It's not often my chance to start this thread.

The city of Guelph's Blossom Express.

   

   

   

   

Hello!

A while ago, i purchased a 5 metres LED strip with 300 warm-white LEDs. There also are resistors for every group of 3 LEDs which allows to feed the strip directly with 12V. For this it is possible to cut off an group of 3 or a plurale of 3 from the strip. The backside of the strip is self adhesive. The price is really interesting because of about only 10,- € (app. 11,- USD) for 300 LEDs on the 5 metre strip.



This is a piece cut from the strip an glued onto the roof of an RPO. As the LEDs are very bright, i have mounted there two aditional resistors of 0,5kohm to dim the brightness and to modify the LEDs for the higher than 12V tension of DCC systems.
Here you have to do experimenting of your own, until brightness meets your expectations.




In natura there is a more bright white light, the photo has an rather yellowlish glow.
This was a quick and cheap interior lightning.
There also are LED strips with pure white, similar to the light of fluorescent lamps.


Lutz

To all our good neighbours south of the border---Happy Independence Day to the second greatest country in the world---all the Canadians started the celebration on July 1st on Confederation Day

Hello everyone, Robin and I arrived in Sacramento on Saturday the 20th and left Saturday the 27th before the banquet (sadly). It was announced that the convention had 462 registered.
The hotel was nice and the California RR museum is worth the trip along with walking the Old Sacramento part of town. The dinner train was nice and it was the only trip we went on. I understand there were some great home layouts and Railtown tour was nice but HOT.

The welcome Reception was fantastic and loaded with humor and fun!

There were, I would guess, about a total of 40 or so entries in the contest room and some beautiful work but I did not get any pictures in there. The concept of ROOM SALES before the Swap-A-Rama was a new concept to us but was great fun roaming the halls of the Hotel on a daily basis looking at trains for sale.
Most of the folks moved on to the Swap-A-Rama (sale) room when it opened on Thursday. Lots and Lots of N Scale for sale! Some great deals as well. Saw many manufactures there like Kato, Intermountain, Trainworx, FVM, Arnold, Micro-Trains, Wheels of Time, North American Rail Car Corp., N Scale Arch., RSLaser, Digitrax, N Scale Kits, and I am sure others I forgot to mention but some major one were not there.

The Auction was well attended with lots of items and was a real hoot! May items sold and some went for large dollars! There were some bargains had there as well.

I have no idea how well the pubic attended the show but it looked like a pretty good turnout.

There were four layouts in the lower ballroom that included the Peninsula NTRAK, Silicone Valley FreemoN, San Luis Obisbo Model Railroad Club, and another group that had no name sign but a nice layout.

There were many clinics but the only one I attended was by my friend Karl Andraschko on the comparison on NTRAK FreemoN and other modular techniques and was very interesting on the different concepts.

The event was well organized and a very fun time meeting and chatting with ALL N SCALE folks and good time was had by all. In Fact a couple in the Peninsula group got married in the layout!
PS great modelers as well as a great couple!

I am linking to a folder with all the pictures I took.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://s42.photobucket.com/user/mfifer/slideshow/N%20Scale%20Collector%202015%20Convention?sort=3">http://s42.photobucket.com/user/mfifer/ ... ion?sort=3</a><!-- m -->


Mike & Robin Fifer

As you might know by now, our on-again, off-again house move is back on. We have found a new house and are putting our present one on the market. Our objective is to downsize and in so doing, now is the time to shed some things that are still in the box and I've not ever run. We are packing as we speak and I don't want to have to pack these things. I think the pricing is fair, but if you want to discuss it, let me know.

Freight cars:

Con-Cor Autoracks......................$20.00 ea/ $80.00 for all five cars

• UP, #TTGX990585
  WP, #ETTX900948
  WP, #ETTX900949
  BNSF, #TTGX986947
  BNSF, #TTGX986950

• 2 each, Western Pacific, both #1908
  Northern Pacific, #62718
  Rio Grande, # 23019

In preparation to build a new layout centered on Erie's Harlem Station in NYC, I decided to kitbash a Lindberg Coast Guard tugboat we didn't use on our club layout.



