du-bousquetaire

The fact that they are built pretty tough Joe is good for us in live steam outdoors, I have a bunch of Accucraft box cars and reefers but I don't ever take them to shows or exhibitions any more, they suffer too much. Allright they are near scale in every respect, which I like, but it is too fragile. As long as they stay on the pike they don't get too much of a beating but if you take them to exhibitions, wow! MTH cars are just as sturdy, even sturdier than MDC but are scale . If only they would fix those minor isssues I speak about in this thread we would be all set. Lets all hope for more MTH I would be especially enthusiastic about a 70' mill gondola myself. A good 40' steam era tank car would also be on my bill. I can understand how many modelers today want modern cars though.

Hi folks: I just thought that it would make sens since this forum is read by a lot of MTH users to comment on some things wrong with the present offering of MTH for 1/32 freight cars, and which could be very easely overcome by them, to make more appealing equipment. This is in the hope that they read this forum now and then. One thing that shocks my eyes is their box car door. Look as much as I can on the net (I live in France so can't see the real macCoy any more) I cannot find one example of this diamond shaped folds on each of the longitudinal ribs of the doors. Why don't they contract out the mold for a Youngstown door or some real typical door, that way we will be much more tempted to buy these box cars, en masse. Now I may be missing information on this type of door modeled by MTH, it may have existed, but it seems to be a rare fish in a big wide ocean. Incidently we have a symiliar problem with the reefer door. Their reefer is accuratly proportionned to represent a car built in the late '30 to early sixties, by the mid sixties roads were most often building 50 footers or mechanical reefers, which have different caracteristics and dimensions. Yet it is equiped with a pug door which only appeared in the early to mid sixties. If they would come out with a double hinged refrigerator door the car would be a perfect scale model! And would have a huge appeal to the 1/32 scale comunity especially since they modeled some rare liveries like Cudahies and Wilson car lines, Nedham and so on which are very interesting. This anachronical mishap is really surprising. A bit more difficult to resolve would be to place the bolster in the right position about a foot and a half closer to the ends so we wouldn't have to spend an evening modifying the cars once we buy them. This is very typical of American freight cars they really have the outer wheel set nearly flush with the ends. But MTH has put them way inside, probably to fit their out of scale couplers. if they insist on keeping this disposition, on the basis that, that is where the business is, it would be nice if they fitted the cars with an alternate bolster in the right position so that modelers working with kadees and using wide curves and pointwork could just put the truck in the correct position. Outside of these I find the hoppers nearly perfect as is; the bolster issue doesn't seem to be as critical in this case (probably for reasons of balancing out the load on hoppers these trucks may have been set further in on the prototypes...) The flat is also a very good model all I did to mine is to lower it by taking 5mm out of the bolster thickness. it metamorphoses the car wich is a very good replica of a standard AAR design and I weathered the wood planking. I have no comments about the tank car as it is too modern a prototype for me, nor the caboose as I built my own. I haven't tried it out yet but PIKO sells spare parts and this could solve the problem on the box car (order the youngstown door from them) but we would still have to do a paint job wouldn't we? I hope this helps out, as many of these things would be easy and economic for them to correct.

I personnaly would like them to turn out a Pennsylvania RR Hyppo or big 2-10-0 with a long coast to coast tender to haul my coal drags up to Galitzin; especially so I could double head them and have some pushers at the rear of a 50 car freight Wow! Next on my list would be a J1 2-10-4 hired for just about the same job, could be on the point with a hyppo or two pushing the cabin car. Of course I would also go for a Santa Fe 2-10-4 because the PRR leased them to fix a traffic surge. But also because I like santa Fe modern power. Why do railfans only like articulateds,big riggid wheel based locos were just as impressive. A PRR Q2 weighs more and has much more power than a Chalenger. almost as much as a big boy. Don't forget that the J1 is derived from a C&O prototype which MTH could offer also, and that the whole design is really a beefed up Nickel Plate or Van Sweringen berkshire. So you could make all three with same drivers valve gear leading and trailing truck and probably a lot more components. These were some of the most succesfull all time steam power. And I am quite sure a hyppo would have sold a lot better than the triplex. Also the Daylight could very easely become an RF&P governor,n some really stunning east coast power. Unfortunatly the drivers are different, so you can't kitbash.

