Well, where I live it is county fair time.  The neighboring county had it's fair last week and our county fair is this week.  For the last number of years I've volunteered as an advisor to a local 4H group that is solely focused on model railroading. 

 A film made in 1981 at the Canadian Film Board website showing the operations at a typical grain elevator in Canada. 

www.nfb.ca/film/grain_elevator/

I've finally started to do the residential area behind the Hoovertown business district.  As with the business district I want to do the work off the layout, so the first step is to make a removable support structure.  Once the support structure is completed, I'll remove it from the layout and place it on my work table to add the streets, landscape, structures, etc.

 And yet again, on a Saturday afternoon I find myself at Dana's, running one of my trains, I do so enjoy running on this layout, even more so than the one at home, of course, at Dana's, I'm in the air conditioning, something that is non-existent at home, sure I have an AC, in the house, but the train room isn't temp controlled, so during the summer I go to Dana's to run trains in the AC, likewise, in the winter, I go to Dana's to run trains when its cold outside, because just like AC in the summer, I have no heat in the train room in the winter either!!!

The creation of a miniature world is what hooked me on model railroading.  Rather than attempting to faithfully follow a segment of the prototype world, my layout is my imaginary impression  of many weekend trips out of and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Lately, I have been having fun with the concept of "leading lines", more specifcally, the use of a road as a leading line.  A  leading line can be defined as a scenic device designed to pull the viewer into the picture.

I plan on purchasing the 5A Super Chief Duplex system for running my layout. I also plan on using their BDL168 detection boards for my hidden staging and DS64's to throw my turnouts.

When reading the pdf manual for the detection boards, Digitrax states that Home wiring is the best method. This makes sense to me, but their diagram doesn't make sense (or at least it isn't clear). It shows a typical installation for a detector board with Direct Home and Whole Layout Common wiring. I can't understand (from their diagram) where the differnce is between the two. See below:

While looking through my photo's for Gondola Scrap loads I found these two taken from Pepper Ave, at Colton, CA. They show two gondolas loaded with tin cans. I think they would make an excellent load but I can't figure out how to make them in HO. Any ideas. Perhaps someone has already done it.

Hello, I've started a new layout after 30 + years, Questions I have. Today's layouts have a lot of foam base over plywood.

Would you suggest laying track on the foam base or will I still use cork road bed on foam?

Can I use any of my old DC Atlas & Peco turnouts for DCC, if so what is needed to convert?

What is the ideal curve for my longer cars?

What is a good source for track design? or (custom design company)

Any ideas would help.

Thanks Homer

ExactRail Southern Pacific 2420 Cu. Ft. Gondola.

These cars were buily in 1965 by Gunderson Brothers and given the SP class 100-7. They were in the number series 333500 - 334655. In 1985 65 of the cars recieved a re-build and were numbered 800000 - 800064. ExactRail have just released a re-run of this car in the 800000 number series. See this web site for photo's and details.