"We all know that the print medium has been in steady decline in the last 8 years, or haven’t you been reading the newspaper? At any rate, does Kalmbach publishing project that MR will collapse in a flaming heap in exactly 15 years due to the rise of the digital era? Will visionary concepts like Joe Fugates’ groundbreaking Model Railroad Hobbyist trounce the printed competition?

Here is the track plan for a micro layout I am planning on building.  The shelf is already in place and the sector plate is already attached.  I plan for it to be set in the early 1900s.  The sector plate will be hidden by an industry and either a foot bridge or a traction bridge.  Right now I am leaning toward the tracktion bridge, but I am just not sure yet.

After 57 years as an S scaler, it’s time for a paradigm shift. Up until now I’ve been embroiled in the dauntless task of promoting S scale. During my tenure as President of the National Association of S Gaugers (NASG) from 2001-2005, I made promotion of S one of my two biggest priorities, the other one being to provide services to the membership much like the NMRA does. But, something recently got me thinking. The editorial guidelines for MRH stated that articles submitted should not have scale specific references in them.

Welcome fellow model railroaders,

I am building a free-lanced HO scale model railroad, The Philadelphia & Delaware County Railroad (P&DC RR), loosely based on the Newtown Square and Cardington Branches of the Pennsylvania Railroad. I have the history of the prototype, photos along the right-of-way, and construction notes at http://home.comcast.net/~pdcrr.

I also tinker with virtual model railroading using Trainz. Here I am trying to depict the branchs in their entirety.

Writing a list of "givens and druthers" and a presentation of my dream layout is still on my "to-do-list", but I have spent some time this week playing a bit with 3rdPlanIt because a flu kept me indoors.

This is what I hope to see when I have entered the room:

Looking back from the other end of the isle:

Well here I am at a dead end for the moment. It seems these come up all the time lately but they won't get me down since I know when to ask a question of those who know than me and have more experience model railroading than me as well.

The Model Railroad Hobbyist February newsletter is now available!

Each month, catch some of the latest industry news, scuttlebutt, and rumors in our monthly newsletter, read announcements of upcoming events, plus get some sneak peaks of content coming in Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine.

I have finally completed putting the plaster/vermiculite mixture down for my scenic base and have painted it my basic earth color. I also got around to painting the valence. I will paint the facia after I complete my scenery. The next step is to put down the ground texturing which, per Joe Fugate's scenery DVD, is a mixture of plaster and dried tempera paint. This sifted onto the scenery base.

First post of layout file.  This may be a chainsaw layout, but it may last 20 years.

The helix is based on an experiment in my garage using cookie-cutter plywood.  I built the test with 21 inch radius and 3%:  it worked for a 4 ft. train with an RSD-5.

My daughter felt like being a photographer today with her camera, so I had her snap some pictures of our rolling stock and current state of our 3x9 layout.  She was quite into it, so I took a few of the best and put them on photobucket to post here.  This is the storage room and there is only one lightbulb in this area, so the lighting isn't good, but I'm in the middle of wiring in four more light fixtures for this area, so it will get much better. 

First, this is a picture of my locos, two box cars and three grain hoppers in various states of weathering.