To All: Here are  representative views of the two levels if the layout. Work to be done, of course. Display shelves and railroad signs on the wall.

Yours, Elvin Howland/E. St. Louis Rail Group Layout

I look forward each month to Bruce's DCC articles.    I'm waiting for a "how to" article on brass steam locomotive installations.   

Moving form N to HO is causing a lot of space issues in my 10x13 foot spare bedroom. They are issues I can solve but ones that are really keeping me from doing what I want which is moving forward on the new HO pike. I'm amazed at the amount of "junk" I have.  The biggest issue so far has been cleaning off my so called work table. I say so called because rarely did any work ever get done on it. It became the piling place for all my stuff. I could not have used it to build a model kit if I'd wanted to.

Anybody interested in some amazing photos of the innards of Rio Grande Southern #20 - a 4-6-0 undergoing a very extensive rebuild?  There's photos here of the frame, firebox, bolsters... even the inside of the rebuilt tender:

http://rgsrr.blogspot.com/2012/04/rgs-20-rebuild-continues-w-photos.html

I purchased a MMI K-27 several years ago and have done nothing with it. It is really to big for my railway, but I have a soft spot in my heart for the "Mudhen" ever since a friend and I spent a warm summer night in the cab of one in Chama chatting with the night hostler and his black lab "Baldwin". Ahhh, Chama.

Gday,     I have a tour of my layout on my youtube channel if any one is interested in looking at my effort in portraying a fictional area of railway in South Australia 1980s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOiKuAXUeXY

Ken

To All; This C&EI F Unit is one I painted, lettered, weathered and dullcoated. It is one of several I exchange out on this chassis. That way I save on money and at the same time have many railroads available to run. The train run that day determines the F unit body used.

Yours, Elvin Howland/E. St. Louis Rail Group Layout

In this issue of MRH there is article about putting a light on your optical visor. Hear is a link to a inexpensive optical visor with light.
http://www.harborfreight.com/magnifier-head-strap-with-lights-38896.html

After some helpful comments from Joe about my previous post regarding article submissions to MRH, I thought I would redo the post to make it a little easier to read and more informative. So here goes.

When I can fight through a recent spate of dizzy spells, I've been slowly but surely making progress on building the benchwork for my new HO venture as well as acquiring parts pieces and rolling stock for it. I'm taking a little break from the benchwork to write this. So far besides bench lumber, I've acquired WS foam roadbed, some Atlas code 83 flex and and some Peco turnouts that I'll need. Also today I purchased from Micro Mark a Bachmann 2-6-0 Mogul with DCC  plus sound and a bulk pack of six Tichy undec forty foot boxcars.