Hi Guys,

Who here has the Walthers Ore Dock kit? I need some help on answering a few questions about it and placement on a layout

First, i need to know how much of the total length of the ore dock is the approach that is included?

Second, should one build an incline of 10" to reach the top of the ore dock deck? Or sick the Ore Dock into the scenery a bit by lowering part of the benchwork for a harbor?

If anyone can help me with these questions i would greatly appreciate it. Pictures of your ore docks are welcome too and would really help me out

Thanks in advance

hello!

I've been having some trouble with some Decoder installations. A friend of mine asked me to try and fix his Blue-line Pennsy M1A 4-8-2. I've found that whenever the drivers touch the rail, the locomotive either buzzes and hums, or it runs forward out of control.

I also just had the same problem with a power truck i just bought for my Arrow III EMU. the Arrow's power truck ran fine on DC just the other day, and i only installed the decoder an hour ago. However, i've still yet to find what caused this problem in the M1 (and i have been tinkering with it for weeks). Does anyone know what kind of problem this is?

It goes full speed ahead when the direction is set to forward, and it hums when in reverse, and the motor controls do not respond. The original decoder in the M1 seems to be burnt out, but after placing several other working decoders into the M1, it seems clear that there is a problem in the locomotive as well.

Any hints? whatever it is, its not in the decoder as far as i can tell.

:hey: Two of my kato europwan high speed traind arrived today the british eurostar and a french one heres a few pics        

Anyone going to enter?

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I'm thinking I'll enter in one of my on the go projects... my U1f kitbash or my Royal hudson kitbash... Should be fun!

Just a thought I felt I should share. About 10 years ago I started building my dream layout after 2 years of planning. It works fantastically. N-guager has seen it and can attest to my claim. I feel it was perfect as it had everything I wanted.
there are 2 hidden yards. one east bound one westbound they are good. I just made some minor improvements to them that a friend suggested. The problem I have is the access tracks to the hidden yards are difficult to get to. you have to crawl under the layout to get to them for maintenance or rare derailments. In 07 I had a stroke. I can no longer get on my knees to crawl. there go the problem and wished foresight. No you can't plan for everything. You can plan on hopefully living to be a senior citizen. who cant crawl any more or reach as far as you used to. how about narrow Isle ways and possible walker or wheel chair in the future.
Just some food for thought. Before you say just start over, I can't and you might not be able to either. Or you may have the perfect layout (for you).
Les (Oh yeah I was only 51 when I had a stroke)

So in my never ending shuffle of railroad plans, I thought of possibly adding in a steel mill to my layout.

Quickie backstory: I bought a Blast Furnace and Coke Oven kit with the idea to somehow add them into the GERN industry area, give it a more industrial look. Then I started thinking why not just add a steel mill to the layout and use these kits for their intended purpose?

So here I am now, goggling around looking for track plans for steel mills, pictures, etc... But unlike most of these sites I find online, they have one thing I don't really have....Vasts amounts space. It seems most people dedicate a LOT of space to their mills. The area I would be putting the mill is about 6.5' long and about 12" deep. So it would have to be small, compact mill in a shotgun (straight line) configuration, with track entering into the area at the right of this area.

So I'm trying to figure out what would the best layout be for the plant? I'm thinking the Mill would contain three buildings: The Coke Oven, Blast Furnace, and a rolling mill. What's you're typical order of operation here? Maybe I don't need all 3 buildings?

I'm still reading up on Mills and what not, but thought I'd ask here to see what some folks who've possibly already modeled a mill would suggest to guide a "mill newbie" along.

Thanks yall.

Hello Everyone---here's a few shots from my hometown---Hamilton Ontario













Thanks again to Doctor Wayne for the time and effort to produce this disc for me

I have a Question about the Walthers Bridge crane: http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2906

How do they work? Does the coal barge come in the middle of the bridge crane or park on the side of the bridge crane? In the pic on there website, it looks like the barge parks in between the bridge crane? Are train cars loaded up with the bridge crane or does the bridge crane just take the material out of the barge and put it in stockpiles where loaders load up coal cars?

What about the Hulett Ore Unloader? I was going to do 2 bridge Cranes and 2 Hulett Unloaders working side-by side unlaoding barges at the harbor up the line from the steel mill. Do Hulett Unloaders load directly into train cars or into stock piles?

I really love checking out all the old antique O gauge engines that are out there.
What's the oldest working locomotive you have in your collection?

Mine would be my Marx 666 diecast.
Although "working" is a pretty loose term for that one right now.

Just about exactly a year ago I started work on a CMR turntable kit. No, it hasn't taken me that long to build! It actually is a very nice kit (made of laser cut acrylic) and goes together easily. Believe me, if I can get it together and have it square enough to operate well on the first try, just about anyone here can! But once I had it built to the point where it could be operated, I needed to install it and that required several other things to be done first. My turntable is mounted above the inside space of a helix, so I set up the 3/4" plywood base on sawhorses to mark locations and cut out the hole for the tt and the slots for the inspection pits in the roundhouse. Then the base was mounted in place and it was time to install an indexing system. So a control panel needed to be built and the motoor installed, etc. Once that was done, I had to bring in the lead tracks, which travel over a section that was to be removable for access to yard turnouts for maintenance if (when) needed. Then I realized that the lead tracks went under the coaling tower and sanding tower, and over an ash pit, and none of these structures had been started yet. So all these were built and installed along with the track at my workbench, then put in place on the layout. Which brings me pretty much to where things stand today, with work on the roundhouse about to start, followed by finishing the turntable bridge and detailing. some pics to follow.

Gary