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Dash, Lots of times the batteries you get in a discount store or something like that are either old/stale, or they're the cheap batteries they make for demo-ing things in the store and aren't made to last long. I got some AA batteries for my CD player once and couldn't get a whole CD out of a...

My Dad worked at a warehouse when I was a kid, and I remember him telling me that they'd use the cable from the overhead crane to pull rail cars where they needed to be spotted. Also, it seems to be there was some sort of lever you could use to move a car by hand, you fitted it under a wheel...

Lots of times my wife has handed me something and asked me to throw it away, and I look at it with that far-away look in my eyes and she just KNOWS I'm trying to decide if I can use it. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't but keep it anyway. I also take an asthma medicine called Advair, and as...

Fantastic work Mike.

I've subscribed to MR for almost 20 years (with a break in the early 90's when my main recreational activity was working late) and can definitely see a difference in the "craftsman"-type articles. On the other hand (where I have five fingers) back then there just weren't as many good-looking...

Trainclown, If you only need a handful of rivets that were accidentally removed from a model, the easiest way may be to just drill really small holes where the rivets go, then stick in a short length of approriately sized wire held in with ACC. Again, depends on how many rivets you lost, but I...

Belg, As far as I know, there were three main types of engines used for logging, the Shay, Climax, and Heisler locos. Bachmann makes a Shay in their Spectrum line, I've heard great things about it. MDC makes Shays too, as well as a Climax, and Rivarossi makes Heislers. I've heard that the...

Welcome :wave: Alan! Of the forums I participate in the-gauge and railroad-line forums are the best and friendliest (and there's a lot of folks who are members of both). You'll always get answers to your questions, no matter how off-the-wall (and I've asked some DOOZIES!). While I also...

I also started off at Atlas, and a while back RR-line had a big flame war that spilled over to Atlas, so when RR-line came back I checked it out and liked it, then found The-gauge thru rr-line. The-gauge and railroad-line are my two favorite forums, although I still check and occasionally post...

Robin, Fantastic as always. Since I don't think I commented on your last couple buildings (I was offline for a few hours :D ) let me say they're awesome too. Keep up the step-by-step instructions, maybe someday I'll tackle one!

Ron, That book just arrived last night. For the record, it's cheaper from Amazon. I took a look thru it, but technically it's a Christmas present so I'll wait to read it in more detail. If the article seems good I just may spring for the back issues from MR to fill in all the details...

Thanks for the replies folks! The two engines I'm most interested in are both CNJ prototypes, a 4-6-0 camelback and a 4-6-4T tank engine, both used in commuter service by CNJ. Both show up in brass on e-bay periodically and usually go in the $400 price range, just too rich for my blood. I...

There are a couple of engines I'd really like to have (HO scale) that no one is likely to make. There are brass models out there, but they're just too expensive. There really aren't any models that would be kit-bashed either, so that seems to leave me in the realm of scratch building. Has anyone...

I've got it figured out, Robin is really Santa Claus, he has his elves build these structures! One person couldn't POSSIBLY do all that work that fast! Seriously though Robin, amazing as always.

And to make matters even worse, details on a particular model can change during the production period of a particular locomotive (railfans call these "phases"), and when the next model comes out it may be very similar externally to the late phase of the older model. We won't even discuss...

1. How many train related items will you buy for yourself between now and the first of the year? I've "hinted" to my wife that I'd like my track-building supplies (I intend to try hand-laying) for Christmas, and I usually get some other train stuff for Christmas too. I don't know if that...

Amazing, fabulous, fantastic, AWESOME! I have to get out my Thesaurus to find more adjectives.

As far as I've seen, there's only one good reason to use live loads, and that's if you're modelling a rotary dumper or something similar. Yes, real railroads have to clean up coal after a derailment too, but personally I don't want to be that prototypical. On another forum I frequent I...

A few years ago in MR magazine there was a guy who build really nice, loose stone (no mortar) foundations on some of his buildings. He made a mold that would cast plaster strips of the appropriate size, once they were set he just broke them off to the sizes he wanted and stacked them...

Quite a few years ago (late 80's maybe) there was a letter-to-the-editor in MR from a woman complaining about how wives in general were depicted in MR, either complaining over the husbands time or "cooing over the itty bitty choo choo (barf)". This woman's husband was a model railroader, she...