Hi friends: The Erie Lackawana is not the Lackawana car, if it ever was produced, it was probably black with white lettering. I too would be interested, I have an E-L one but am modeling the PRR before the end of steam in 1957, so would much prefer a Lackawana one, I would be ready to swap it for one. I made some PRR hoppers from old MDC ones using the transfers now offered by Ozarks miniature they made a very nice model. Once transfered just spray somme satin or flat varnish or DDV over it and it will stay on very well. I don't mind the E-L one as I have fond memories of riding the E-L out of Hoboken terminal when I was studying in the big apple in the seventies. it was a great comuter operation then, with E8, MUs and a great terminal. It should be noted by 1/32 fans that Piko is apparently making a big effort to produce these ex MDC cars in authetic or very near authentic paint and lettering schemes, which wasn't the case a few years ago (for instance I never bought their PRR hopper because it was black (modern times) but it also had the big keystone with a red background which modern PRR black hoppers never had... now I don't want to start a polemic, as I feel the buy america first policy is the right thing to do, and that we Europeans should adopt it also, but if we wan't them to produce them again with correct liveries, don't you think we should encourage them a little? their B&0 hopper is near correct (I am not sufficiently B&O proficient to say if the capitol logo ever was placed on hoppers, but spraying some black over that would make it practically right). The Reading one announced is just the same as the MDC one, their B&0 Time saver service and their NYC pacemaker service box cars are accurate, and so is their new Reading box car... I think this should be encouraged, apparently it is as I see the B&O box car is sold out already! They are also producing the covered hopper again ... They also sell spare parts, very handy for the scratch builder and to restore or repair older MDC ones. Usual disclaimer.

Hi Henrik: I was confronted with the same problem a few years ago starting to model the PRR in gauge one. I run live steam so use wide radius curves (over 11' radius) and pointwork. If you are really interested in PRR, MTH passenger cars don't really match up very well: For one they are too short 70' instead of 85', none of the window arrangements resemble anything like prototype pennsy diagrams, for two (and this even with kit bashing being considered) and three even the ribbed sides ones don't match up because they use a smooth side roof were pennsy had the budd flutted roofs. You can order beautiful all aluminum scale sized ones and made after authentic pennsy diagrams from David Leech in Canada. Check out his web site you won't regret it, I am sure.

Way back a few years when I was modeling the SNCF in HO scale I built a Keyser (GB) white metal kit of a pershing 2-8-0. These were extremly common on French railways before and right through WW 2, and I needed a consolidation for my pike then. It had aluminum tired drivers and an awfull motor. I took the habit of cleaning the wheels (with a brass brush wheel cleaner) every day to try and get some decent operation from this otherwise very nice kit. Then noiticing that the drivers had axles the same (British dimensions) diameter as Romford drivers, I bought a set of Romford drivers for it. These have nickel silver tires, the transformation was incredible, I never had to clean them again. As at the time I had been building another white metal kit from a diferent manufacturer with a Portescap RG4 coreless motor and reductor, whose performances was mind blowing; I bought one for this loco too and installed it. It became one of my best performers on my stud hauling 30 freight cars most of which were Zamac heavy cars of older french type not available in plastic at speeds of 15 mph endlessly, and would crawl while switching. Now remember this was on an idoor pike, granted there is a bit more weight in gauge one helping the electrical contact but out of doors aluminum tires are hopeless unless you run on batteries. I gave up on the Lionel 4-4-2 because there was too much work to do to make something half way correct out of it, and this and the fact that the plastic couldn't be welded together like styrene or ABS made that a very long tedious job for a mediocre result. when you do a lot of scratchbuilding you learn that some gigs just aint worth the bother, and are too time consuming for what they will produce in the end. I had considered, just to give other modelers ideas, to fit an Aristo Craft pacific chassis in lieu of the Lionel one (although their wheels are awfull, and they don't really work so well either) I had also considered putting a Marklin Chassis but they didn't have the correct driver diameter. Buying another loco (or better a shell if I could get one on E Bay) to make all the lower half of the boiler beneath the running boards which is missing on the Lionel engine, Atlantics have the lower half of the boiler very much exposed and I wasn't satisfied with the Lionel "boiler wrapper flowing into the running boards aproach". shortening the boiler in the middle boiler ring, probably splitting the whole superstructure so as to thin it down a bit, and ditto to tender, redetailing just about everything, and possibly rebuilding the tender (and dolphin trucks) as the one Lionel provided isn't correct for an E 6 atlantic. And of course putting semi scale metal wheels all over and kadees. It amounted to almost as much work as scratch building... Then as luck would have it the Train Department announced their intention to produce one in live steam so that really confirmed my earlier choice. It remains never the less possible to do, especially if you know what solvent to use to bond the lionel plastic together correctly.

