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I'd like to wire my tortoises (thrown with panel toggle switch) to two bicolor LED's, one for each track. So that when the switch is thrown, the 'open' track is green and the 'closed' track red... Now, I THINK the easiest way to do this is to wire up to bicolor LED's per the standard wiring to...

Hey all, Last chance to comment on the layout. Benchwork is under way and it will very shortly be too late to change... A few notations: 1) room is approx. 20x30 (irregular) 2) era is late 1940's, steam-to-early-diesel transition 3) focus is on passenger operations at a notable size union...

Thanks. That makes it 100% for both (here and also on another board where I asked)... So I'm thinking I better listen and do that...

Okay, gang. I know it's been discussed before, but the track, turnouts, etc are ordered, supporting benchwork is nearly done, and I have to decide: Foam or plywood for the base of the layout. Here's what I see in it: 1) Plywood Pro: Have used it many times, no problems. Easier to mount...

Good point, Fred. Part of the reason I moved away from "in-place" decouplers in favor of the 0-5-0 method... For me, if I was really on my game - everything tuned and working "just so", it worked right about 90% of the time - and that other 10% is extremely annoying.

Consider downloading RTS, a free track design program, from the Atlas website (www.atlasrr.com). It's a handy little tool that allows you to easily play with designs, and also to ensure you're being reality-based in terms of what will fit where...

I do track first for a very simple reason: I hate derailments. I want the track bulletproof before I get to anything else, and it becomes far more difficult to achieve this is you have to work around relatively delicate scenery, structures, etc. Not to mention the difficulty in working on any...

Kadee still makes and sells non-delay uncouplers. Well, they still sell them...for all I know they produced a run of 17 jillion decades ago and just haven't sold them out...

Bear in mind that (at least with Kadee), the uncouplers come in delayed and non-delayed versions. This bears notably on placement. With a delayed uncoupler, you stop over the magnet, slack the tension, then can push the car onward as far as you like without recoupling. When you reverse and...

I think they're about $6-7 at trainworld, standardhobby and the like, maybe $10-ish at the LHS...

I've never done it for uncouplers. I have, however, wound my own motor armatures in the past, and the experience was such that... I buy the ready-made uncouplers.

The electromagnet option works quite well, in my experience. The only limitation is a bit of extra wiring (no big deal) and you're still in a fixed location. The latter is the main reason I tend to "pick" ...

Not to be saccharine, Astrowolf, but I think it's just great. I'm absolutely lousy at designing small layouts myself, so I apprecate one that's "just so". I can see where the runaround track suggested would be good, but I think you'd then be at risk of getting over "spaghetti" and having no...

Okay, after feedback here and elsewhere, and a re-review of my givens and druthers (and an admission that I wanted to have a union station to merit multiple roadnames), here's the latest latest design. I'm posting here plus links to bigger/clearer versions. As before, the first image is the...

Hey Nathan, nice to see another member of the family here at the Gauge! One more thought (I collect prewar Lionel myself). You've had good advice here and figured out the oiling the motor thing for yourself too. However, the fellow that tied the ozone smell to arcing is right, and oiling is...

I saw a neat little doohickey that was shaped like a dentist's mirror, but instead of the mirror on the 'bent' end, it had a magnet. Same idea of hand-uncoupling as the old bamboo skewer, but worked very nicely. Unless the couplers had hard tension on them (e.g. sitting on a grade), you didn't...

Well, it's official... Benchwork has started. As I move out of layout design and construction issues, new questions arise for which I don't have good answers. Three of them, specifically. I've reviewed some existing posts and none quite hits these issues head on: Behind this, two givens that...

Well, here's what I'm doing (have tested it a bit, but nothing photograph-able: I took them back down after playing): 20" brackets (very heavy duty stuff) screwed into studs. These particular brackets are triangle-shaped, to a 20" bracked extends out 20" AND down the wall 20" with a 45-degree...

Well, it is in the process of being built on shelf brackets... I'm using the "screw in" version, not the rail system version. But I'm also building my layout in a purpose-built 'train room' in the basement, not in a dual-purpose living space, so I can sacrifice a certain amount of "elegance" in...

Taylor - I think your concern may be overzealous. I've lived in some tiny apartments in NYC and any of them you could have got a 4x8 sheet of plywood out... Think of it this way - if you can get a full-size bed boxspring in or out, you can likely get a 4x8 out in one piece. If you really feel...