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Zelda, I think the biggest problem with tourist railroads is the limited operational interest. Most are probably like the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento or the one in Jamestown where a train runs 5 miles or so down a straight track, stops and returns. There are 4 railroads that...

It looks great, Miles. I'd never heard of that forum before. Unfortunately, I don't dare go to another forum. I already spend way too much time surfing the net! In reading your comments about the scenery, I discovered when attending a work shop put on by Miles Hale at the NMRA convention in...

Cool! I never get tired of looking at the stuff you have built.

Jim also addresses the most likely causes of noise in that link I posted. If you have the old style "gummy bear" motor mounts, the most likely problem is that the mounts have let the motor come loose. The Athearn gear boxes can also have flash on the gears that can cause noise or the gears...

If you check for glass fuses at an auto parts store, they all say 250v max even though they are used on a 12 volt automotive system. The voltage rating doesn't matter as Don says. You can still get glass fuses at auto parts stores or at Radio Shack, and I think at hardware/home centers as...

You migth want to look at this link if I get the url correct. http://members.aol.com/JFuhrtrain/tuneup.htm That page explains most of the reasons for electrical problems with Athearn blue box locomotives. If you click on the link for the "five wire system" you will get instructions on how...

It looks like a Hobby Town drive. Did Cary ever make a die cast Fa?

I think for practical purposes, leveling the yard would be the best solution. I find it frustrating when I want to spot a car in a location, or couple up to one car and leave the others, to have to play a bunch of games to get the rest of the cars to stay put.

Galen, I forgot to congratulate you on the new baby. Did you have anther son or is this one a daughter?

Just for general info, what the ICC banned as far as bill boards were concerned was that the bill board had to advertise only what was carried in the car. The result was that the railroads no longer could put advertising on the cars because they used the reefers for all sorts of loads and for...

Galen scratch builds and kitbashes with the best, but sometimes the results of scratch building something just are not worth the effort. This is especially true of something inside a passenger car that has no removable roof for viewing. When your only view of something is through coach...

If the seats prove too difficult to build, you might want to look into modifying Pike Stuff coach seats to fit. It seems that a lot of the old school kits did not go together as well as they should have. It is almost like the guy who designed one part of the model didn't even talk to the guy...

I had one of those track cleaners at one time. I don't know what happened to it. I think it was made by either Lifelike or Model Power. I did find that I had the same problem as you with the orifice plugging up after it sat for a day or two with fluid in it. I may find it again when ever I...

MRC makes very good throttles for dc use, but the tech 2's, 3's, or 4's are not good enough to use with many dcc systems because dcc needs a filtered dc output. With the number of modelers who have switched to dcc, you may be able to find some good reasonably priced used MRC throttles at the...

Josh, blue would work if there is enough contrast. Don't make it the same shade of blue as the star in the logo. For instance, that dark blue truck in the last pic would work with your decals and there would be no problem with the logo disappearing because the blue is so much darker than the...

I think we also sometimes can get a bit of "tunnel vision" regarding our hobby. We think it has gotten expensive, but Ertl was making a lot of money producing die cast collectible cars. They thought the model railroad business would be a profitable sideline. They made some really nice...

I used to watch trains in the Central Valley of California while riding with my dad in his 18 wheeler every summer when I was out of school. I had a Marx 0-27 train set as a kid. Then when I was in Jr high and high school in Fremont California, the Western Pacific mainline was just behind the...

They work a 10 hour shift, but if a train has to sit in a siding waiting for another train to pass, that time is included in the 10 hour shift but doesn't move the train. Every crew would need to stop for at least one meal per shift. Time zone changes will affect how fast the train gets across...

Wayne R, use a wire basket for the parts when you soak the other one. Expect to have parts glued on that one also. A friend of mine use to be a custom painter here in So Cal before he went to work as a quality control manager for Athearn. As with most really good custom painters, most of his...

I think they are a standard electrical connector screw. They are a common size used in electrical contactors, relays, etc. I'm not sure if they are a #2 or #4. What part of California are you in? There is a MacFadden-Dale Industrial Hardware store in Anaheim at 2925 East La Palma Ave. I...