In the year before I went away for work, my club spent a fair amount of time planning new projects and came to the conclusion that it was time to design a new layout.  Naturally, this meant the old layout would have to go, which meant it was for sale, and for a time I ignored this reality whereas I was thousands of miles away.  As the months went by there were no offers, I got to thinking that if the layout was not sold, then it would have to be torn down.  What more, sicne my tour was coming to a close and as luck would have it, I would be back in t

I'm visiting my brother, John, and helping him put together his N Scale layout. Plans from a publication call for use of two 15 degree crossovers. The layout will be using Digitrak DCC equipment. My question for those with any advice/knowledge is this:

Hey again everyone! I've decided to take a break from scenery (especially trees) for a bit to move onto something more exciting for me. 

For the past week I've been working on my scrap yard. It's not a rail served industry on my layout because of space constraints but what I'll mention here today will help with the junk itself, not the operation.

Hey ya'll - as you hear about new products at the National Train Show, post 'em up here for me to go hunt down for photos and more information.

I've already got Athearn's new GP39-2 in my sights: http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=ATHG+GP39-2&CatID=...

And  I also hope to see you there!

Lately, we've been unable to find Ming Fern to make more realistically-sized pine trees for O scale (20" tall). Our local sources (Michaels, flower mart, craft stores, etc.) completely ran out and their suppliers were out. We found some about a year ago, but that supply dried up. I don't know how the situation is for others making conifers using this technique, but we found another supplier and would like to throw as many tree-builders his way so he'll keep stocking Ming Fern. The supplier is:

JR Roses

Today was one of those days when you begin wondering why you woke up.... especially since I had only gone to bed about 5 1/2 to 6hrs earlier.

Got the clinic office opened up and had a bit of a crowd descend on it. One negative side effect of being open a lot earlier and later than any of the other offices is that people decide you are an appropriate person to complain to, even if what they are complaining about (Layout tours in this case) is nowhere within your area of responsibility.

As I mentioned in my Building Simple Circuits thread, putting electronics together is an underappreciated part of model railroading. This note is another in my series of attempts to spread knowledge of this surprisingly simple skill. This will show how to work with an integrated circuit and an easy technique to go from a working breadboard to a permanent module.

I don't think I got more than two feet inside the Celebration Room today. They were doing judging, which makes photography problematical, and I didn't see anything particularly new. Sorry if I missed anyone's submissions - I haven't uploaded the photos of everything there (sometimes my photos just weren't good enough, which means pretty bad), and if I tried, I wouldn't get any sleep. And I do need my sleep.

Weathering track and working on the signal Bridge

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9cVA9y3TaMU