The "Riding the Rails" - hobos stories...is on RIGHT NOW (8:00 PM) on PBS...
Check it out..!!

Hi everyone. I'm glad to be back.

I'd like to know how many freight cars can a single GP7 realistically pull?

Also, do you have advice for me who's having trouble with the tender of a Bachmann 4-8-4 from the Overland Limited derailing on a turnout?

I have an older DeVilbiss Aerograph Sprite airbrush from 1994 in great condition, which I haven't used in a long time, but like to again as I love it's action. (Aerograph is now chinese and quality is no longer quite the same...)
This airbrush has what seems NPT threaded connection, as does the hose. However, my new compressor has the now more common (in europe) 1/8"BSP size thread connection. Both are almost the same in size (approx 9mm in diameter) but the thread is a bit finer on the airbrush.
I am looking for an adapter (1/8"BSP female to NPT male ) to be able to connect the devillbis hose to this compressor, OR, to have a hose with devilbiss NPT on one side (the airbrush side) and a 1/8"bsp female size connector on the other.
Any ideas, suggestions on where I could get this? (I prefer shops in the UK as that's my location, but other shops that ship internationally (and can pay via Paypal) are also considered).

Thanks everyone for the help in advance!

Was wondering if anyone had thoughts on the following:

With Houston being the petroleum capitol of the nation, plastic pellets are a major commodity that is produced around here. I'm seeing that the manufacturers are producing product 24/7 and then loading the pellets in covered hoppers and sending them to storage yards. Then when a customer makes a request, the hoppers are taken from the storage yard and sent on their way. Instead of storing thousands of tons of pellets in silos, they are stored in the covered hoppers in a huge yard east of Houston.

I think this would be a great operation to model (of course at a drastically reduced scale)... and since I ended up with an extra yard from the old layout which was incorporated into the new layout, I think I found the perfect use for it. But instead of plastic pellets, I think I'll go with GERN granulated flux. So GERN produces the flux, loads it in empties, sends the empties to the storage yard, then the hoppers ship from there to fill customer needs.

Any thoughts on making this an operational success? Good points, bad points? Operating schemes?

Here is a GoogleEarth image of the huge yard I mentioned. Thousands of covered hoppers there!
   

Living up here New York State, anytime this state offers you something for free, you have to take it, right? Where I live, in the lake effect snowbelt, our local highway Dept. of Public Works, deposits a "good" amout of sand and dirt to our roads. I know this because every spring I need to clean up about a couple of pails of this stuff in front of my house.

Looking closely at the mixture this year, I noticed it was a very good mixture of sand, stone and fine grain dirt. It looks like it would make some great ground cover for a layout. Has anyone ever tried this before? If not, I have a few pails of it in the garage. If I get some zip-lock bags, maybe I can sell this stuff.

Being new to this forum, I'm sorry if this method was discussed before. I wanted to share a tip for a easy to build "scrap pile" for a junk yard. About a year ago, I attended a local train show. At one of the modular layouts, I noticed a great looking scrap yard (HO) packed into a corner of the layout. I asked one of the members about it and he was very happy to share his "how I did it" story with me.

It started when he took his vehicle in to be serviced for brakes at a local auto repair shop. He noticed one of the mechanics filing down some metal on a machine (filing brakes or rotars?). He looked at the shavings left on the floor and his light bulb went on. He asked the mechanic if he could take some of the shavings. He got all he wanted. He took them home and went to work. He built up 2 mockups (2 piles) out of styrofoam. He then "shaped them" into realistic piles. He then glued the shavings onto the mockups. Presto. 2 scrap piles. He then left them outside for a couple of days to "weather (rust)". The result was so realistic. He left the shavings outside as well to weather. He "sprinkled" these around the siding then added a crane and 2 gons and got himself a neat little siding.

Sorry to say, I did not take a picture so you will have to use your imagination. Someone mention "ones mans junk...."

The new summer structure challenge has been announce in the Contest forum.

If you haven't seen it yet, go to: http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic...11&start=0 to see what it's all about.

Here we go, as discussed earlier, we have a new challenge, to make a structure of any type. It sounds simple and it is. This challenge is wide open. Just make a structure, any structure, any way, any scale (except 1:1 or larger). You can do one from scratch, bash a couple of kits together or just build a kit and enhance it to suite your fancy. For those who are more energetic, you can enter more than one structure in the challenge.

Now for a definition, the structure can be anything that is permanently planted on or in the ground and made by man. A building, a bridge, a water tank, a garage or even an amusement ride are just examples of what will qualify.

