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I'm hoping to get some thoughts on setting the CVs for my locos to be used on my industrial shortline. I know each brand and loco is different, but we can generalize here. Also, I don't want to use the complicated speed tables and such, I will just use CV2 through CV6 for setting up each loco...

Well, originally I was happy with my Athearn CF-7s, but then I went and bought an Atlas Master Seires U23B. And geez, that thing runs smooth as silk, and the Athearns now seem noisy and rough with poor low-end speed control. Just to see where the problem was, I removed the universal joints...

I held my first open house in conjunction with the San Jacinto Model Railroad Club Fall Layout tour over the weekend. There were about 85 different layouts on tour in the Houston area. I wasn't sure how many people would visit me, due to my location south of Houston, plus the weather had turned...

Teach me! This time we have a train heading west and needing to switch the facing point spur. Gray rectangle is the loco. Blue is the car to be left at the spur. Brown is other cars. Green is caboose. I assume the engineer and brakeman are in the locomotive. The conductor is in the...

Teach me something…. Okay, this is pretty simple, but I want to know if I am thinking correctly about the jobs of the crew members. I’ll give commentary on what I think should happen. Someone please chime in if I am missing anything. Again, what I am interested in is the jobs of the crew...

Have any of you seen this one? Page 48 in the 2007 MRP. Not all that big, just a 1 foot by 16 foot shelf, but to me, it is the most realistic layout I have ever seen. The guy did a terrific job. Check it out if you can... and do you agree with my assessment?

Okay, in my garage, I have 75 feet of shelves with a layout that is quite fun to operate. I still need to do the scenery, ballast the tracks, and finish the structures. All kinds of fun stuff left to do on a layout that is completely satisfactory for what I want. So why am I having these...

On a good day, my little shortline starts out at the East Yard with a cut of 6 to 12 cars which were delivered to us by the SP. These cars are bound for the industries we serve. We head west, and drop off the cars, at the same time picking up cars which need to be delivered to the West Yard on...

I was wondering how the rest of you got along with your track. Do your locos sputter and stall with flickering lights, or do they run flawlessly for years at a time without even cleaning the track? If you would, vote in the poll and then give us a little report on how often and what method you...

I ended up with an Athearn Canadian National 40 foot boxcar body in a big bag of "junk" I bought for 5 bucks at a train show. On one side it has "Canadian" with an A and on the other side it has "Canadien" with an E. Was this how it was, or did Athearn mess up?

I need some help from the internet gurus and "those in the know". I was tuning up my Athearn CF-7s and ended up breaking some of the pins off the plastic truck sideframes. I've been searching diligently for them this morning, but can't make any headway on finding them (considerable frustration...

Houston is blessed to have 2 large, well-stocked, trains-only hobby shops. The employees at one of the shops are just super, very congenial and helpful, and act like they care about me and my layout. The other shop is generally staffed only by the owner, and he sometimes has a rather blase'...

My turn-outs are controlled by under-the-layout throw rods. I am going to put Central Valley non-operating switch stands at each turn-out. I will simply add a small piece of cork to the existing roadbed, add some extended ties out onto this, ballast it along with the rest ofthe track, then...

How about posting some pics of your free-lanced road's locos and rolling stock? Once I get further along on the layout, I would like to do a few cars in some of y'all's roads that I could run on my layout, of course, with your permission to do so. For example, Ralph, I like the KP&W scheme...

How do you ballast and scenick the track under the silos as in the following photo? I've got a couple structures where the building is over the tracks and supported by columns. My buildings have not been attached to the layout yet.

Here are some of mine: How about yours?

and would rather be at home working on the layout... so, I'll just post some pics and maybe have some conversation with you?

Hey Guys, I think it would be good if each of us posted a couple of "overall" views of our layouts/layout rooms. This would give us more insight to who each of us is, what we are interested in, and I would get to know you guys better. Just back up from the layout and give us an overall shot...

In a small industrial yard, south Houston

Here are some shots of the removable bridge. I'll build some abutments to cover the aluminum support brackets.