Hello,

up to now Shinohara was the main supplier for Walthers tracks and turnouts. Shinohara has ceased his business and Walthers had lost it's main supplier. So Walthers made a buy out of the assets of Shinohara to continue production of track and switches. But this was not done in Japan, Walters went to China for production.

Meanwhile the first items of Walthers track system has reached Europe and i purchased a #5 turnout from my dealer.


So it's lookalike





The frog area is similar to the old Peco Insulfrogs. The frog is completely insulated from the rest of the rails. The insulation gaps are only app. 1mm short. A soldering eyelet at the side enables a simple conversion to live frog with simple soldering skills.





The points are not separate parts, they are an integral component of the diverging rails.





A look from the point side.





A look from underneath of the point area. There is just the same sprung mechanism as with Peco turnouts. The little spring is simply removeable if needed. See the small recangular plate in the middle of the long sleeper.





Look from underneath of the frog area. All rails each of one side are electrical connected.





At least a look with removed cover.


In my opinion Walthers has made a excellent job with this new turnouts. Some of the usual pitfalls with turnouts were very smart avoided and user friendly bypassed. As the point blades were not of the articulated type, but instead are integral parts of the diverging rails, there were no joints which are tending of eletrical failure of oxidation, dust and weathering. All parts are solid connected by soldered strips and there are no moveable joints wich can fail electrical.
The frog is insulated and for this dead. It is yours to decide to let it dead or make it live. Latter is also user simplified by the eyelet.
At least a very very userfriendly and finicky construction with the license of no hassle.


Lutz

I thought I should post this here in hopes we can all spread the word so these crooks get caught:

Quote:Hi guys,

We’ve got some unfortunate news to report this afternoon regarding the shipment of HO scale Procor tank cars and N scale CP FP9A locomotives to two of our US distributors. We have just been informed by our carrier that a trailer containing these shipments destined for the US was stolen from a local trucking yard sometime in the last couple of days and is still missing as of this afternoon. An investigation has been launched, but as of now we don’t know where these shipments are and whether or not they will be recovered.

While it is believed the models were stolen here in Canada, it’s possible they could appear in the US as well and that the thieves may try and sell the product to either a dealer or otherwise sometime in the near future.

With that in mind, we’re asking dealers and the modeling community to please keep a lookout for any suspicious offers or shipments of these models and please contact police should anything come about.

Thank you for your help.
Regards,
Jordan and the Rapido team.

Hey everyone!  It is that time of year!  The Lansing Model RR Club Train Show is Sunday, Nov. 14th from 10 -4.  Michigan's largest show!  Over 500 tables! For more information, go to lmrc.org.

Hi everyone, I thought I would share with you some images of the old "Alexander" Haunted House kit from them that I customized to make it look a little more spooky.

   

   

   

I even added a creepy character or two and lighting to further enhance the spookiness of this haunted house.

   

   

Happy Halloween everyone!

Greg

My wife found these on the internet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZVW2mAYsc so I just found some on the ebay and ordered them. Looks like I may put some chrome on my cars. The smallest one is 0.7mm.     
Charlie

Some photos from The Horn Switch local and surrounding areas.                  Charlie

I noticed that there is a auction nearby me that has engines, cars and accessories for what looks like S, O with some 1:24 and 1:64 vehicles. It's around the corner from Brenda's Kitchen, they ship, but if need be, I could pick anything within reason up and ship it to you. They have another auction going with some HO as well.

Just thought I'd give you a heads-up if you're interested, the  first link is: HERE  and the second one is  HERE They both end on Monday, Nov 1. You will have to register to bid.

https://www.cremnc.com/obituary/frank-eagles-iii

Can someone possibly help me out?

When it comes to dcc I am a fossil at best, anyway I have a athearn genesis mp15 with a flashing beacon light on the roof. 
Basically I made an error not sure how & did a factory reset cv 8 to 8 & as a result I've lost the beacon light function. Instead when I press function 5 the engine throttles up slightly. I've tried to look over the manual to see if I can see anything about programming the light to work but I cannot see anything. 

Could someone please tell me what to do to get it working again.

A model railroader that I knew passed away suddenly a few months ago. He had a fairly large layout, double decked 45X 15' that was very well detailed. I always admired his work and when he passed I wished I could get a section of his layout to use as a diorama, or even incorporate it into my layout. 
My friend and I were wondering what happened to his layout since we weren't involved in the take down on it but a few weeks ago some of his equipment started to show up on Ebay. and this past week the section of the layout that I had always wanted went up for sale. Here's a few pictures of the section 'Hemsley' taken in 2016 while it was on his layout:

   

   

Hemsley was built by another model railroader that I knew and the owner of this layout incorporated it into this one. I believe the structures are a mix of scratchbuilt and Campbells.
Anyway, Hemsley was for sale for the low price of 26$ and I only had to think about it for about 3 seconds before hitting the 'buy in now' button. Yesterday My friend and I drove about an hour away to pick it up. This is what I got:

   

   

The section is 41X15" unfortunately it was removed with either a Jig saw or Sawz-all and the sides and back cuts are a bit butchered as well as the track.