I'm taking photos of some Gunderson 5188 covered hoppers in HO from ScaleTrains.com, and one of the lenses I use is a Tokina 100mm macro.

Macro lenses don't miss a thing.

You really don't see the fine details in the itty-bitty screen on the back of the camera, but when you bring that photo up, properly cropped, in Photoshop on a 4K screen, even a 15.6" laptop one... well. You see what the camera saw.

Like this odd threadlike thing on the front hopper bin that I'll have to go back and look at the model to see what it is:

Okay, a couple of weekends ago, Bruce Barney and Rod Loder held the first Bridgetown RPM meet at Taborspace in Portland, OR. 

Joe Fugate and I went, to see the models, to show off MRH/TMTV, and to demonstrate the Proto-throttle. The Proto-throttle almost didn't get shown off, as Joe's original version NCE PowerPro system wouldn't run the Proto-throttle. Fortunately, Joe Brugger had an updated PowerPro that would, and lived somewhere nearby.  

I had a camera along of course. 

Okay, after all the recent discussion of RailPro, I decided I needed to give it a try. 

I have two Proto2K GP9's from a late enough run that cracked gears were not a fear, and I thought that they would be ideal guinea pigs. 

The first thing I discovered was that the LM-3S was not going to fit with the stock motherboard alone, never mind the speaker and KA-4 KeepAlive. 

So it is hardwire time. Not my first, but nearly so. I even had to buy some 1/4w 1KOhm resisters for the LEDs. I will say this - soldering the common is a pain.

While I was at the National Train Show, someone mentioned to me (possibly here on the MRH forums) that I needed to get one of TCS's KAM4 decoders that included a built in capacitor for my Roundhouse EMD Model 40. The Model 40 had less than acceptable performance due to it's short wheelbase and (likely) my semi-conductive trackwork in the industry it will be working. 

This is an EMD Model 40 (Athearn illustration):

Okay, I'm not done with Day 2 yet, but I want to get a head start on Day 3.

To the person who asked about Athearn using the SD60E body as a basis for standard cab locomotives (sorry, I couldn't find your post), the Athearn rep reports that that is the intention, but they have to check out a few things first.

It's Sunday at the National Train Show.... anecdotally, dealers are reporting they had a pretty good day yesterday.

Day 2 of the National Train show... wouldn't you know it, after sleeping in hard throughout the convention, the one morning I can sleep in (the show didn't open until 10)... my body decides I'm going to be awake at 6am Florida time. Sigh.

Today my goals were to go around and photograph all of the manufacturer stands and the layouts, making sure I got photos of all the Module Contest winners (I took a photo of the sheet used for the announcement - I wasn't going to miss anyone this year!)

The 2017 National Train Show got underway this morning at 9am in the Orange County Convention Center, just across the road from the Rosen Plaza Hotel, site of the 2017 NMRA Convention.

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SoundTraxx is showing (hearing?) off an early engineering sample of their GE Turbine Sound in the Tsunami2. Give it a listen -

I'm getting Day 5 started early, since today, for the vendors at least, the National Train Show begins. We'll be heading over to the Orange County Convention Center for a "First Look" at where we'll be sort of living until Sunday evening.

From what I was told, someone made a good decision in having the modular layouts start coming in yesterday, giving them more time to get set up and debugged, as well as cutting down (hopefully) on the traffic crush that always occurs during load-in.