Atlas has a new line of 60-foot passenger cars coming in its N scale Trainman line:

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The company notes that the cars are "Based upon C&NW and CNJ prototypes," but does not offer CNJ as one of the road names in the first run.

Afternoon everyone!

With my HO Scale Exhibition layout now mostly finished (except for about a million jobs on my to-do list, but what layout is ever finished, right?), the attention of myself and my co-conspirator Ford has turned toward our next project, and the first truly 'joint' layout - this time making use of all that O scale stuff I've been hoarding for a few years.

The working title of the layout is West Box Street (please someone help me think of something better!), as a nod toward my previous layout, as well as the trackplan, which is a modified version of Shortliner's Box Street plan.

The idea is yet again a heavily industrialised urban area somewhere in the South East of the USA. Georgia or Alabama, maybe? That's still to be decided on.

As a departure from my usual slapdash approach to layout construction, every aspect of this new layout is going to be planned from the ground up from the start. Ford insisted on it, and I don't blame him, going on my track record!

This will need to be bulletproof before the first piece of wood is cut.

A trackplan has been settled on, and thrown together in SCARM to check clearances. All track is going to be handbuilt, and will follow the "FUnitMad" approach of tracklaying for that added realism.

Here's the trackplan:







The intention for the layout is to have full lighting, sound, and animated features, and Ford has even been kicking around the idea of an automated (or not) Day/Night cycle to make exhibitions even more interesting.

Whilst the actual construction of the layout is looking to be a while off yet, we've both started working on various other aspects of the build - I've begun work on rolling stock and structure projects, and Ford has been working on the lighting and using Arduino to animate doors, roller shutters, etc.

Photos and videos will follow of progress as and when there's something worth showing.

Just watched a video of a cable tram claiming a "grade of 106%"!

Can anyone one explain what this means in real terms? :?

I just got 2 Athearn Koppers Coal Tar 3 dome tank cars and I'd like to either replace the trucks or just the wheel sets with metal wheels. I'm not fimiliar with the older generation rolling stock and I'm not not sure which parts to replace them with if someone could point me in the right direction, thanks.
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... OF THE BIG BLUE 2016/17 GET OFF YER DUFF CHALLENGE.

Steve (Epaw) deservedly finished First, with his very nicely-done re-build of a Bachmann 0-6-0 into a Camelback for his freelance ANNA Lines.

Bernhard (modelsof1900) placed Second with a very accurate re-detailing of a brass N&W caboose to match prototype photos.

....and tied with him for Second was....

Greg (mountaingoatgreg), who completed his hand-painted backdrop scene (Bob Ross would definitely approve) and finished his detail work on the Drinkwater place, a house and garage scene on the wrong side of the tracks.

Norman (morten1996) was one of three Members tied for Third, with his scratchbuilt Ingalls diesel, modelled after the GM&O's 1900, the only prototype.

Also finishing Third was Stephen (PEIR), who added some sound deadening material to his layout and also layed some track

and the other Third place finisher was Terry (teejay), for completing his steam shovel on a flatcar and an upgrade and detailing of a laser kit purchased after the original owner more-or-less botched the construction.

Congratulations to the winners and to all the others who got off their duff and participated. On behalf of all of them, "THANKS" to all who voted.

Wayne

Okay, so I've thought this over, drawn a couple schematics and it's still confusing me.
I have an isolated circle of track with two sets of feeders on opposite sides connected to a bus line which is connected to my DCC system. I want to be able to flip a switch (DPDT?) and run the same circle of track but instead, controlled by a DC power pack. Can it be done? Every time I draw the schematic, I end up feeding DC back into the DCC side. Can some genius sketch it for me?

WPMA-17 working at Peter Lumber.

Bruce

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I built the Blair line church kit.
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I started it two days ago....
It's a rather good kit, but the roof material sucked. I replaced it with Campbell shingles instead.



The lack of a bell bothered me, but I solved it by 3D printing a bell and fastener.



I weathered it by painting white acrylic over stained wood that I had soaked with mineral spirits.



The roof is painted tan and then I brushed on burnt umber oil paint that I wiped of while wet.



The windows turned out really good with the stained glass plastic.





Backside of the church.

Starting a new project...

A really old kit that I bought a while back.
It´s going to be fun to build a really old craftsman kit. Printed cardboard, some stripwood and a lot of instructions....

I thought this was kind of cute.

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