I could have built it as is, but I know myself and decided to tweak it a little bit... and finally it ended a plain bashing session.



The prototype is named Chicago: a 1913 tugboat built and modified to navigate Harlem River. The Lindberg hull is almost a perfect match and thus worth the effort. The plastic model is a wooden ship, but I sanded down the wood plank texture to make it a steel vessel.



The hull was cut on my table saw to get a waterline model. Each half was securely glued on a plank of masonite before the surgery. Extreme caution must be exerted. It is a small operation, but plastic is always unpredictable under the blade.



Main modifications include lenghtening the superstructure, removing the winch and bashing the wheelhouse. I'll also have to bash the steam stack (round) into a diesel one (ovale).



BTW, Lindberg label the kit as 1/72, but I did extensive measurement and I can say the only 1/72 are the sailor figures!

Matt

Hi folks,

I'm actually in the process of designing how I'll rebuild a MDC Roundhouse boxcab (which a kind member of this forum is providing me with).

I'll soon start to rebuild a home layout after a long hiatus and the next project will be a reincarnation of my old Harlem Station. This particular Bronx, NYC prototype used boxcab to switch the very diminutive yard.

It's been a few months since I wanted to try to build a radio-controller/battery powered locomotive (DCC + sound). The boxcab is nice because it is small and still have lots on room inside. I did some test and every components should fit with enough place to model the cab interiors (both ends). I know it won't come cheap but let's say it'S for the sake of experimenting with alternate technologies.

Now the BIG question. Which drive to use? And it's where I'd like some feedback. I'm open to any suggestion. There's only 3 main requirements: can crawl at slow speed (0 to 10 scale mph), not too noisy and takes very little room inside the shell.

1) Reusing MDC drive... Looks not a good idea!

2) Using a Bachmann GE 44-Tonner drive. Twin motor older version seems unrealiable and takes a lot of room inside the cab. The newest single motor leaves enough space for all component. That would be my favorite choice BUT there's two issues: wheel base is quite off and wheels are too small (33" vs 38"). I've seen many people splice and lenghten diesel locomotive frames. Could it be possible to shorten the GE 44-ton chassis to fit the boxcab original wheelbase? Is it possible to replace the wheel with ones with the correct diameter? I know it's a lot of work, but I don't mind. Model Railroading is fun, isn't?

3) Using a motorized truck: lots of room in the shell to add components, weight and perfectly decorated cabs and you can get the right wheel base and diameter. Stanton drive is one of them. But I've read performance at slow speed are so-so. Any feedback on that? Some other people recommand Black Beetle, which are similar, but supposedly would perform better at slow speed. I must admit it would be the most interesting option, but performance should follow.

Well, that's where I'm standing now.

I have made up my mind and will build an urban freelance switching layout in the northeast in the timeframe 1930s - 1940s. Where I prefer the earlier times depending an the material I can get on the market. My expectation is to build very dense urban industry where the size of the individual rail served industry fits nice on my small layout without to much compression.

This old GE44ton switcher is from my very first US layout. It is a nice runner and has Loksound Micro 3.5 installed. This engine is built since 1940 shall be the starting point of the new layout. Some HH660 are waiting too. I have some uneasy feeling because the amount of information is much less than on contemporary railroads. No Google street view, no tons of photos taken with cell phones.... and last but not least it all happened before I was born.
Anyhow I will not start tearing down the present layout until my fuzzy plans have been substantiated. I am afraid a major rework with a heavy modified track plan can not be avoided. I may stop Freelance 2015-2 if I fail to get sufficient information rail served industry in the northeast in the 1930s and 1940s.

There will be two "layouts" for the next time in parallel. A real one to play with and an imaginary one in planning stage.



Do you have suggestions (internet links) where to find photos of urban industry in that timeframe? Are NYC, NJC, Chicago and Boston a good starting point? Are there other good locations to look after for inspiration?
This is a great source: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.trainweb.org/bedt/IndustrialLocos.html">http://www.trainweb.org/bedt/IndustrialLocos.html</a><!-- m -->

For all the folks north of the US/Canadian border a very Happy Canada Day.



Charlie