1) A tale of voe. My Bachmann GP40-2 took a nosedive into the chasm of doom. The dammage was catastrophic enough that a new coupler had it it back to 100%. The durability of this model is awe inspiring.

2) An Idea?!? Since my layout is a wall-mounted L shape, I will only ever see one side of a givven piece of rolling stock while on the layout - what about weathering the 2 sides quite differently? light on one side, heavy the other? give some variety to my (compared to the multi-100 fleets of others) modest fleet of ~50 pieces

Yeah I know the last post said April 4th to April 11th! I just can't count the days!

Post your interesting photo of the prototype - New or Old - US or Foreign - SG or NG or even BG!

Just make it interesting.

Graeme

Every so often one needs an absolute position detector, rather than a block detector. The best I’ve used employ their own light source, but older designs use Cadmium Sulphide (CdS) photocells and depend on ambient light in the room. Both have driven me crazy with their limitations. This article describes a new design, using ambient light “seen” by the detector in two places – typically between the rails and just to the side of the track.

This is a follow up post in my quest to find a realistic as possible approach to replicating old, weather-worn ties on the Milan branch. Please forgive me for repeating the first two steps, but I believe I’ve got results that are worth sharing.