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I have been poking around the Internet in search of paint recipes to get various popular shades. I am experimenting with the system written up a few years ago in RMC for using craft paints, amended with some specialty painting fluids, to substitute for pricier model RR paints. I'm willing to do...

This message started out to be a post at the Running Bear's Diner thread, but I decided instead to break it out as its own thread here. I definitely want to have some kind of metalworking plant in one of my communities and have pretty much settled on a firetruck mfg operation. (This to honor a...

Hello, all... I know I have been away a long time, but I recently got started on a project and decided I would share some progress. Working from a LifeLike supply house kit, along with a LifeLike general store kit, I am kitbashing a small enclosed sawmill. It is still early, but here are some...

I know much has been written here already about the famous Northlandz mega-layout. Now it's the subject of a new short film just released two days ago. Here's a link to the page about the film, and the film itself is embedded on the page. Check it out...

I am soldering feeders to my PECO switches. I wanted to test to make sure that the connections were solid. I hooked up the feeders to an inexpensive DC HO power pack. Then, using my multimeter, I ran current through the feeders and put the multimeter leads to the respective rails of the switch...

Around my layout will be a number of dual coil switch machines, all or mostly Peco. To route power to them efficiently I plan to use bus wires. The machines will be controlled by toggle switches that have a momentary contact. I will wire a Circuitron Snapper capacitor discharge unit into the...

A long while back I was puzzling out the reverse section for my layout (A combination of loop and Wye) and posted some questions about that here. I got good answers, but now I'm actually in the position to be laying track and wiring I'm looking again at the questions. Here's a basic schematic...

I thought I saw someone talk about this on the forum recently, but I haven't found it. Does anyone have experience in modifying turnouts by cutting the ties between the normal and diverging routes so as to either add a slight curvature to the normal route of a straight turnout, or else change...

First of two posts... For a twice-around schematic (assume the size is big enough that it's operated from the center; black represents the track)... Should the bus wires (represented by red and gray) go around once and feed both portions of the twice-around? (Just showing one set of...

Years ago the 19 year old in the living room who will be leaving for South Korea in 3 days to report to his first post as an army MP gave me for Christmas an inexpensive Bachman F-unit. Of course, it has no place in a 1930s-era short line, but I have hoped to repurpose it mostly for sentimental...

Motley's nice new Cali Zephyr train prompts this question... My first association with "Zephyr" (where trains are concerned) is the famed Burlington custom-built streamline train. When I first heard of the "California Zephyr" I tended to link it to the Burlington train, although I knew the...

Thursday I will board a train in Chicago and ride to Washington, D.C., where I'll change to a train up to Wilmington, DE, to make a brief visit to family and take in my high school reunion over the weekend. Well, Amtrak has told me (in 2 emails and 2 phone calls, at least) today that the...

Picking up from a question that arose in my previous thread... I'm hoping I can reduce this to a few simple rules. With turnouts -- at least, with Peco Insulfrog turnouts -- is it simplest just to install feeders at each end of every turnout, including on the two diverging tracks? Like this...

So I'm almost ready to put in the gaps and feeders, but I've been stuck on just what segment of track I want to isolate as my reversing section on the complex Wye-Plus-Loop situation I have. :eek: The plan has changed since the last time I asked this question, so I'm starting a fresh thread on...

I have an old am Rico station kit that I got 40+ years ago and was reunited with over the summer. I have soaked parts of it in isopropyl to get off the lousy paint job I gave it way back when, with uneven results. I plan to kitbash it into something more suited to northern Wisconsin. If I spray...

As I think and over-think and over-over-think ("Overthinking is my superpower!" I told a friend yesterday) how to sort out the question of where to put Eagle Junction (see my layout progress thread for all the gory details), there's pretty much a bottom line question. Or two, actually. 1) With...

Does anyone know why Walthers Code 83 #6.5 curved turnouts cost so dang much?:mad: I'm looking at a few situations in which the otherwise perfect Peco Code 83 #7 curved turnouts don't quite fit. The Walthers would fit perfectly. :confused: But *man* they are pricey! $40 seems to be the...

Users of Peco switch machines are probably familiar with the recommendation to put a piece of cardstock, carefully cut to fit the mechanism, between the bottom of the turnout and the top of the switch machine so as to shield the machine from ballast or other detritus that could foul it. So...

I am guessing this model has deeper flanges than RP 25 and won't run on code 70 rail, but does anyone know for sure? http://www.trainworld.com/manufacturers/mehano/2-6-0-mogul-requires-kadee-27-coupler/Mehano-260MCNW-2-6-0-Mogul-Chicago-and-North-Western/ From the DairyStatePhone

The idea of weaving corrugated cardboard strips to make scenery forms has been around for a long time, and I've been assuming I would go that route. It's one of several systems suggested by Dave Frary in his scenery book. I know there are other options (layered, carved insulation foam...