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Hey, no problem about the Lionel questions. I'm glad someone else likes this stuff! I'm not 100% sure of this (only in the high 90s) but I don't believe Lionel made any plastic O gauge until after the war. The metal tender is much more likely. Remember, Lionel wasn't concerned about scale at...

Scott, another suggestion: Go to your local public library and see if they have any books on model railroading. Chances are they will. You'll end up buying some books eventually, but early on, you might be better off checking out some books and learning what you can for free. I definitely...

As far as national chains that have N scale and HO scale stuff, Hobby Lobby is your best bet. But a local store will have a better selection. The quality of some of the starter sets you'll find in a chain can be questionable at times. The last time I was at Toys R Us, I found some supercheap...

Sure would. Over on the OGR forums, http://ogaugerr.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x, there's a user named ben10ben. He collects Gilbert Erector sets and ought to be able to give you a ballpark figure.

Finding cars to match it shouldn't be much of a problem. Price varies, of course, but the more common Lionel prewar stuff isn't terribly expensive. It looks like even more of a bargain when you compare it to what Lionel and MTH are asking for modern O scale stuff. The other nice thing about...

As far as dating the unit, 1939 is definitely a reasonable guess. Lionel units with the "E" designation indicate the loco has the e-unit/sequencer that Lionel acquired when it bought its competitor Ives in 1930. They first appeared in 1932 (no one knows why Lionel waited two years). Lionel...

I'll second that, er, third that. It's very convincing looking and you know there isn't another like it in the world. Thanks for sharing it!

SG, I think you're right. Sometimes it seems like we're hampered more than we're helped by the abundance of RTR. I guess it's nice to be able to walk into a store, plunk down a ton of money, and have a complete layout, but then you get a layout that looks just like everyone else's... I'm...

Sometimes you get lucky at places like that. I find trains fairly often; the biggest problem is price. I see everything from old Tyco HO sets to imported tinplate wind-ups in O or S but they're usually overpriced. "Train" and "thousands of dollars" seem to be synonymous in a lot of people's...

Shaygetz, you mention this is sheet styrene normally used for pricing merchandise. What's your source for it? And how's the thickness compare to, say, the sheet styrene used in the 62-cent No Smoking/Beware of Dog/No Tresspassing signs?

The old Lionel whistling tenders worked that way, adding a DC signal to the AC, in the 1950s. I don't know anything about DCS, unfortunately. I do have a suggestion though. On the Classic Toy Trains (http://www.trains.com), O Gauge Railroading (http://ogaugerr.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x), and Model...

I'm partial to O scale myself, as it's still pretty large, yet (sometimes) less expensive than G. But if you're looking for ease of putting a circle of track on a shelf around a room, the larger scale of G would probably be an advantage. I think it'd be simpler. Before you plunk down any...

Looks like you're off to a good start. Coupla suggestions. To get a smooth surface on rough cardboard, some people use a lacquer-based sanding sealer for wood. This also strengthens it and protects from warpage. Another suggestion for getting rivets. There's a spiked wheel in sewing kits...

I read a suggestion not long ago to fill in mortar using wall spackling instead of paint. It looks more realistic and does seem to do a better job than paint of getting into the crevices and staying off the surface of the bricks. The owner of my local train shop uses white shoe polish. I...

Believe it or not I've made boxcars out of thin white cardstock, thinner than the stuff business cards are made of. It's a little flimsy, but there are tricks that can help. Reinforce the corners with wood (basswood strips are cheap--get $2 worth and you can build several cars, especially if you...

An ATX power supply can be a useful source of power too. On the big 18-pin plug, if you ground the green wire to the black wire, it'll power up, and then you can make use of its 3.3 volt, 5 volt, and 12 volt connections, or mix them to get 1.7 volts, 8.7 volts, or 7 volts. You can get the pinout...

Jon, thanks for the welcome. Sammy, I'm still learning a lot of this stuff too. My Dad and I had his 1950s Lionel O27 gear set up in the basement when I was growing up, but neither of us knew a whole lot about it. That was during the 1980s when O scale anything was hard to come by. I dug...

O scale vs. O gauge vs. O27 Hi there, I hope this will help a little bit. Marx stuff, as others have said, can be a little bit difficult to scale. Marx, Lionel, Flyer, K-Line, and MTH O27 stuff is indeed scaled at about 1:64, the same as S scale. People have been known to replace the trucks...