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Well I'm very much a lone wolf in many things, not just model railroading (I used to be in bands a bit when I was in school, but I got sick of the hassle of trying to come to group decisions about what songs we'd do etc, so I just bought a tape deck I could overdub with and starting doing it all...

I found the top speed for my Bachmann two-truck HO climax was about 16 MPH which seems about right per the prototype. BTW that's why most logging railroads here in Minnesota used 'rod' engines (particularly 2-6-0's) instead of geared loco's, they usually had to haul the logs 20-30-40 miles...

I read it over Xmas weekend. I liked it, I guess I would agree with Tony Koester's column in MR where he said he thought it was an excellent, well-written book but that he didn't agree with all the opinions/conclusions that Posey expressed. I guess you could argue all of us have some things...

I'd try a websearch on MTH / Mike's Train House, pretty sure they have a website which would have the info on their products.

To start I would just do a process of elimination. If you have an engine that you know runs fine, try it. If it doesn't work, disconnect the new tranformer and connect up an old one, using the same wires etc. If that doesn't work, could be there's a short in the track or wiring or something like...

Just curious - guess that new Spectrum Climax has got me thinking about logging !! Anyway, I live in Minnesota. In the great lakes area (Minnesota, Wisconsin, upper Michigan, Ontario & Quebec) logging was almost entirely done in the winter, but I don't think I've ever seen a logging layout set...

I was hoping that had changed with the more recent K4's, I have one of the first ones from the eighties and it can't pull too much - runs well but not much pull. Course one good thing is the PRR often doubleheaded them, guess that might work til you can get em to pull better. Does Bowser...

That's a good Lionel engine to have, it's a smaller 0-27 version of the Hudson, designed along the general lines of a Santa Fe engine. 2046W means the tender has a whistle in it !! Try a search on "Lionel 2046" and you'll come up with a lot of info...

The ICC ruling on billboard reefers was done for the benefit of the railroads. What was happening was let's say Hormel told a railroad they needed six empty reefers at their plant tomorrow. Next day six reefers would arrive - lettered "ARMOUR" in huge letters, because they were the first...

BTW the decoder worked fine, but I should have ordered a different harness. It still worked but had to kinda turn the decoder upside down to fit it in.

The packet looks like black plastic model coal to me (similar to model ballast 'cinders'). Silica usually comes in a paper packet, this is a clear plastic packet. Suspect it's for augmenting the coal load or putting a few stray coal lumps on the deck or something.

I didn't get any historical info etc. with mine so I suspect that is normal. Next step is converting to DCC !! Because loco is so new couldn't find any recommendations so had to take shot in the dark, ordered a TCS-M2PV with 1/4" OS harness from Loy's Toys - a supersmall N/Z size decoder...

I think for DCC it's usually recommended that you change the loco's wiring so that it is picking up from both sides of the tender and loco if possible...and of course be sure the motor is isolated from the frame.

Yup, those are the ones I was talking about in my reply earlier. Given the price they're really quite nice, two different styles of autos plus some pickups and delivery vans.

It depends too on where you are modelling - i.e. what state your layout would be in. For example, here in MN narrow guage railroads were outlawed in 1911 (in fact the last narrow guage line (Milwaukee Road) had gone standard guage in 1903) and as far as I know all logging lines built were...

This is from the old layout, but same idea / area as the new one.

These might be a little too far back for your era, but the Life-Like autos are really pretty good. I used them exclusively on my layout for a while, then started mixing in mini-metals over time. I still use some parked between more detailed cars, unless you really look you can't tell they are...

It looks like mine just has the coal load - it's a separate part that you remove to access the DCC plug. I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to make a replacement one for an oil burner. Took a quick look at the instruction sheet again, couldn't see any mention there of a different 'lid' for oil...

I just read it over the holidays. It's a good book, I disagree with some of his conclusions - like that there's a battle between 'operations guys' and 'scenery guys'. He overlooks that John Pryke and Tony Keuster are operators but have (or had) excellent scenery. (BTW - I couldn't find...

grlakeslogger - I'll check about the coal/oil deal, mine is ptd/unlettered but I haven't opened up two little bags of parts yet so I'm not sure if both are included.