Chuck

Thanks all! I just found the lighted Christmas Tree car that MTH made and should be here next week!

Very interesting project...will be a great one to follow!

Video with indoor lighting off... And one for the dog/ animal lovers...

My train is short as not much layout is up. My Santa driven MRL GP40.... Video with indoor lighting on....

Great job! Looks great and runs great just like a real one...well it is!

Jan, Yes the UP flag cars are nice! Lots of $$$ but whatever. Dash-8 UP flag locomotive...I came across the same shell at an auction site, now just need a fairly reasonably priced donor chassis! Chuck

Oh, I got mine and now see that these are all sold out!

Geez as I see Trainworld has pushed back the "Spirit" and all other locomotives until March 31st 2023

Great idea! Your live steam expertise is second to none!

Very good! Love those big beautiful USA passenger cars!

Blue flames...

Yeah I don't like that design with the plastic sleeve...not at all. Aristo did the same on the early heavyweight cars and those I always changed to the new wheel style.

Anybody else have trains in other scales than "G"?? I recently started dabbling back into O gauge. From say 1994 to 2002 I was heavily invested both Lionel and MTH O scale with some Atlas and Weaver thrown in. Sold it all and started in G. Now with prices rising in large scale I've went back to O. Don't have much right now just an MTH SD40-2 with PS2 and 4 Menards autoracks. The Menards autoracks cost a whopping $30 each. If anything the MTH SD40-2 makes an interesting LGB flatcar load! Oh the SD40-2 cost a whopping $240 shipped and is like new with all packing and box. Menards autorack...

Finally starting to see some actual progress with this project. I was going to use USAT GP38-2 truck sideframes with the Aristo drives but the wheels are way to big and won't fit the brake shoes so I opted to use USAT frames. Here's a drive with a modified Aristo mount. The USA drive uses a much larger motor along with readily available parts. Maybe in the future I'll buy the original Aristo drives and frames if/when they become available. Talk is that Bachmann may produce the GP 40 and then maybe they'll offer some parts...in I'd say 5 years..maybe. Here's the chassis. This area was a mess with the center channel all rusted and inside filthy. Somebody painted it black...even the wiring. I blasted of all the paint and now looks nice and new! Loosely fit shell back on to see how the thing will look and I'm happy! Here's what it looked like when I bought it...

Yep Nick you're getting her to run nice! Can you make some kind of chuffer for it?

Jan, No those tanks cars are all fantasy paint schemes. The U.P. ones are close but I don't think they ever had "Big Boy" tank cars...but they do look nice and anything with the U.P. on it sells very well. Yes as I have 3 brand new MTH tank cars and they're getting old. I just checked and they're going on 15 - 20 years old...time flies!

Came across this video on YouTube. The very first EMD 265H 6,000HP 4-Stroke diesel engine made for the SD90MAC. The 265H was a failure and the SD90 didn't do much better. But still the 265H was impressive with a 10.4" bore and 12" stroke for a 1,010 cu. inch displacement for each cylinder producing 375HP.

Yes looking good! Oh yes agree that the .025 per side is fine....just how did Aristo get it that far off...like I need to ask Oh and I agree about doing it like you are is probably best. Quartering a 4 axle coupled drive by hand starts getting tough without fixtures.

Wow, They just added 2 more and bumped all prices up to $199.99 each! Glad I pre-ordered at $149.99 each as I thought that was way overpriced as originally they cost $89.95 each. The large scale market needs another huge player/ dealer like ST. Aubin was. They had the space and deep pockets to buy large quantities at a huge discount and store it all. Dealers these days have very limited stock and have everything drop shipped.

Yep you're getting it figured out! JFC I just did the numbers and 38.5mm = 1.5157"...That's .050 under the minimum of 1.565...just wow! Lot of metal to remove.

Jan, That is a good idea! Maybe could buy a mini-stationary steam engine and run a belt off the flywheel to around a driver? Then be using a stationary steam engine to power another steam engine. They have them here pretty reasonable...but maybe use a steam engine out of one of your boat builds?? https://www.ministeam.com/category/Wilesco-Stationary-Steam-Engines

Trainworld has some new exclusive MTH One-Gauge Tank Cars in. Proves that MTH is still fully capable of producing new rolling stock. As a side note I did contact MTH/ Andy Edleman just about one year ago on 11/06/2021 about piggy backing an order onto Trainworlds order and was told that minimum was 96 pieces required but it was too late. The Trainworld cars are expensive yes but exclusive. I pre-ordered all 4 at $149.99 each not because of political reasons but for an investment as MTH One-Gauge tank cars are selling for twice that amount. Here's the link as scroll down and you'll see them. https://www.trainworld.com/new-arrivals/g-scale.html

Nick, I always set back spacing to 1.565" to 1.570" and everything seems to run good. Screws, Apply heat on screw head with tip of hot soldering iron for say 15 seconds and try...may have to heat longer but you'll get it. I've twisted those screws off before and no big deal to drill out as they're soft...but so is the axle. Yeah axles are tapered...another Aristo brainstorm. It does run nice and smooth though...not the typical haulin' ass like typically seen in videos.

Thanks Nick as keeps me busy! Started making decals today. Went pretty easy as found a website where all the design work was already done and best part is free to download! Here's the website http://railsimstuff.com and he has a lot of really good fonts/ designs. Fonts for this are the Washimont type. Here's one of the pictures that I use for reference..... Working on it...