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They all sort of work more-or-less-reliably with MT couplers, except for the Kato 'imitation couplers' sometimes found on the front end of steam locos, for example. On the other hand, I've eventually worked out that you shouldn't worry about the couplers at all, as every single one will need...

I think you need some more buildings in there, Jim... :D

Happy Birthday fifer, also mine tomorrow, we're off to a ball tonight so all dressed up with place to go, and then mucho hangover tomorrow probably before time to meet up with the lads at the pub. Doubt if much modelling will be going on... :rolleyes:;)

It's no easier detailing in HO -- you just have to do more of it! :-) In many respects N is easier in this respect as you don't have to do as much to make things look pretty good. I don't agree about the space thing -- once you have some reasonable amount of space, whatever it is, you'll get...

Lovely.... how many 89' autoracks will it pull? :D

Looks great! Have you seen the Blair Line Cash Mine, which would fit well over your two mine tracks, it's about 4 inches square... I'm in the process of building this one myself: The only thing I might suggest for your layout is to fit in as much track as you can after the runaround at the...

Fibre optics are tricky to get around corners, so you need a straight approach to your light. This is where they can let you down if you want a very small thing to be lit up -- you can't get in at the right angle. And, of course, there are a huge number of LEDs available now in micro sizes and...

Try Atlas RTS for very simple stuff (but no flextrack), or Xtrkcad if you're cheap (it's free but very hard to use and slow), or one of the commercial CAD rail programs like 3rdplanit or Raily...

seconded for www.ngineering.com -- almost everything I've bought from them turns out to be a must-have. The tiny leds are scarily tiny (1mm x 0.5mm), they also have .005" plate glass, and .004" stainless steel rod.... great service too... Charles

Z is 6.5mm, but you'll have a whole lot more problem finding things. Why not try narrow gauge HO (HOn30?), where you stick to the HO scale and use N-gauge track? There are a lot of kits and even RTR trains available in that size, particularly relating to mining and logging cars...

Well exactly. It's not exactly about looks -- it's about what it's trying to look like. Peco is modelling the UK/European tie spacing, Atlas the US spacing. Obviously using either one for the 'wrong' area will be a compromise... It'd be interesting to see what happens if Peco brought out a...

I think that naming comes down to getting used to it. I always wondered how everyone else managed to come up with such good and believable names, but I think it may be that their existence is their believability. I.e. once you have a website and a signature tag and a logo, then that's a...

If you use Peco 55, you won't have the problem. The inner pins are far smaller than their equivalents in Atlas code 55, and don't cause trouble even for quite weird old Arnold steamers and suchlike with huge flanges. It's another of the plus points to the peco offering. I haven't heard of...

MT sell Kato-specific coupler conversions for most, I believe the SD80 is the same as the F3 set (or is it the RS-2 set?). On the ones I've done (which doesn't include the SD80 to be fair), the conversions are disappointing. Each time I've thrown those away and fitted standard 1015's, which...

Well that's a new one! It would be interesting if you could measure out some real ties and see what should be what in the UK... got a tape measure handy?

DCC is just great fun -- on my 8x4 layout I always have two trains running and sometimes up to 4 on a single controller. If a friend wants to do some switching in the yard that's even more. DCC is more complex in some ways than DC, (although once you have a lot of blocks and reversing loops...

Electrofrog is the way to go, if you're ok with the (slightly) more complex wiring. See the www.wiringfordcc.com website for the last word on getting your wiring bomb-proof. After reviewing others' experience, I chose the code 55 Peco turnouts and have found them excellent -- the consensus...

And while I was playing with LEDs, I needed something inside my buildings. So a simple photo of walls of the house, printed out and folded inside come out surprisingly well... Maybe a bit too much chalk on the windows here... it looks better in real life but I was interested to see that net...

Micro project 2 Ok while we've got the thin styrene out, I cut four strips (about 2-3mm wide) and glued them into a rectangular tube: Sand down the edges, and cut alternately straight and 45 degree cuts through it with a fine saw (the above is the 'offcut'), which give you... Spotlights...

I've been working recently on some tiny projects I can do at my desk in the house, while dull stuff is on TV... First, I saw a commercial DPM add-on of an access door on to the roof, which looked like a good bit of roofing detail (although it appeared a bit rough). So, working on 2mm to 1foot...