As I've not shown any progress of my club layout, I thought now would be the time to change that.

There is currently myself and one other chap building this, but I still think we are getting along pretty quickly. This is six months worth of work:
































Videos to come later.

Like the question says how many of us have met face to face?

I haven't met anyone, yet. I would like to meet all of you.

Tom

Yes, here we are one month into our fifth anniversary and we haven't auctioned off anything yet. We have our chance now since Charlie B won this coffee mug in the last photo contest and donated it right back to Big Blue for this auction to help support these forums. A most generous offer, and we really appreciate the gesture Charlie.

Anyway, here's our very first coffee cup auction. It has our fifth anniversary logo on it and will be something you can use every day or proudly display it in your train room. Here are the rules:

1. There is no minimum bid and no reserve, the highest bidder at the time the auction closes will get the mug.
   
2. Please keep your bid raises in increments of fifty cents or more.
   
3. You can bid by posting it in this thread. Send a PM to either ezdays or ngauger if you have any questions.
   
4. If you want to enter an anonymous bid (just like the rich and famous do), you can PM either ezdays or ngauger and we will bid on your behalf.
   
5. The auction will run until Valentine's Day, February 14th, at which time we will announce the winner.
   
6. We will add a flat rate of $5.00 for shipping to any US or Canadian address, and calculate postage to other countries.
   
7. Payment can be by PayPal, check or MO. We will give the winner instructions on how and where to pay.

Hello folks,

EDHT (Echtdampf-Hallentreffen) stands for "live steam - indoor meet" and is the biggest indoor live steam event.
It's held each January and in 2014, this was the 18th convention. The event features an huge 5"-gauge indoor layout, hundreds of stationary steam, G-scale live steam and much more.

For the forth time, we were part of this event and set up my "Bear Creek Lumber & Railroad" with own tracks and a lot of details. Here're some photos of our layout and operation. More photos are hosted on my website:
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There's an additional video clip at YouTube showing the log loading process in action.
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This is how it starts in mid december. The first tracks are laid to the floor. In the far background, work starts on the main 5"-gauge layout with more than 8000 meters of track...


Once the terminus station at Bear Creek laid, we started with the single track main line....


....ending at a loop with a small stagging yard. The whole layout is point-to-loop action.


The days before the convention starts, we set up the structures, trees (unsold christmas trees) and many details to create some scnerey around the rtacks. It's not easy to do that indoor, but I guess we're not bad at all with our layout.


During the convention days, we started each day by steam up the steam locos #1 and #2. The battery powered #3 was backup only.


Happy engineers - That's me on the right, together with my dad who is also part of our team.
The two locomotives have burned 24kg coal in 3 days and more than 120l water...


Switching cars at Bear Creek. We run real freight trains and passender trains. Some spur tracks and industries along the line were served by the railroad. So train operation was varied.


My girlfriend is a good engineer too and runs my Shay with a log train down to the saw mill (stagging yard) in this view.


The logs were loaded to the train at the logging camp with bunk houses, camp fire and a working log landing. More than 40 log car loads were handled during the convention days.


The logs are skidded to the landing by using the gipsy head of the steam winch. A haul back line was installed to bring the tonges back into the woods. Once the logs arrived at the loading, they are par-buckled onto the log cars with the steam winch.


Waiting for clear tracks at Bear Creek...


Our team from left to the right : Martin, Kalli, Gerd & Katrin
below : "Maggie" & "Amy"


At least, we set up a long train with most of the cars and run a double header. This was some fun and you can see the train at the youtube video.


After the convention closed, the railroad got "abandoned".....
In Januray 2015, we'll set up the railroad again at the 19th convention - maybe with some more structures, details or other new stuff....


