My loco-fixing campaign having ground to a halt for the time being, I turned to the second of three summer projects, which was addressing the repairs of our various buildings.  Most of these are donations from my father-in-law, who has a knack for turning scrap into art.   He set a standard that works for us, which I've described as place between toy and model.  The little town of Haluku'ilio exists because of his contributions, most of which are below:     T...

I happened to visit Star Hobby today to get some styrene and glue. I noted they had a lot (more than 12) of unboxed but new Bachmann passenger coaches for $40, with North Pole, Southern, ET&WNC, Tweetsie (different from the ET&WNC!) and maybe other road names I didn't notice. All have metal wheels but I didn't see any wheel pickups, so I suspect they are the earlier type. The owner's son indicated they came from sets that had problems with the loco. They don't list specials on the websi...

Since I had the locomotive all apart for a RailPro installation,( see my post in the Power and Sound forum, I don't know how to copy a link) Im lucky I can do this much!!!  and I bought it probably a year ago, I figured now is the best time to install the CamPac boxes and make this locomotive a KaDee coupler model, not a USA coupler . I didnt think to take pictures during the install, but is went well. Only issue I had was the front and backsteps had been glued on so I had to do some huntin...

Hi folks The purpose of this forum is to act as a repository of drawings, images, files, etc, of anything railroad related. You can either upload the file, or post a link to it as a message.

We run our D&R Railroad Train trailer at Ozark Steam-O-Rama and Antique Tractor show in Republic Mo. We run trains for 4 days, so I wanted to create another load for Steam show train display. So I drew up a hit and miss engine similar to the Galloway model, this one is a 2 speed, the outside pulley can be removed to use the smaller pully, to provide more power but would be slower.  I design the trucks that can be used on short cars, the axels/wheel are set as close together as possible t...

A good friend and fellow 7/8 scale fan has opened an Etsy shop were he markets 3D resin printed figures. They come unpainted. Here are five of them I recently painted for my RR.  

   So, here goes. I'm building a caboose and boxcar repair shop with some yard storage attached. I have two strategies this year: (1) I'll start from the center and finish each section of the building, work my out from there, and as far as I get, that's how far I get; and (2) I've never tried to cut tin, but I know for certain this is the year I finally make good on my annual New Year resolution to wear safety glasses when cutting.          I can't wait...

What scale is Bachman spectrum On30?. For what I want in locos and rolling stock I am going to go with Bmann spectrum. Its tiny compared to O27. And HO is to small on the other end. So for designing scenery and buildings I need to know where I should be shooting. 1:48 seems about right. 

Back in 1982-1983, when I first started my LALS club project Baldwin electric, all electric powered locomotives at the time were controlled by tethered hand controllers. Then about 10 years ago, many of the large 1/8th scale diesels (GP38's, SD45's and the big SD70's) started using electric powered trucks and the locomotives were still tethered to the engines by bulky cables. If you were just one person doing switching operations and making up a simple 2-5 car train, it was a lot of physical wor...

If anyone here has Wiha tools of the "precision" type, maybe you'd like a desktop holder I made this last week. It has  different shelves for specific sets (the handle sizes, and therefore sizes, change with each). I've done those shelves for SAE & Metric hex drivers, SAE & Metric nut drivers, the 7 piece screwdrivers, and Torx. The shelves are interchangeable and can be ordered per your preference.   If you want one, over next week or two, PM me with your set types (in this "pr...