwiched between two concave flat type "freeze plugs" for engine blocks & heated with a torch till the plastic took a set.
It did cost under 3 dollars AND won it's class in the contest .

   
   
   

While experimenting with methods of heat forming plastic girders, I noticed a wisp of smoke coming from my wife's new hairdryer. This was quickly followed by a puff of smoke and the loud SNAP! of the GFI breaker.

I could be wrong, but this might be a little hard to explain. :?

The really bad thing about this is that it looked like it was working, too! I guess that pretty much rules out using it to dry my castings!

If you have instructions to a Micro Engineering girder bridge, please see my post in the N/Z forum. Thanks.

I bought the Micro Engineering N 320' tall steel viaduct, and there are no instructions for assembling the larger spans. I'm sure I could figure it out, but I would prefer instructions before I start gluing. If you have them, I can accept fax, e-mail, or whatever. If you know where I can look for something like that, let me know. I can't seem to find a website for them. Thanks.

Here is a link to a movie about NY's DewIT Yard. Among other cool things, it shows brakemen riding the tops of boxcars down the hump and a huge trackgand manually moving one of the NYC's between track water pans into place. Neat stuff!

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