Neon signs were prevalent in the United States from the 1920’s on. Modeling neon signs in scale have had mixed results. Here is a method of constructing simulated neon signs (no high voltage and no glass) for most any scale you can imagine. Several approaches are presented from simple to elaborate. Let’s have a look.

The good news about modeling modern railroads is that we have tools like Google Earth that allow us to look at structures and track from the comfort of our homes.  The bad news is that most industries are guarded more closely than area 51.  Getting photographs of industries when visiting the area is challenging.  The side of the Universal Forest Products plant in New Windsor I needed to model was completely obscured by fences, buildings and mounds.

I've had some free time over the past couple weekends and made some progress on the layout. The foam is in it's basic shape, glued, and painted. Today I was able to get the roadbed glued down for the main and runaround as well as the transitions to the spurs. I just need to get the transitions sanded and paint the roadbed and then I will be ready to lay track!

It occurs to me that I almost blew right through the anniversary of my current layout again. Sometime in August, eight years ago, I started this journey. After years of N and HO layouts built to varying degrees of completion, I finally figured out what I wanted and set about achieving it. I had settled on calling it the "Blackwater and Blue Hollow" and with a nod to my favorite modeler, John Allen, the colloquial name was "The Black N' Blue".

I was fascinated when I read about Fairway Park Model Products automatic/magnetic air hose couplings for HO scale cars (now offered as PWRS MagnaLock Brake hoses) some eight years ago, because I had tried to build the same myself years before with no joy.

Now that the stained ties make it easier to see the tracks, I thought I'd do a quick drone tour to show how everything fits together on the new layout.  Photos to follow in the first reply, but here's the layout plan again to help make sense of it all.

A simple hack, a cleaning car or a liquid will not be anyones solution to the track cleaning problem. In this video I´m presenting root causes, preventive actions and my experience of different types of cleaning.

For the last two weeks I’ve been working on a project that has been somewhat of an elusive thing for most Reading Railroad modellers.

I've made a lot of progress in the last few weeks, but it still seems like there is a long way to go.  I got a lot of good information on the Sunbeam Dynamo and was able to get it modeled.  The Westinghouse compressor is dragging out way longer than I would like, but it is getting closer to being finished.  I still have not glued anything together, because I have been burned too many times thinking something is done and the I see I forgot a detail or a mounting hole, it always seems to be something.

<deep breath> 

My last post was two years ago. Two years later.... Tray, tray again? Sixth time's the charm?