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One thing that stands out as missing is birch trees. Northern Minnesota is basically pine trees and white-barked (with black spots) birch trees mixed together. Both of those trees grow quickly and are the first to take over an area that has been logged.

If there's a missile car in there it would probably be from the 1950's run of Lionel HO stuff rather than the seventies. Lionel has made HO stuff off and on for 50 years or more now...not including OO stuff from the thirties.

Yes, an express reefer like yours was set up so it COULD be used on a passenger train, between the engine and the regular passenger cars. That doesn't mean it HAD to be used there, just that it could be used in passenger trains.

It depends on what kind of ore you're talking about, iron ore that's usually shipped 150 cars at a time in little ore jennies, or silver / gold ore that's shipped in gondolas a few cars at a time??

Keep in mind if you use Woodland Scenic foam risers under the roadbed and track that you won't need to "cookie cutter" anything. You use the risers to raise your trackage above the table top, so the scenery can now slope down from track if you wish.

Bowser shows FT A units with the large side numberboards for ATSF, Cotton Belt, Great Northern and D&RGW. None show the numberboards on any of the B units which I believe is prototypically correct. Bowser

You don't mention the code, but if you're using code 83 Atlas track I assume the problem you're having isn't height but width?? The Kato code 83 track is pretty close to scale width track, Atlas code 83 is noticeably wider.

A quick way to estimate what will fit is to figure you want around 2" between the edge of the table and the track, so take the width of the benchwork/train table, subtract 4" (2" on each side of the table). That gives you the diameter of the circle of track, divide in two for the radius. So 5...

It depends on how you run them - if they're always going to be going one direction, like on a continous-loop mainline, I'd put the powered one first. If you use them on a point-to-point commuter line, so they'll be going forward and backward a lot, I'd put the powered on in the middle...but be...

Yup they're prototypical for GN FT's, if you add the numberboards as noted above, they should look great and be a real eye-catcher.

I'm guessing - unless you're going to operating streetcars - that you probably have 18" radius curves, not 13" :mrgreen:. Plus, besides the problems already noted about brass track, keep in mind that 18" is considered a very sharp curve in HO. It quite possible some of your engines, passenger...

On my last HO layout I had some 28" curves; my Walthers Superliners with body-mounted couplers went thru them with no problems.

That appears to be an Athearn "round roof" heavyweight coach lettered as a Rock Island commuter coach as used in the Chicago area. The Athearn model is fairly close to the Rock Island car, it's a little short (72' instead of 80') and the windows are a little different. The current issue of...

I don't think LifeLike ever made unpowered versions. Real RDC's were all powered, they weren't designed to pull any cars, but railroads often ran several of them together - all powered. More railroads had RDC-1's (full coach) so I suspect the model is more popular hence the higher prices...

...or your link didn't work, I tried it both places and it came up with a blank page !! :mrgreen:

Keep in mind DZ's are Z-scale decoders designed for low-volt/amp Z scale motors, whereas Athearn motors (assuming these are BlueBox ones) have pretty high amp draw, so those decoders aren't really a good choice for those locomotives. I edited my earlier post, so maybe you didn't read it, but...

I was thinking maybe, since a decoder takes AC power from the track and converts it to DC to run the motor, maybe some of the DC from one unit was leaking into the incoming wiring of the other unit, causing it to think it should be running under DC. But if you've tried them as two separate units...

Micro-Mark generally has excellent prices, under $150 in some cases. Keep in mind some of these engines are available without DCC or sound for under $70 (or less on ebay) and you could add your own sound decoder and end up paying less than the Micro-Mark prices.

I would check out the latest "Canadian Railway Modeller" magazine, it has part 3 of a 4 part series on modelling the GMD1. There is a company that makes a resin shell kit that you can use with a modified Athearn (Atlas?) chassis. The articles go step by step on how to do it using that shell...

It's a good kit. The doors can be a little finicky but I was able to get mine to work OK. One tip is to paint it before assembly, perhaps paint the inside and outside of the walls light gray, then lightly sand the bricks on the outside so the red of the plastic shows thru, but the interior stays...