No matter how careful you are, small plastic stirrups on freight cars seem to just "jump off" and disappear into the model railroad void no matter what kind of super glue you might use. I have figured out that making my own from brass wire is probably the best replacement route but I am not sure of the diameter and the length to use to bend into shape. Does anyone have a handy measurement or rule of thumb to use for making these replacements? 

It's been ages since I updated my blog, but I did a quick update with just a few photos of recent work.  Details and lots of photos here:

http://rgsrr.blogspot.com/2015/06/some-progress-on-yards-turntable.html

Finished up work on IAIS GP38-2 #715. Thanks to a heads up from Joe Atkinson, I learned that the loco did not have its nose herald during my modeled era. A quick trip to the paint shop and we're once again prototypically accurate. Thanks Joe!

Well, this week marked the end of a long road. The control panel is finished as I had intended it -- this would be the fourth (or maybe fifth) version.

I've been working on a scene for awhile and I knew eventually it was going to require an Envirotex layer for water. Today was the day as things had finally progressed on the scene enough to do the pour and also the rest of my family was going to be gone most of the day. Even though I don't smell the stuff, they do and I opened some windows and got to mixing and pouring. I'm pretty pleased. Not ready for a total reveal  of the scene just yet but soon enough. Meantime, here's a little shot showing the pour.

Michael

Hi there,

A little news from me, the editor of Carendt.com.

I have placed a new Small Layout Scrapbook update online. It's issue 118 and you can find it here: http://www.carendt.com/small-layout-scrapbook/page-118-june-2015/

This will be my 3rd attempt at building a HO layout.  The first one was a copy of someone else's track plan.  The plan fit nicely into my space (9x12), but after laying the track, my skill level just couldn't fit the structures, streets, tunnels scenery etc to look right (my post picture above is a view of it).  And I did make a lot of mistakes that I would like to do over.

In this project, we see a firmilliar sight: one of the tinplate cars intended for my friend. This car is beyond an affordable restoration considering its a gift, so after a idea popped into my head I asked if he minded my doing something else with the carbody than restoring it to rolling condition. After getting the OK, I did more thinking. Here's the plan. We're all firmilliar with the idea of old train cars being used as diners right? But they're always older cars than the current era as would make sense.

I've converted an Athearn blue box SW1500 to radio control using Stanton and DelTang components.

I've documented the conversion on my railroad's blog at smallurbanrails.wordpress.com .

Let me know what you think.

Hello All and welcome here.

this blog will show you the progress of my O scale project.

I'm a French modeler and I like US shortline railroads.

I want to share with you my project.

Have a good visit and thank you to read.