Grüße, Gerd

OK, I finally got my first NWSL gearbox and started assembling tonight. I've set the worm on the shaft, installed the bearings, added grease and test fit it in the gearbox and turns nice and freely. However, when I add the idler there seems to be binding. I've been able to work some of the tightness out but it seems to come back after about 3/4's of a turn. Is this normal and the tightness works itself out on it's own or should everything be turning without effort when first assembled? My feeling it's the later but I have no comparison. Any thoughts?


Mark

I picked this up on another forum, but it's too hot not to pass on.

ROCO, one of the biggest european model railroad manufacturers, has just today announced an HO model of the EMD SD40 in a variety of liveries.
If they get it right, and the build standard and detailing is as good as their other recent releases, we might have ourselves a new benchmark for mass produced US locomotive models... I'm watching this with interest!

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Koos

Here we are celebrating the 5th year of our railroad hobby forum. Whether you were here through the Gauge.com/Zealot/The Gauge.net years or you have just joined, we would like to express our gratitude for your participation here at Big Blue.

Don and I know, that it seems like we say pretty much the same things every year in these appeal posts, but you know, that’s a great thing! It means that our members are consistently a cut above the average and the staff and membership in our opinion is the greatest!!! The people that stop in here and post their day-to-day issues and comments, the ones who are not afraid to ask a question or 3… or 4 … the people that answer those questions honestly and precisely and without “looking down” on the person asking the question(s) are by far the best!!!

One of the things that Don and I hear (and sometimes see posted) is how, at other forums, members are chided about asking questions. I remember being a member of another site and I was genuinely unnerved about asking anything for fear of a harsh rebuttal instead of a constructive comment. Not so here! As far as we have seen; everyone either says something positive or they just don’t post, which is fine with us. Yes, there are exceptions, but they are fortunately, few and far between.

So, we have arrived at yet another new year, another anniversary… and another appeal. We are here for you all. For all you want to post, teach, learn and comment about. No conglomerate – No company “owns” us – We have no one to answer to except the members! We like it that way too!!! Oh yeah – and NO ADS!!!!!! No pop-ups, no words in a post changed into a link to an ad........nothing, but our individual work and posts!!!

So, next time you go to another forum or site. Pay attention to what’s in the right hand column. Pay attention to the highlighted and underlined words… Pay attention to the ad links somewhere on almost every page you visit. Most of them all pay “Click Through” money to the owners of the site. The newest one I know of is bitly. Facebook uses it! If you click on a bitly link, it PAYS Facebook a few cents that goes toward the upkeep of the site.

Nothing here like that!!! Nope!!!! All we ask is that once in a while, if you have the spare cash, if you really enjoy stopping by here… that you donate some small amount to help Don & I keep all those bad and distracting things Out of Here!!!! We know not everyone has the ability to contribute and that’s fine with us! We could actually manage on our own for a time, but we are from the old school, “It never hurts to ask”!

So, if you can’t contribute, then please; visit as much as you want and enjoy the fun here at Big Blue! We don’t mind at all!!!! But, if you can help us out in any small way, we, as always, appreciate the help…

Don & Mikey. Co-Owners and Administrators of a really great family oriented bulletin board.

Dropped by my LHS (more than "local" since it's well over 25 miles from our house), and snagged a read deal on a Walther's N scale ATSF depot with freight house. I didn't plan on putting it on my layout, I just wanted one. There are very few of these original structures still standing, all of them here in the Southwest, and I like the architecture. I'll try and see if I can find a spot for it on my layout, otherwise I think it'll make one heck of a diorama some day when I have the time.

Oh, and the deal: Walther's is selling the kit for $64.98, I got this one for $19.98, new in the box. It was worth the 50 mile drive, just for this. I checked Walther's and even if I wanted to buy one from them, they are out of stock, making this a double good deal.

Here's a picture of the kit:

   

Can anyone recommend a decent glue for cementing styrene to bass wood. I messed up some wood sheathing that came with kit and I can't find a suitable replacement in wood. I have found the right pattern in styrene though. Attempts so far were to use some Ambroid glue and Testor's glue for wood. Any suggestions?


Mark