I started building Sweethome Alabama exactly 2 years ago and have now reached the stage where the trackwork, electrics and scenery are pretty much complete, so much so that I have accepted an invite to attend a Model Railway exhibition in November.

I now have to concentrate on detailling and weathering the rolling stock which will run on the layout. Initially, the locomotives will be examples from CSX and Norfolk Southern, which ran in the 1990s and early 2000s, although I want to introduce some Alabama shortline Geeps, as time permits.

Hi all,

Posting from the UK so access to the prototype isn't easy!

I'd like to know whether CN and CP share grain hoppers in the same way that a manifest freight will often include cars from private fleets or foreign roads.

I know that the Canadian federal and provincial governments have bought fleets which are then allocated to either CN or CP for maintenance, (e.g. Alberta's ALNX is a CN allocated car and ALPX is a CP car) but I don't know whether trains are routinely made up from a mix of each railroad's cars.

Something has been itching me recently, and I think I’ve just figured out what it is.  I’m going to be modeling the area I grew up in, specifically the North Shore of Vancouver BC. I love the old paint styles of CN, CP and the two-tone green of BC Rail that I saw as a kid, I’ve personally never seen anything else that tickles my fancy like those paint schemes, new or old. But I also have an unhealthy attraction to brand new motive power.

All-

   Anyone know what happened to JnJ Trains? This N-SCALE locomotive shell manufacturer seems to have disappeared, even the website is gone..

                            Tom