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    Oily Residue from Smoke Generators

    So my son's BLI Class J is back, and he overfilled the smoker. There is now oil residue all over the engine. What's the best way to clean it?
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    Locomotive Brands

    I'm looking at the SD70ACE NYC Heritage unit. I see it's available from Both Athearn ("soon") and MTH. The price is about the same for each, so I was wondering which I should go with? I don't have any MTH locos, but someone once told me they're "Cadalliac bodies with Yugo motors". The only...
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    Improving Athearn 'Blue Box' locomotives

    I've acquired a bad habit of buying old 'new in box' Athearn locomotives. My last three were an AC4400, C44-9W, and a Baldwin S12. I've installed decoders and replaced headlights in previous locks, but now I'm getting a little more ambitious. I bought an SDH163 and speaker for one of the road...
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    First Broadway Limited experience, and it wasn't good

    Bought my son BLI's Class J (612 since 611 was sold out). Took it out of the box for the first time this morning at the club, put it on the DC track. It ran beautifully for nearly two hours, and then stopped dead on the track. No sound, no smoke, no light, no motion. Tried their hardware...
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    Why a local hobby shop is dying

    I live in New York City. My boro has no hobby shops that sell trains. There are two hobby shops in Manhattan that I am aware of selling trains. One is a suite in an office building. Nice guy, nice selection, but of course, his prices reflect his location. Another shop has a large eclectic...
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    Digitrax decoders and installing LEDs for lighting

    I successfully installed decoders in my Proto 1000 R22 subway car and Athearn F7, the latter after having a lot of trouble soldering the left rail lead to the frame. In both cases, I tried installing a new 5mm LED headlight with a pair of 330ohm resisters wired in series. This didn't work...
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    Small layout 'benchwork'

    I'm going to be building in a few short weeks a small layout that will fit under the kid's bed. It will be N-scale, 3'x4' (though most of his stock is HO, I have older N stuff that we'll use because there's not enough room for HO in the house). I need to build a platform for it, obviously. It...
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    Adding DCC to Athearn F7

    I'm adding a DCC controller (Digitrax DH165A0) to an Athearn F7; I've watched a few videos and read some instructions, so I'm confident I can do it. The one thing I can't find, however, is what to do about the headlight. I'd like to replace it with an LED, but I can't find any information on...
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    Convert Athearn F unit to DCC

    Has anyone any experience converting an Athearn F7 to DCC? I have a full passenger set with a pair of Athearn F7s (one powered, one dummy) and I'd like to use it with the DCC setup we're using now.
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    Athearn Boxcar Kits

    I've gotten a few of these kits lately, and I have been looking to assemble them. The problem I am running into is that I can't get the doors onto the bottom rail. The top rail is removable, so it isn't a problem there, but the lower rail has a sort of hook to it, and I'm apprehensive about...
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    Reviving my N-scale

    My brother recently cleaned his basement and found my N-scale trains that he has torn up when he felt like being, well, a younger brother. Now I have all this track (Atlas) and was planning to make a 'permanent' layout for my son to run (currently, he has a lot of HO stuff, but the house is...
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    Install a decoder in a Spectrum K4

    My son's mother took him to a train show where he convinced her to buy a used Spectrum PRR K4 (5404). From what I've found out online, this engine was released in 1994. I took the shell off the locomotive, and discovered that the rear pickup leads are not connected. The tender is hollow...
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    Introductions...

    Hi, My son and I are new to this site, and he is also 'new' to Model Railroading. He's received a number of sets over the years, and we finally have the space to occasionally lay down the track. and run some trains. I used to model in N scale (20 years ago), but we are now doing HO. Since we...



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