Recent content by Charles Smiley

This video plays in a number of hobby shops off of a repeating loop DVD. . Since they have all been closed for a few months I'm posting a youtube version here. It's around 30 minutes long.

I been really busy making this DVD as pictured below. the layout didn't get more than occasional dusting and track cleaning for some time. The whole thing needs weathering - but not until all the other stuff is done to it. And until all the bugs are proved gone and outta here, and it runs...

Yeah thanks. I like the continuous piece handrailing. I might try that soon when I get more brass wire. I've been out since the shutdown and waiting for the shops to open again. In some of the photos I have on slides of these things it almost looks like they cut the front steps off it's all so...

I picked one of these up knowing that it was a generic Pacific (4-6-2). I'm in the process of making it look more like an SP Pacific as used on the SF Peninsula. I need it for a Fast Mail train with all Harriman style dark-olive colored cars that I built up. On flat ground these things were...

QUOTE: Charles! Do you have any themes in mind? The space you described sounds great. Sure. All my models are centered on 1956, Alameda and Contra Costa County SP and WP Railroad themes. So I'll keep with that. All the buildings are derived, in part or total, from that area and time. All the...

Chuck, Thanks! Actually I retired, from electronics engineering, some time ago. But since then, I still have a hand in making more new vintage railroad videos and I still have more of those I have material saved up for. If I stop "doing" and making things, it might hasten the demise. I've seen...

Yeh, I thought about modular style, but I like sweeping-vistas and that might make it harder. Regarding the present 20x20 layout, I told the Mrs. and daughter that when I'm gone they can arrange a sale -- and the rolling stock, signals (all brass), Electronics and the buildings can be...

I have scored a few brass WP cabooses that way. Many came with poor trucks, no paint or glazing. But They are true "durable goods" and worth the time to honor their long-suffering wait in a box stuffed into a dark closet. :) Chas.

We have been looking at places to retire and it has included Texas and Arizona. I have noticed that in places like Kingman, and Bullhead City, AZ that you can sell a So.Cal home and buy a palace for half that amount. AND! The newer homes in many cases are adding not only a 3 car garage (Yay!)...

Gary, It's HO scale. I used the Walthers street lights. They look great unlighted. But they were so dumb to use incandescent bulbs instead of cool-white LEDs. Also the plug-socket design is prone to being unreliable here on my layout and intermittent. I have replaced several. I thought it would...

I cut off at 1956 and I 98-percent keep to it with the trains. Same with autos and trucks. One exception I can think of is a little white model of the Jeep Gladiator pickup truck that didn't really come out until 1963. But hardly anyone would know that date or even what the truck was. Off...

No it isn't over weathered. But.... Ore cars show up at mines, and then ore processing plants, Both of those "customers" have no expectation of clean cars. These cars usually are essentially "captive" to one railroad. When a boxcar shows up at a kitchen appliance factory I would think that...

This is an Albers Mill, something like the one that was in Portland, OR. It has been "transplanted" to 1956 Oakland, CA. I liked the looks of it a lot so I built a resemblance of it.

What scale is that? It looks too detailed for HO. It is HO. The basic building is the old resin kit of a city block that Walthers now offers in plastic.. I built it long ago and it waited in a closet for the layout to be built.

I still travel a lot by train. Amtrak that is. I do it to see things and relax. If I want speed I'll twist my legs into an airline seat-space and endure it for an hour or two. Having said that, I think the California HS train was a scam and a fraud from the beginning. A small fortune was...