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Thanks everybody! Lots of very good ideas here, and I'm sure I'll try several of them.

Code 83 flex. To me, it's a good compromise between "realistic" and "durable". After I started using code 83, the code 100 had to go! Now I'm playing around with some code 70 on less-used sidings (with plenty of weeds!).

To me, snap-switches vs. tortoise begs the question because they're both electrical, and when was the last time you saw a real railroad with electrical switches/turnouts/whatever? I grant you, scale-sized manual turnout throws are just about impossible in any scale below "S", but manual turnouts...

Kato, without hesitation. I think Atlas locomotives are excellent & own a bunch of them, but Kato's detail is just outstanding. I like Proto 2000 (when I don't get one with cracked gears :evil: ) for the detail/price ratio, too. How's that for equivocal?

I think I have 18 of these 70-Ton Hart ballast cars (6 MoPac, the rest all different roads). I don't know what it is about them, but I can't pass one up on eBay or on sale...

Have you ever seen a magnet for uncoupling cars on a real railroad? All the blah blah blah about "prototypical realism" cracks me up when I see those Kadee "hoses" hanging down. Operators on my layout uncouple cars and throw switches manually, just like the real world.

Pecos are supposed to be DCC-friendly, and you can sometimes find good prices for them on eBay. I use nothing but Peco (code 83) and I love them because of the affirmative spring action when you throw them, and because they are bullet-proof (in my experience).

The spring that holds the "knuckle" closed can pop out or become stretched so it no longer works the way it was intended. As for that non-prototype wire hanging down -- I clip them all off! (So does one of my local model railroad clubs -- on the club-owned cars). I have several Kato diesels that...

What kind of video camera are you using for these? I've considered shooting some video of my trains in action and posting them like this, too.

I'm finally biting the bullet on layout #3 and selling off all the EZ Track (I really love those 35" radius curves!) and going with all flextrack. I've never been able to lay curved flextrack without derailment-prone kinks in the joints, so any advice about that is beaucoup welcome. I'm...

Finally! Someone else who's used Mianne benchwork and is happy with it! I am not a carpenter and have no interest whatsoever in becoming one, so I, too, did my due diligence and settled on Mianne. I got the first setup for a 6' x 20' semi-dogbone put up in 1/2 day. It has since been reconfigured...

"I plan to have about 18 inches along the back side of the 8x4" Eighteen inches is a very tight space. 24" aisles used to be the norm in layout design, but these days most people try for 30" - 36". If you're just looking for occasional access, e.g., to solve a problem, I still think 24" should...

"F" is for Forward Looking good! The TrainMaster is my favorite diesel locomotive of its era (I own one in "S" scale as well as four in my "main" scale, HO). Does this Demonstrator have an "F" on the side under the walkway at the short hood end? That stands for "front", and different...

After a long absence from model railroading, about two years ago I was able to "pick up the thread" and re-enter the hobby, building a respectable 8x16 HO layout in one bay of my three-car garage. I have learned a lot from this project, and, having reached the limits of what I can "tweak" on...

:cry: This is a painful photo. This rehab project idea is starting to acquire some mental real estate with me. Questions, mostly, at this point. When you come across something like this, "Who owns these locomotives?" "Why weren't they just scrapped?" "How much would the owners pay me :) to get...

Me, too! I've gotten this far: steam locomotives are LOT more expensive to rehab than diesels, so I'd be happy with an RS-3 or a GP-18.

I don't disagree with you that some "grain elevators typically have more tracks to them. ... mainline, the loading track, and storage tracks"; I just wanted to add that in many places in Kansas, elevators like this model serve their traffic with a single long double-ended siding (like a passing...

I have some legacy Bachmann EZ Track (33" radius curves) that I will be using for a hidden helix on "Layout 2.0" (where I'm applying everything I learned from all the mistakes I made on "Layout 1.0"). I want to use flex track on cork for the rest of the layout. Since the rail tops of EZ Track...