To those who are Irish or wish you were Irish for today:

   

SMS Baldwin S-12 pulls loaded hoppers from the fly ash track, at Atlantic Electrics Perch Cove Power Plant.

Bruce

   

Had some ground fog around the docks, but was able to get a shot of Shore River and Conrail SW1500's working.

Bruce

   

We have a neat little travel trailer converted into a used car office. A very cleaver name for a car dealership I might add. This trailer is the work of TMo (Todd) and he has donated it and will pay shipping to the highest bidder limited to the Contiguous US and Canada. This item measures 2" x 1" and will be a novel addition to any HO layout. It is detailed to look like what you might find in a used car lot in the seeder side of town and can disappear in a flash. It will be signed as a Todd Morris original to increase its collectable value, so don't hesitate to bid.

Now, let’s get started. We are offering this one-of-a-kind detailed HO trailer to the highest bidder. Here are the bidding rules:

1. There is no minimum bid and no reserve, the highest bidder at the time the auction closes will get the book.
   
   
2. Please keep you bid raises in increments of at least fifty cents and preferably a dollar or more. 
   
   
3. You can bid publicly by posting it in this thread. This thread is for bidding only; any comments or questions should be made in this "questions" thread or  by PM to either ezdays or ngauger. Non-bid posts will be deleted from this thread.
   
   
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, (we will post the bid amount, but keep your name confidential, just like at those big auction houses). You may also want to give us the maximum you would want to go and we’ll bid for you by adding fifty cents above the last bid, up the maximum that you have set, again, just like Christie’s does for the big boys.
   
   
5. The auction will run until midnight, EST, March 12th, at which time we will announce the winner and ship it to them.
   
   
6. Todd has graciously offered to pay shipping to the winning bidder within the contiguous US or Canada.
   
   
7. Payment can be by PayPal, check or MO. We will give the winner instructions on how and where to pay.
   
   

Caught WPMA-40 as it was leaving Great Bay Foods.

Bruce

   

I just took out an old Walthers wood and metal kit (Oscar) and find I'm out of date on some products.

Paint. Now that Floquil is gone, what range of paint will work on metal?  Is there a good primer to use? Will it work on wood as well?

Glue: I need to glue a metal piece to the wood floor and I think it should take some strain.  I used to use Goo (I have an old tube) but I was always getting some squeezing out of the gaps. The hobby shop sold me some gap-filling ACC. Will that do?

Thanks.

WPMA-29 sets out a hopper of plastic pellets for Harbor Rope.

Bruce

   

I have made the plunge into DCC finally. I am using NCE. My daughter got me the NCE Power Cab Starter Set for Christmas a couple of years ago. I have set it up and have been using it comfortably for a while now. I have even begun some basic programing such as assigning addresses to specific locomotives and will be trying to create a consist.

Since I have a large number of DC locos the layout is wired for both. I still have a lot of wiring to do. Currently only half the track is wired using drops and the layout is sectioned into two blocks. I do have a surge protector between the track and the cab/transformers. I have a toggle which controls whether the layout is in DCC or DC mode.

Now for the true purpose of my post. I am ready to start converting my DC locos over to DCC. I am going to start with the DCC ready ones first. I need to work on my soldering skills before I try the others. I have an assortment of Walthers Proto, Proto 2000, Atlas Silver, Bowser, Athearn, and Bachmann. I have searched for mobile decoders. At this time, I am not interested in sound. To my dismay I have seen a gazillion different types of decoders to choose from. As a matter of fact there are so many I am overwhelmed to the point of indecision. I was pleasantly surprised, however, that the costs of many decoders is not outrageous as I had feared.

My question or request is what decoders should I consider using in these DCC ready models?

I just came across this forum that has been hidden since we changed software. I even had to change the heading from "The Gauge" to "Big Blue". Shows you just how much we pay attention to these things.  No wonder we never get any complaints....

A question, I have an HO Athearn piggy-back trailer kit that I will put up for auction or sell direct if it's worth doing. The kit dates back to the 70's and appears complete. There is usually two in a box, but this one has one plus a few extra wheels and the instruction sheet. If there is any interest I will offer it up at auction, otherwise I'll accept a reasonable offer. So my question, is there enough interest to make it worth the effort to auction it? It's marked, "The Milwaukee Road" and I'll post photos when needed.

Let me know what's best, auction, sell direct or junk it 'cause it's not my scale... Remember, all proceeds go to sustain Big Blue