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My sister lives in Ridley Park and helped restore the Vauclain Fire Engine. Is it a standard or narrow gauge engine? Dave H.

Model Railroader published plans of the Gettysburg station in the February 1982 issue. Dave H.

Its a tie pick up train. the "engine" is a former SW7/9/1200 with a new hood on it pulling a string of "double stack" well cars that have rails welded to the top edges. The big yellow blob on the back is a backhoe configured to run along the rails on the cars and equipped with a grappling...

It can be done either way, the engine can pick up the cars and bring them back to the train, then do the air test or test the cars first and then bring them back to the train. Testing the cars before you add them to the train has the advantage that if there is something wrong with the air...

Instead of "modular" I would think "sectional". the difference being modular (whether it be N track or Freemo) uses a standard track position at the joint between modules. A sectional layout does not. The tracks are wherever required and there is no attempt to have anything standard as far as...

Brass has a coeffieint of expansion of about 10 in/in-Degr F x 10(-6). (10 inches per inch and degree F of temp change times ten to the -6). For a solid 30 ft long piece of rail (and nickel silver is basically brass) and a 20 degree temperature swing (room =72, rail = 92) that would be an...

You shouldn't solder EVERY joint. Many people solder joints in the curves to keep a smooth curve. Leave gaps/joints every 2-3 rail lengths. Don't rely on the rail to carry your current, put in feeders every or every other piece of flex track. Dave H.

An awful lot of work to put a poor quality shell on the wrong underframe. Dave H.

The change in the length of the rail is very, very small. Most of the time the kinks in the track is caused by the swelling/shrinking of the wood roadbed underneath. It changes length 10 times more than the rail does. Dave H.

If you have a coal mine, a coke oven and steel mill all on a 16x7 layout, you probably don't need a railroad, they would all be so close they could just conveyor the material from one step to the other. My suggestion is to model one end or the other, either the coke oven, steel mill end or...

I run older stuff from 100 to 110 years ago. "Old trains from 35-40 years ago" only takes you to 1973 to 1968. That doesn't even cover any steam or even first generation diesel hood units (no GP9's or GP18's, no RS3's). It just barely hits Alco's and no Baldwin diesels. Dave H.

Lets do the math. The proposal was to electrify 36,000 route miles of track. Lets say that those 36,000 miles could be electrified for $500,000 a mile (a very low ball estimate). That means it would cost $18 trillion dollars to electrify the 36,000 miles (that doesn't include new service...

A hybid is a something that is a combination of several things. A locomotive that uses both diesel and electric would be a hybrid and i bllieve that the person that mentioned them was you. The FL9s didn't use a 50kv overhead electrical system to operate for hundreds of miles. Regardless...

So now we have to buy 3 types of engines: diesel, electric and hybrid. this is getting more expensive by the minute. Actually it is. There are hundreds of interline service agreements, that specify who supplies what power for which interchange trains. So yes the shortlines have a legal...

Au contraire, its a very big deal. About 1/3 of western coal trains originate or terminate on a short line or a non-strategic railroad. So the shortline that now uses the class 1 road's power to deliver the coal trains to the utility will have to buy C44AC's to handle the trains. About...

You assume that the line you are interchanging to is electrified. The proposal was only to electrify the "strategic" corridors. What happens when the train leaves a "strategic" corridor? Or do you think that traffic only travels on the strategic corridors and there are no trains on the secondary...

Its called distributed power, DP and it is used by almost all the major railroads. the rear engines are radio controlled remote engines. DP gives better train handling, allows larger trains and better stopping distance. Dave H.

The increased costs for the railroads are substantial and offer few benefits. The railroads still have to retain all the service facilities for diesel locomotives since the local operations and operations to all the non-electrified areas has to be maintained. The railroads still have to...

Clover House also sells PC ties. Ties are 8-9" wide. You can use single or double sided PC board. If you use double sided, make sure you don't use and spickes through holes in the PC board that will short out on the back side. Dave H.

Any vertical kinks in the rail? Are the points in gauge or tight gauge where they might be forcing the trucks up? Are the points loose and let the trailing axe drop in? Is anything hitting the "switch machine"? Really crude approach. Swap the switch out with another similar switch. If...