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Well done, Mikey! :thumb::thumb::thumb: Congratulations! And thank you for all the time and work you invested for the well-being of The Gauge. You and Don are doing a great job at the helm of our forum. And - by the way, Don just hit the 5000 mark. Take care, he's trying to sneak up to you...

Looking back at the last pic of the train: You even modeled the coal load in the gondola very convincingly. It's only a pity that the inside of that gondola is much too clean. You should also have weathered this detail some more - THEN it would have been the perfect model railroad scene! This...

Congratulations Russ for topping the 2000 mark! (2001? You don't want to drift off to SciFi modelling, won't you?) And most of all: Thank you for the countless hints and tips you shared with us all! :thumb::thumb::thumb: Ron

WHAT??? Hey Gerd, are you really wasting your time playing with trains, instead of visiting one soccer match after the other? After all, you have a world championship in Germany! :D:D:D Hehe - just a joke! :wave: On the contrary, I'm relieved that there is at least ONE other person here in...

Crumpling aluminum foil has the advantage that you can adapt to your modeling scale. The more you crumple it, open it and crumple it again, the finer are the wrinkles and stone faces. So for N scale you just crumple it some more than for 0 scale. IMO, crumpled foil works best for rock walls...

Botanists call the Century plant an agave. There are different species in the Southwestern US/Mexico and also on the Canary islands. Don described them very well. Some of them are used commercially: Out of the fermented sap of the Blue agave (Agava tequilana) in Mexico e.g. you can distill (you...

Fine to hear from you again. Welcome back! :wave::wave::wave: Ron

Cbear, welcome to the Gauge. You'll find lots of narrow gauge and logging stuff if you browse around the Gauge pages. To answer your questions: H0n30 means 30" (or 2-1/2ft) track, modeled in H0 scale (1:87 scale). It happens that N scale (1:160) standard gauge track (9 millimeters wide) just...

Kurt, when you say that your scenery is in its early stage, then this must be the understatement of the month! :D:D:D It may be that you don't have scenery all over the layout, but the part you did looks great! :thumb: And your Zebra turned out very nice! Ron Mach so weiter!

Andrew, It's amazing, but these things worked really. Look again at the (lower) picture, and you see that the somoke is clearly lifted above the CAB. That's what it's all about. Ok, a little bit farther back the sooty cloud is rolling down again on the train, but the aim was to get a clear...

"Smoke deflectors" or "smoke lifters" were used on faster engines to 'push up' the smoke blast out of the stack, so that the soot didn't stream along the engine boiler and hit the faces of the crew. They were very common in European locomotives. Here are two types which were used often on German...

Or do a google search for "USRA Mikado". This will give some 280 hits. Funny, most of them are model photographs, but you get lots of ideas for detailing. Here's an example of a prototype photo (Nickel Plate USRA light mikado). Ron

Nice to have you back, my friend! :wave::wave::wave: Chris, as a Swiss (we have 100% electrified RRs here) I'm always interested in American traction. It is very interesting to compare electrified RRs in our two countries. That's why I enjoyed your contributions. It's great to hear from you...

It's always amazing to see what a difference even an easy backdrop makes. Now yours is a very fine example to illustrate that point! I also like the way how the backdrop shows in the openings of the viaduct - looks very real! Good job! :thumb::thumb::thumb: Ron

I should consider myself lucky because my LHS is only halfway across town, five minutes away. The owner is a friendly chap who knows me by name and he is always willing for a little chat. So are other customers - a really familiar atmosphere in there.:thumb: Now where's the snag? Since we are...

Beuatiful locos, beautiful pics! :thumb::thumb::thumb: Ron PS: And... did you have enough coal? :D

Much to my surprise I found time to do some work on the layout. I finished my first handlaid turnout (H0n3). For a switchstand I used a small dpdt switch which also changes the polarity of the frog. Ron

Blowing out the flues (of an oil fired steam loco)

Joe, real steel truss bridges have been built on a slope - BUT: Due to static reasons the vertical elements of the truss MUST always be truly vertical! If the slope of your bridge is nearly level, then nobody will note it. But when the 'vertical' elements appear obviously oblique, then you...

Steve, most if not all steel girder and truss bridges are constructed by using a series of short, straight bridges with their connecting points always on a pier. (See pic below) Viaducts built in a real curve are practically always constructed from concrete or masonry. The reason is that the...