Here's how it's going to work:

1. Pick a project to work on. It can be from a kit with whatever enhancements you want, you can bash a kit or scratchbuild something. We need not explain any further, since a lot of you have already formulated what you’re going to do.
   
2. Start a thread in this forum, "Your Screen Name, 2010 Summer (your project) challenge-." If you are entering more than one project, start separate threads for each one. ie: "Your Screen Name, 2010 Summer (your other project) challenge, and so forth. As an example, “PRRfan’s 2010 summer water tower scratchbuild challenge”
   
3. You can open your thread at any time starting now and until the closing date of the challenge, but please don't post progress pics or reports until the June 1 start date.
   
4. Tell us what you intend to do as part of your challenge and let us know what scale you are working in. As usual, provide us with lots of pictures of your progress.
   
5. You may do as many projects as you like, no restrictions as to how or how many you do. Build a couple of structure kits, build one kit and kitbash or scrachbuild another one, your choice.
   
6. Since we never give away anything of value away, this challenge is open to all registered members of the Big Blue Train Forum, including the staff.
   
7. This challenge is all about your project, you must do a substantial amount of the work, but you or someone else can take the photos.

Hi All! I am in the mood to scratchbuild something once again! This time I am going to try a New England stone barn.
Something similar to this photo. I am going to be doing this without any plans so it will be "imagin-eered" from the start using strictly materials I have on hand.



I am not sure yet exactly what I am looking for, so if anyone has some decent pics of stone barns either real or modeled I would really like to take a look! Please post if you have any in your archives. A half hour of Google searches did not yield too many images to use as a starting point. Most I found were were of distant landscapes, humongous stadium sized structures, modern businesses and homes remodeled from old barns etc. etc. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places. I did notice that Irish and British style barns resemble closely their older American counterparts so that may be an avenue to explore as well.

For the stone work I will be using a product called Durham's Water Putty. Some modelers have used this as a medium to construct roads, parking lots etc. It sets up fairly quickly and once hardened can be scribed, primed and painted easily (similar to hydrocal or other plasters).



I made a test wall the other day. I took a piece of cardstock and made a simple frame of stripwood. I mixed the water putty(3 parts powder to 1 part water.) I sprayed the mold with a little wet water and poured in the mixture. I let it sit for about an hour and it popped right out of the mold nicely. Scribing the stonework was easily accomplished with the point of a #11 blade. I then tried to see if the wall could be cut for windows or doors and found that it broke when I tried it. So for the proposed structure, the openings will need framed out in the mold.



That's about it for today. I am eager to see how many of you will come through with some hints and tricks and tips as well as some ideas thrown in to boot!

Matt

Greetings to all:

I am a new member looking for some input and advise from all of you. I am a former locomotive engineer (18 Years) and a lifelong (40 years) HO scale modeler. Over the past year, I have been trying to implement my experiences on the real railroad into the model railroad......here's why:

I have always been amazed at how detailed model train layouts have become. Modern technology has really changed what we can do with our layouts. To that end, operations can really be enhanced, realistically. I have been to many shows and club meets to watch the members "run" the trains. Many of which are done with a "car card" or "waybilling" technique. I wanted to try something else. So I took my experiences from the railroad and put some of these to paper to see if it could be done in the "model world". Trust me, I'm not trying to set the model railroad world upside down with these ideas. I'm just trying to put a new twist on already proven methods. So, I came up with some ideas that I would like to run by members of this forum. They are;

The Switch List:
Describes a prototypical day in the life of a shortline train crew (can be used for mainline too). It shows how, and what, work has to be done by the crew. It gives a simple description of how a switch list is generated and used by the "crew". The "switch list" will list all sidings, industries and tracks along the route as well as all cars on them. It can be created in a short amount of time and generated quickly for each op session. A switchlist can be made with a piece of paper or a computer. The computer, however, can save all your information for future use. All you need to do is "update" your information for each session (pulls, spots, respots, interchange etc..) just like the real railroads.

Situational Modeling:
These tips are actual real life situations that arise on the railroads daily. They can be implemented quickly into a operating session to put a real life twist on your day. They make you "operate" your trains, not just run them "around the loop". I showed this to a friend of mine who had a club layout and his response was "I have a member who thinks he's the pro. I'll give him a chance to prove it". The "pro" lost. He got too frustrated because he could'nt just "run the train".

I would love to pass these by you but I'm hot sure how to "attach" a file . Any help would be great. Or, I know how to do this off my e-mail so if you want to drop me a line I can do it that way too. I can be reached at <!-- e --><a href="mailtozabko@roadrunner.com">szabko@roadrunner.com</a><!-- e -->.

thanks again:

steve