Busy day with work today so not much time spent on my coal tipple. I did cut up the balsa wood for the decking for the coal tipple trestle.

I was dreading gluing the strips down; but it was quite easy and fast. Used a shim to maintain spacing and varied the length and left wood out.

I used various washes of Citadel wargaming paint to darken and age the wood. The whole process from chopping to cleaning my brushes took less than two hours.

I’ll let everything dry overnight and then I’ll take my charcoal lighter and see if I can singe the wood, since the real one was devastated by fire.

Hey lovely folks! Here's a link to my first track plan in several years. Looking to get your thoughts! (Details Below)

https://imgur.com/a/2dGtJqo

General Concept: Wanted to make a main line layout in a small-ish space for passenger trains to run continuously through nice rural scenery and over a large river in the centre of the layout. Farmland on the west of the river, tablelands with forest on the west. Only "industry" might be two little whistle stop stations.

Layout Details:

• Table Size is 28" by 60"
• Minimum track radius is 11.5"
• Maximum grade is 3.5%
• Track elevation is 0" unless otherwise noted
• 10" fiddle track
• 15" track in middle to reverse direction.

Possible Concerns:

• 1" to edge of table in multiple locations
• "S" Bends in switch area
• Can't really add stuff on the interior without sharp radius
• Am I being to aggressive with a 11.5" radius on this tiny layout? Is this gonna look silly?

I'd love to know what you think!!!

Let me be the whisper in your ear that says yes you should buy that Mikado you’re eyeing they’re really cool…

On two standard interior doors, built separately, designed to link.

I understand this isn't prototypical. I was just having a bit of fun. This is all DC with Kato locomotives

It turns out that old Atlas CP Rail GP35 was built by Kato; it was stamped inside the unit. I bought it for $50 as a dead unit, cracked it open and lubed it up, and now it's running just as well as my Gevos and SD90.

Next time I'll have more track and a second power supply.

Sometimes life gets in the way so I put everything away and said "Someday". I'm 72 with some health issues so I guess it's now or never.

I've been going through the stuff I have and my rolling stock is mostly Atlas & Micro-trains. Unfortunately, when I packed everything away I didn't bother to put anything back in it's boxes so some stuff is in rough condition but I should be able to salvage most of it. I previously used mostly Atlas track with some Pecos switches. I have a TECH II Dualpower 2800 power pack and a MRC 500 Throttle Pack.

This go around I want to use Kato Unitrack.

I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos to get ideas for my forever layout. I like Steve's Trains' 2x4 & 3x5 layouts. In the past I've tried to bite off more than I can chew, so I want to be realistic about my ambitions.

I was using Central Valley’s HO bridge girder set. The pieces matches the structure almost perfectly. CV even sent me extra lattice braces. Unfortunately, the completed trestle is a little over five inches wide and ten inches long. With a working area of 24” x 6” the tipple trestle (say that three times) was too big and wouldn’t allow the elements to fit.

The new bridge is 2.75” wide and 7.75” long. It’s still tight but fits. The Ops building fits and I still have room for the other abandoned track to put in.

Hardly visible from the front of the layout the backdrop adds light to a dark place. Created from new and recycled building walls. The lights are dismantled highway lights.

What N scale projects are you working on?

Purchased this B40-8W not knowing if it had a decoder or not. Someone had taped a little not that read "DCC 550" on the end of the case, so I figured I'd take the risk and buy it. Luckily, my gamble paid off! It's a digitrax decoder (ew) but still, it's a decoder! Anyway, I've wanted one of these locomotives for a while. The eventual plan is to make it into BNSF #538, since that locomotive hangs out around the city I railfan in a lot. For now, though, it'll remain as #550 and work the imaginary locals on my WIP layout.

Made some more apple trees with my method of twisted wires, static grass, turf and red sand for the apples.

Realized I made too many and things were looking cramped. Took one tree out and immediately an area opened up that looked perfect for a campfire.

The leftover tree got donated to farmer David's garden. He seems pleased, I am pleased, apples for everybody!

Thoughts?

Hey y’all my big boy arrived today and as I gave it a test run I noticed a weird clicking sound coming from it. None of my other BLI locos make this sound and I was wondering whether I should be worried or not about it!

After months of planning and stocking on supplies, I have finally started on my N scale, 1220x620mm layout. The benchwork is made of a single 16mm thick plywood board, with foam on top and some beams nailed on the bottom.

I have also laid the foam track bed from woodland scenics. Now letting it dry overnight to start laying the track.

Is there a way to run a consist with two (or more) locomotives where one is forward and the other is reverse using standard unitrack?

This Saturday ran about 12’ of mixed freight this weekend at GEHAMS in Bakersfield.

Formerly BN 1382, modeled off an Atlas Trainman GP15-1.

Hey all, newbie here looking for help for adding lights! I got a Evemodel power distribution board for 12V street and car lights. Can I combine all street lights into one black/red wire and all car lights into another, so I only have to use two 2-pin connectors on the board? My intention to use this board for a few different layouts and it would make swapping a lot easier.

I am fascinated by such a loco and i know the original design would not have worked unless it was articulated, but i was wondering if anyone had made an articulated x-12 model or a model inspired by it that i could snap on to like a E9 A/B set or something?

I recently swapped all the track on this layout from Bachmann to Kato and re-made it. I decided to use bridges to run monitor and speaker wires over the backside. There's two #6 turnouts, a single left crossover, and 3 feeders, two of which are between the bridges to space them apart and hide as many wires as I could. It's powered by a Digitrax Zephyr with an extra Kato throttle on Jump 1. I'm really enjoying having the two independent throttles at the same time.