So here I am with another car question... The all season radials (i.e. summer tires) on one of our Mazda3’s are toast, they’re completely bald. So I’ve simply rotated and left on our winter tires for now.

Question: I’ve been thinking of leaving these older (half worn) winter tires on all summer and then buying a new set of really good snow tires in the late fall. In other words, our older/half worn snow tires would effectively become our new summer tires. They have lots of good grip on them so will work well. I’m doing this because of budget/affordability reasons. I can’t really afford a new set of all season radials but don’t have a choice when it comes to winter tires. Our Mazda3’s really need good winter tires. Does this make sense?

Thanks in advance. Rob

I searched in this forum but didn't find any posts about RSS issues. I first subscribed, about a week ago, to numerous forums using RSS. After a couple of failed attempts it seemed to work and they appeared in my RSS reader, NetNewsWire. However, I am not receiving new posts, since the initial downloads. I have deleted the subscription and subscribed again, actually twice. Any ideas why new posts aren't being added after the initial set-up? Thanks, Glenn

As a part 2 to my challenge i will be taking two old Tyco flat cars and turning them into something more acceptable. They are not really bad models they just need some updating. So new decks, wheel sets, coupler boxes, grabs, paint, and maybe loads.

   


Stripped of molded details, decks, and trucks, into the rubbing alcohol they went. truck mounted coupler boxes were removed and journals cleaned up with a truck tuner from micro mark. 

   

Well, the first challenge is about done, less paint and a few details.   

My second challenge will happen as it happens, and is just to encourage me to get out more.

So... how about a third challenge 

I mentioned this in the Hobo Camp Fire a while ago.  I have a MDC Harriman 2-8-0 kit from 20+ years ago that I never truly put together.  The superstructure is done, save a number plate. It runs, but doesn't do well on sharp curves due to the one-piece side rods.  Plus, right now I am using an old open frame motor.  At one time I bought an expensive can motor and flywheel that I thought would fit, then I thought would not fit, and now think I can make it fit.  And my tender is still a coal tender.  

My goals here:
1) Make segmented side rods so that it can negotiate 18" radius curves without slowing down.
2) Add an oil bunker to the tender.
3) Find a way to adapt the new motor and install it.
4) Any remaining details and painting.

Step one was to design an oil bunker and send it to be 3d printed.  I went this route because in the future I will probably want to convert more tenders..

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Model railroading has moved rapidly into the hi-tech realm, but is that a good thing or a bad thing?  Obviously, there are advantages to computerising everything, but do they outweigh the disadvantages, or even balance them out?  In my view, the hobby is now like the cellphone - it has gone far beyond its intended purpose is is becoming detrimental in many ways.

I'm a military kid who grow up in post-war G.  Nothing much...an 0-4-0 switcher, a couple of the wagon-top passenger cars, a box car and a tank car, all with the hook system couplers and the European buffers.  An oval of snap-together track, a turnout and a power pack.

I didn't know anything about model trains and neither did my father, so my model train was  favorite toy, put up on the floor of my bedroom and taken down at bedtime, put in a wooden box and stored in my footlocker toy box.  No special treatment.  I didn't know I needed to clean the track, so I never did.  Never lubricated the engine, either.  Used Lincoln logs and dominoes to make my grades.  Took it out whenever I want to run it, snapped the track together and it ran, first time, every time.   I Finally lost track of my train when I graduated and joined the Army, after I brought it back to the States, reversed the transformer, and ran it for years on American 120v current.

Today I constantly read abut problems with keeping track clean, dead spots, shorts, lubricating, checking gauges and myriad other problems, and the issues involved with DCC, just the ones that make it into the magazines, are too numerous to count, not to mention that anything computerized is rapidly headed for obsolescence and in constant need of upgrading.

Yes, it is nice to have sound effects, but I never needed them then and I don't need them now.  

Yes, it is nice to operate multiple trains on a single stretch of track, but my personal railroad empire was never that big, I never did it and I do not miss it.  Yes, I realize that most modelers today are miserable with anything less than two or three hundred square feet, but I grew in military quarters bedrooms and never had that much space, and it was never a problem because my imagination determines the size of my world, not the physical dimensions.

Yes, prototypical realism is vital to many hobbyists, and I respect them for that, but I do not require that from my part of the hobby.  It's about creating a virtual world and seeing it run.  It is not about endlessly troubleshooting and fixing.  That train and track that I constantly enjoyed from 1948 to 1961 was indestructible and unstoppable, and it is difficult to accept that trains today are unable to meet that quality, or that they now require the time, effort and resources to keep them operating that the models of today demand.

I may end up being the last DC modeler on the planet, and that's just fine with me, because although the hobby is about a lot of things,  for me it is ultimately about simply having fun.

The rookie meets the veteran

P1430436 (2) by Ed Creechan, on Flickr

The subject of my challenge will be to finish my drawbridge scene.  The biggest problem that I face is that my new laptop is refusing to play nice with my camera, so at this point I can not load any pics.   

Where the project now stands is that I have got it electrified, installed a wood deck (90% complete ), still need to add skirting and a ledger board ( I guess that's what you call it ), and finish up the water. Once I figure out the picture problem I can get this going a little better.

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I have off today  , pretty much just waiting for the hobby shop to open, so I guess I start this weeks thread  .

UPY engine 833, an SD38-2, switches out the cars at GERN in Southern Wisconsin...

If any of you, who have change to DCC , have an MRC  2500 that you would be willing to part with?   If so pm me.

Jim