Recent content by CalFlash

I hate to sound critical but shouldn't we be looking at the backs of the buildings along the tracks? This is a common error I've seen often in such scenes.

The wire guage on the Walthers kit is a little large. Dosen't DA or DW also make one? Of course the assortment of parts will probably vary. Cal

A friend used florest wire for a rebar load in HO scale. Not sure if you can get it small enough diameter for N-scale use but worth checking out.

Missouri Pacific F-units and Alcos had 3 digit numbers when built (time I model) but carried the prefix "A" and "B" on respective units so I added a "1" to the A-unit number and "2" to the B-unit number to retain identity.

I used adhesive caulk out of a tube to glue flex track to homasote and see no reason it wouldn't work with your combination(s). It's quite fast going but with enough work time for positioning etc.

Are you using DC or DCC? If the latter, there are auto reversing switches available although many wire a Wye like in DC as the crossover into the opposite polarity section is not a continuous movement like a loop. Not the same branch but there's a nice site on the Bagnell Br...

Getting the "drop" in drop grabs uniform is difficult so I made this modified set of pliers with a piece of stryene glued to the face to act as a stop. Bend to the U-shape as mentioned and insert into the pliers with the bottom of the U against the stop and bend over the legs.

I would buy the commercial ones from Tichy/CMA or someone and spend the time doing pallets which would probably also be seen in the same scenes. I spent quite a bit of time distressing and beating up some of my pallets for interest and variety.

Did you test it out on nomal DC operation before hooking it to the accessory decoder? It sounds like a mechanical problem (binds?) more than an electrical one.

Ride the Royal Canadien steam powered train. It runs north along the coast out of Vancouver. Fantastic trip!

Yea, the only drawback is you have so much fun just playing with it, progress on the layout suffers! Even though he went conventional DC, when my friend built his layout years ago, I insisted on wiring standards that would allow him to convert to DCC and he has since done so after seeing it on...

There was a thread w/ lots of pics on building this one on the Railroad Line Forums about a year ago. Should still be archived.

I visited a layout that modeled the Van Nuys CA area where he had 2 major industries and little else. One was Budweiser brewery and the other the now gone General Motors (Cheverolet) Gemco assembly plant. Both were geared for a high volume of traffic and variety of incoming goods based on the...

Obviously you've never seen the episode of Steinfeld where at a book store, George takes a coffee table book into the "reading room" then is forced to buy it.

You can't always be sure of what they have available but http://www.allelectronics.com/ has good variety and prices