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I looked seriously at P87, and ended up deciding against it. Some things I learned during my investigation: Properly gauged regular track works just fine for P87. However, track that is excessively widened (think Atlas) may have P87 wheels dropping between the rails. The maximum permitted...

Hobbytown of Boston used to use helical gears in their diesel drives. Helical gears can be used as spur gears for parallel shafts, or at 90 degrees like worm and worm gear. Because the teeth are not straight, they are quieter than spur gears, or crown and pinion gears. Drawbacks are the...

The issue is that knuckle couplers (both prototype and model) require "slack" to uncouple - there cannot be tension on the couplers for them to release. You would have to set up the incline with the right grade at each end to allow the cars to have the slack for the couplers to release. Or set...

Wood and resin are reasonably economical for small production runs (50 is about max for resin without work on molds/masters). A laser cutter is not too expensive, and can pay its way fairly quickly in the production of quality wood kits with accurate pre-cutting of parts. Usually, the laser cut...

Doc has some very good points. As an experiment, I replaced the 60 watt bulbs in the overhead fixture in my to-be train room and office with "daylight" CFLs a couple of months ago. My initial reaction was that the light was way too "flat", and I wasn't going to repeat that experiment again...

Steve My 2 cents - pay the slightly extra cost and use either "full spectrum" tubes with a CRI of 85 or better, or get the "daylight" compact flourescent curly bulbs. The color difference is remarkable. We proved statistically during the long winters in Alaska that the full spectrum tubes...

I didn't use a phone jack because I thought those were too frail in my ham-fisted plugging and unplugging. I used a 10ft coiled phone handset cord with the ends cut off. One end went inside the controller, and the other mated to an about 3/4" by 3/4" square 4 pole plug I think I got at Radio...

The boards will work fine as power distribution for your Torti. Somewhat of an overkill IMHO, but the price is right, and it is easy to fuse your circuits. As pointed out, the current rating of the fuse should be slightly above the maximum normal current of your circuit, but not to exceed the...

It's really quite easy and cheap to get walk-around control in DC. I built a very simple transistor throttle in a hand-held housing for $7 worth of parts (at Radio Shark prices), added a coiled telephone handset line with a 4 pole plug, and connected the layout-mounted receptacle to a train set...

I have an idea for a somewhat practical braking system that I'm going to try to develop that could mount on a car truck. The brake would be actuated by a DCC decoder. Drawback is that brake modulation would be impractical - brake would be on or off. And braking force would be limited to the...

There have been occasional models - more typically smaller switchers due to fewer gears - in HO, N, and O where the drivers were linked together by a spur gear train. The problems with this arrangement are the spur gears are noisy, and binding due to timing problems if the gears and side rods...

Kevin I have set of both Ulrich and MDC Overtons. Although models of the same prototype, there are subtle differences besides the material (Ulrich are diecast metal). While they possibly could have come from the same dies, I don't believe it's likely. Ulrich was bought out by Walters in the...

Steve I was more tongue-in-cheek than anything. While Atlas has made the size and spacing of their ties more reasonable with the code 83 line of track, the turnouts have gotten uglier over time. Or maybe it's just my eyes have seen too much that is better. I still use Atlas turnouts and Snap...

A long time in Model Railroader (1960s?), there was a sidebar on a layout design for a logging or mining layout about, "After I build the gem, then what?" Building a realistic one industry layout is certainly more challenging than loosely free-lancing a common carrier. It takes much more...

Take a look at the prototype. No prototype uses a tie or wooden bar the shape of a tie to throw the turnout. They use several metal rods as spreader bars to link the points. Another metal rod is used to move the points. No commercial turnout uses anything remotely like the prototype. So to say...

The problem might be lack of power from the power packs. They generally put out just enough to run one locomotive at a time. Look for a power pack rated at 1.5 amp or greater, or 18VA. OTOH, insufficient wiring could be causing a voltage drop at key points. One way to determine which is the...

At some point, you are going to want to ascertain the real current draw of your locomotives. If measuring current draw on DCC, you will need a Rampmeter (sp?) sold by Tony's to get an accurate measurement. If measuring on DC - not "DC" from a DCC system! - an ordinary multimeter or ammeter will...

From your description, I assume that you prefer to set up multiple trains on multiple routes through nice scenery and watch them run. I'm not much on planning that type of layout (different strokes....), so I'll stay away from the track plan itself and discuss some other issues I see in your...

KW If you want to use track nails to fasten the track, I strongly recommend Homasote instead of cork. Homasote is the best roadbed material to push spikes (for handlaid track) or nails into, yet will not yield and will hold screws, nails, and spikes well. Homasote is not always easy to...

Looking at Model Railroader is not a good way to get a feel for the pulse of the hobby - much more so today than in the '60s when I started reading the magazine. To me, what made MR special disappeared in the '80s - perhaps it was me changing and not so much the magazine. But certainly in the...