I was a member of the old Gauge forum from 2002. I don’t think I ever posted over there. I got out of the hobby in the summer of 2003. I just got the bug back. I looked for the old forum and found this one. I glad the forum lives on over here.

I used to model in HO, but now I going to try N. I had some N scale stuff I picked up just before removing my HO lay out. I had at that time decided to do an n scale layout, but lost interest in the hobby. I will be doing a 16 inch by 14 foot shelf layout.

GVS

Amtrak held a town hall meeting in Chicago on March 6 in conjunction with Trains Magazine. Topics discussed included Amtrak's photography policy, upcoming equipment acquisitions, and the future of long-distance trains. To summarize the photo policy, photography at Amtrak-owned stations on limited access platforms (those that are staffed or in large cities) will be limited to ticket-holding passengers who are boarding or de-training. The photo policy does not apply at stations not owned by Amtrak (which make up two-thirds of the stations they use). Amtrak is also working on a railfan registration program similar to that developed by BNSF Railway. For upcoming equipment purchased, the immediate future holds twenty to sixty electric locomotives for use in the Northeast and up to 170 additional Viewliner-design cars to replace the remaining Heritage equipment and expand the single-level sleeping car fleet. Beyond that replacing the Amfleet I cars in the Northeast and acquiring bi-level corridor cars for the Midwest are also near-term possibilities. There is a 40 year plan to replace the entire current Amtrak fleet. Finally, the future of the long-distance trains is secure. Amtrak is undertaking a long-range plan to improve on-board service and reliability. Copies of many of these documents are available on Amtrak's web site. After the meeting was over guests were left to tour a display train at Chicago Union Station made up of three rebuilt Superliners and the first GE P40 diesel rebuilt with stimulus funds.



Trains Magazine editor and North Carolina native Jim Wrinn goes over notes with an Amtrak staffer.




Emmett Fremaux, Vice President, Marketing and Product Development, shows off new advertising for various Amtrak route brands.




Trains Magazine publisher Kevin Keefe looks on at Amtrak's first rebuilt P40 with a Beech Grove shop employee.




President Boardman's car, Amtrak 10001, Beech Grove, brings up on the markers on Saturday's edition of train 48/448, the eastbound Lake Shore Limited at Chicago Union Station.


More photos are available on flickr.

For some time I have been looking for a box cab diesel.I used to have one and really liked the way it ran.From what i have seen the company that made it is no longer in business.
I just did a search on ebay and found a few. Two are part of an estate sale and still in the original box. The seller states that they have never been run or track tested.
So far the bids are up to $25 for one and $13 for the other .
My question is this-do you feel I should take a chance with these or try a train show? I have already tried a couple of train shows without any luck.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Bob

Our Canadian dollar is doing very well these days -- it's almost on par with the US dollar. And, the British Pound is incredibly low as well (i.e. affordable) for Canadians.

This is especially good for me as I mainly model in British 00 trains. At the moment, the British Pound is only about $1.53 CAD and I've never seen it so low! It's usually closer to $2.00 and I remember a few years ago when it was around $2.60.

As a result, I've been watching eBay a lot lately, as the deals there are better than ever. For example, instead of paying $100 CAD for a £50 loco, I can now get the same loco for about $75.

Just wondering if any of my fellow Canadian modelers have been noticing this ... and if they have been thinking of buying MRR products from the UK, US or other countries?

Thanks, Rob

Hello Everyone---Apart from taking pictures on Doctor Wayne's EG@E,another favourite spot for taking pictures is down at the local roundhouse.Here's a few photos showing the daily activity

Harvey "Ramirez" Faulkner-Aston sent me a few pictures of his Scale55 work at:

http://www.55n3.org/faulkner-aston/

Scale55 allows true THREE foot narrow gauge on HO track, visit:

http://www.55n3.org/

Thank you if you visit
Harold

I just got me a Bachmann 2-8-4 with DCC installed. This is the first loco I buy with factory-installed decoder, so I'm kind of hesitant to mess too much with the CV's. I presume it's a NCE-like decoder, but I could be wrong.... I've set CV's 2, 3 and 4 to values that make it start & stop quite nicely. But I've got a couple of questions.
For starters, the loco seems to respond much faster going forward than in reverse. This is kinda' strange, since all my other locos behave exactly the opposite (a wee-bit faster in reverse than forward), but by a very little difference. On this loco, it's like 2 or 3 times as long to respond...
Also, since the decoder can only be programmed in OPS mode, I'm a bit hesitant to change the default address (3), to the number it should be (22, in this case). Also, can this decoder be reset to its default settings by entering 8 to CV #8..??
Since all my other decoders are D'trax I don't feel too comfortable messin' around with this one. Any help y'all can give will be much appreciated....

I realized I left out a detail on my tank car challenge - DOT placards! While these are much too large to use for any scale, one could potentially resize them for any scale use. (well, maybe not n-scale - they would be tiny and unreadable).

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ian-albert.com/misc/hazmat.php">http://ian-albert.com/misc/hazmat.php</a><!-- m -->

Hi, all.. .  this is a first time post .. Trucklover's thread " Old Dominion Freight Lines Models " is the inspiration and encouragement (also some from DoctorWayne-thanks!) of this post... Below are images (some with notations) of scratch-built skeletal container chassis made out in the color/marking of the International Container Terminal & Services, Inc (ICTSI) based in the Philippines.. the chassis is a What-If and generic for the real intermodal company..



(mage containing briefs on how and with what the project was constructed)


(additional images of nearly completed skeletal)
[imgg]http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/1100/no02copyofdsc04695.jpg[/img]









the double crew cab is one of the six that came as gift from the owner of Gulf-Atlantic-Pacific HO Railroad in Arcadia Florida (USA)... while the 40-foot container is made (it's a poor man's project) of cardstock... the tires are 87th scale resin casts made by a fellow modeler member of IPMS-Philippines Bert Anido chapter . .

And, finally the decal sheet.. earlier was described as Ink-Jet printed  was actually done  with ALPS MD5500 Printer due to the presence of the white image on the decals....


Said project  is a first time build  and, admittedly, is not error free... hopefully the next subject in line would become the master for a resin cast aiming at creating several copies for our (my and my grand-children's) modular Intermodal module layout...

Thank you for reading...

Farouk

(Muhammad Farouk S. Tan
HARIBON Decals
Tumaga, Zamboanga City
The Philippines)

I spent a Friday afternoon exploring Chicago Metra's electric district. Here's what I shot:















The rest of the day's photos can be seen on flickr.