I take the West Coast Express commuter train from my home in the 'burbs to downtown Vancouver on a daily basis.  It offers a chance to catch up on reading, work, sleep but most importantly gives me an opportunity to railfan.  Today we arrived at the downtown station with a bunch of grain cars parked on the adjacent yard track.  One car in particular caught my eye, CN 385722, a PS4750 grain hopper built in November 1978.  It has what looks like 3 sets of reporting marks: The current CNA (Canadian National), prior SR* (unknown); and an earlier KC* (maybe

Starting to get cold outside, finishing up the last of the summer outside construction projects, my thoughts turn back to the railroad -- which has been gathering dust this summer. Tasks on my list to get going on are:

1. Replacing a couple of Tortoise connection cables -- the spacers I used to keep the slide on connectors centered had to be replaced. Am using short spacers of styrene glued on each end of the slot -- coincidentally the same size as I use for filling rail gaps.

I am looking for help on how to set up the JMRI Decoder Pro Software for a Mac. It is a MacBook Pro running the most recent operating system. I am using the NCE Powercab system and the USB interface. I am looking for help on how to set this up as I am having trouble. I would check the JMRI Yahoo group but can not access it since my school has is blocked.

Thanks,

      Trainmaster247  

Hello MRH 

Will the new Allagash Railfan Series downloadable videos be released in DVD format and/or be found on TMTV anytime soon?

Thanks!

Tim Garland

I just realized that it's been 2 years since I began construction of my layout!

Here's my post from 2 years ago: Finally... A Start!

Thanks for sharing in my project everyone!

I think I'll have to celebrate by running trains this week ;)

- Bill

In this update, I tried Joe's suggestion on the touch up. It looks to have worked pretty good, so thanks for the tip again.

Tichy recommends a mix of Boxcar red 70% and Tuscan red 30% for the car ends and ice hatches. So this is what I had on hand. Poly Boxcar red and some art acrylic Tuscan red. Gave the mix a try and it worked out good.

To All: The Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton RR was a 640 mile line, that eventully had mileage  in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, that was formed in 1846. By 1917 it was controlled by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. I detailed, painted and lettered the "What If" boxcar. Reduced herald art work is mine. Photo by Elvin Howland. Yours, Elvin Howland/E. St. Louis Rail Group Layout

Just a quick update on the project to merge an N-scale Con-Cor GS-4 4-8-4 (Rail Baron Series) DCC ready engine and a Bachmann 4-8-4 Northern DC engine.  This update shows the engine chassis and the 52 foot tender running in DCC with sound.  The stock speaker that came with the Digitrax SDXN136PS has been replaced by a TTX Super Sonic Mini Speaker with enclosure.  The speaker is 15 mm x 11 mm.  The sound was barely audible with the stock speaker but I think that the sound is really good with the new speaker. 

Where can I find replacement trucks and or couplers for old versions of these cars. They all have Horn-Hook couplers and I would like to give them Kadees. Any suggestions would be greatly appreicated.