I decided to buy this kit and make it.   I looked for other pictures of the kit and couldn't really find much.  I also felt the instructions were a bit on the light side.  So here are some of my thoughts and pics.  I will keep this short and put the pics in the replies.

At it's heart, the Black N' Blue is a logging railroad. The mine has brought new prosperity to the little line but logging was the original purpose for plying the rails into the rugged countryside. Unfortunately due to space constraints and my "givens and druthers" of what like to have on the layout, there's not a lot of room to model sawmills and lumber camps so for now I'm just content to give a small representation of logging through this single scene.

Hey all,

I just published my first layout video update. So far I have been told that I should relax a little to ease my tone of voice (I don't normally sound this bad) and to make things flow a little better. I'm looking for suggestions/advice/comments so I can improve things without making myself look like a fool even more.

Received my first AP certificate today. Master Builder-Scenery. Now just six more to go for MMR. 

Even though I don’t run passenger equipment on any regular basis, I wanted to have an old station for my layout, it has seen better days, bit of modernization but retaining the old charm of days gone by. There are many station kits available to suit the design requirements, however a winter project with a little more involvement was what I wanted to get into. For inspiration I chose a CNoR third class station like one sitting in a field just a mile down the road here in Emo, Ontario. This, the old Barwick Station, was a perfect candidate.

I recently ballasted some switches for the first time. I have made certain to clean all guard rails and frogs of any ballast and cleaned the track. Locomotives that passed through the switches without an issue before ballasting now hang up or loose power at the frogs. I tried three different locos with the same results. 

I am using Atlas Customer Line Code 100 switches. 

Does anyone have any suggestions. Thanks in advance 

Hello All

New here to this site.

I am looking for info on a article that was in a sister magazine, I believe it was in either a Railroad & Railfan, or Railroad Model Craftsman magazine.

It was titled Those horrible Helpy humps, about repowered locomotives.  I made a couple of models based on this article, how ever in my moving out of BC Canada, my bus was broken into and all my models ( HO Scale ) were stolen along with all my model railway books, so am looking to buy another magazine so can start over.

With a bit of trepidation, I got inspired and filmed a short video tour of my layout.  It moves pretty quickly, and has more of a drone feel than typical layout videos; I wanted to do something different.

Anyway, here it is -

Can anyone lead me to a source of highly flexible small diameter tubing?  Perhaps I am pursuing too much realism in trying to disguise the DCC wires between the steam loco and tender as water hoses and brake lines.  The subject loco is too closely coupled to the tender to fit a TCS of 6-wire connector between the units.  A pair of three-wire Miniatronics connectors are too stiff over such a short span.  My only alternative is to hard-wire the loco and tender.  So, if that is the best option, I would like to disguise the wires in some manner.