Sometime back I believe I had posted a question about finding shingles for N scale structures. For lots of reasons I never got any further than that with the project. On our recent trip to MN my wife found N scale shingles from GCLaser. These things were great and I definitely recommend them. Easy to use.

I was at the hobby shop the other day picking up a curved chord bridge. I said, " this might need some of those smaller through truss bridges. Someone says, "you know those are made from paper, right?" Thinking the guy was blowing more smoke than NKP765, I looked at the box description... sure enough... the kit #933-4030 states, "Architectural-Grade Board" What is that and after producing so many great models, why would they produce a paper model reminiscent of the 1960 models? Maybe someone can shed some light on this and tell me why?

I just bought these Minicraft plastic model kits (which I assume are styrene kits). I'm happy to say the detail is quite good. But since I haven't built a model since I was a kid, I'm not sure what type of glue people use these days. I have:

• Plastruct Plastic Weld.
• Canopy glue.
• CA glue.

I see some new glues at MTS' site including:

Blow down boxes were used in engine terminals to contain the high pressure steam from the locomotives.  I was researching the CB&Q's operations in Centralia, IL (I'm modeling it in 1955 in HO) and they mention how they found human remains in the blow down box at the CB&Q yards there and it was assumed a hobo had crawled in to stay warm and was scalded to death.  This incident prompted the Q to put bars on the blow down boxes throughout the system to prevent a reoccurrence.