Been working (slowly) on a 23"x41" n-scale layout based on the cannery industry along the Columbia River (Oregon) in the early 1900s.

Thought I'd share some construction picts since its start at the beginning of the year.
[The full play-by-play can be found here]

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.

Just this past weekend I was sorting through a file of old photos that I had stashed away in a closet. I came across this black and white photo of a Southern Pacific 2-10-2 "Santa Fe Class" locomotive in HO scale. The model and photo were owned by a good friend, Paul Jansen. The photo was taken sometime in the mid-1960's. Paul was a well known super detailer of HO brass, running his business from his home workshop in California.

I recently stripped an HO scale Kato NW2 using Chameleon.  All was going well until I pulled the walkway from the bath and discovered that it had broken into two pieces right at the middle.  Any feedback on what caused this to happen would be appreciated.   Also need some advice on how to make repairs that will stand up over time.

Ed Robinson