Since Labor Day the month of September has been jammed with activity as the new school year gets underway. Until last Wednesday, none of that activity involved the model railroad.

Hi All,

Not a whole lot of scenery on my 3 deck layout so far.  I've been working on the area of Cedar Hill, TN developing my backdrop painting and track weathering and detailing along with some basic ground cover. The buildings still need to be finished and detailed. 

I've been an avid fan of Chris Lyon's wonderful backdrop painting and it is all I plan on using.  You will find one of his videos on TM TV and more on You Tube.  So far, I have completed about 50' of a total of 800' feet of backdrop on all three decks.

Been playing with some ideas for control panels for Penn Lake version 8. The panels represent towers controlling each interlocking or group of linked interlockings.  I haven't decided yet whether to group all the panels together as shown here or split them up, with each panel near its tower.

Last Friday, I visited the Innotrans, which is one of the world's largest railroad trade fairs held every second year in Berlin, Germany. On the stand of yard operator RLC, which is a subsidiary of the HVLE Railroad, there was a small, pizza style H0 model railroad layout:

My Sculptamold has arrived. I think that it is a great material. The first time I used it, I mixed it 50/50 but now I see that it should be 2:1 Sculptamold to water. The only difference I can see is that it smooths out easier in the real mix. I am laying it throughout the freight yard to raise the ground up nearer the ties as I have put all of the yard track on foam track bed so it is the same height as the main. This way, it looks as though the track is lower to the ground without ripping up the track bed.

Hi fellows!!

Do you know of any warren truss bridge (or similar) with a concrete floor similar to that use on high steel trestles?   any help would be much appreciated.

Forgive me it has been three years since my last post. . . . 

Been through some tough times with my health last couple of years but I'm back, and I've decided I need to get back to the basement and play with my trains. 

I have a NCE Powercab I bought  about 4 years ago but never installed so will start my return by re-wiring the layout - DCC style.  

This is going to take some time. 

I have been ask many times about how I use U.S. Geological Survey map. How to get the year you are looking for. So i did a video on how I do it Step by step.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83YSOAcAIDY

Hope this may be of help to someone

Mike Deverell

One of my earlier entries:  SMA10 – Build a 17-Function DCC Decoder for about $5 ( http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/19070 ) generated a considerable amount of interest regarding the possible enhancement for controlling Servomotors (Servos). This is my next version of a 17 Channel Multifunction DCC Decoder based on a low cost $2.56 Arduino Pro Mini.