I am surprised at what you can read in some forums and I guess this one is just like the others. I have had a Lionel PRR atlantic because I model seriously the PRR in 1/32 scale. It is by no means undersize but a bit oversized (if compared to an Aster Pacific, it's boiler is a few 1/16th of an inch over diameter), but what surprised me the most was that you said it was shortened one course of the boiler! Because it has the motor between the axles with worms at each end the rigid wheelbase of the loco has been elongated about a couple of scale feet. Also the diameter of the drivers was enlarged a scale 6" which helps make it less conspicuous. I bought one to try to make it into a descent model of an E6 and after doing a few cosmetic things up front (putting a PRR style headlight and braket a Keystone number board on the smokebox front and a hen coop pilot), I gave up. not that the loco wasn't a smooth performer once tweaked it ran fine, although the aluminum wheel tires need cleaning on a daily basis, if one likes slow smooth starts, but because of this mechanical problem of the motor between the drivers its rigid wheel base couldn't be shortened, the drivers needed a lot of work done on them to make them look half way good, and the whole was the proportions OK for a hyppo (2-10-0 of class I1) and not a n E6 so I gave up and sold it to someone who wanted to set up a garden train for his son. Also there was a lot of work to correct the underside of the boiler. The cab would have had to be split in two to make it less wide and so on. Sometimes it is better toabandon a bad idea rather than to continue to obtain rather mediocre results. In model railroading, I think you have to make descisions. Another problem was due to the type of plastic used you couldnt glue it together nothing I tried melted the plastic to make a good bond.

I mounted Kadees to mine because they are scale and have no problems. Incidently this MTH model (and the PA1) has more discrete flanges that do not need turning down, unless one is a fine scale enthousiaste. We in gauge one hold get togethers where friends bring their live steam locos to run, So although fine scale is very tempting to me, I just cannot modify my track and stock without forbidding other liver steamers to run on my line. I find kadees work well in an outdoor environement although I do not use, at least untill now, magnetic uncoupling. to uncouple I just reach for one of the bent steel uncoupling rod with the tip of a finger, and pull it to one side while compressing the couplers a bit and they uncouple very nicely. It is convenient and looks to scale. All the mounting holes are already drilled and the screws are provided, what more can you want?

Hi : I have since my last post on this turned down the flanges on my F3, and to my surprise this was a very easy proposition to do, I did the whole A-B-A set in one rainy day. It had become necessary because I am improving some 30 year old track which I run on which has oak ties. I am using copper electrician wire to make U shaped rail fixings (spikes) these are inserted into 4 holes drilled in new oak wood ties from the underside and are just bent over the rail flange, making a very sturdy rail to tie fixing that wont slide out and will permit me to renovate my original track by inserting one new tie between each older ones. This will also make my track look more US style with much closer tie spacing. Anyways the old deep MTH flanges bumped slightly when going over that test section so I decided to turn them down too. The original MTH wheels are nice when you reduce the flange depth, no need to put NWSL wheels on them instead. These are made of a nice easy turning brass. I started by the wheels on the dummy B unit. I took one wheel off the axle with a drill press. turned the other wheel by trimming off the excess in four or five passes, then with a metal file putting a v shape on the back of the wheel (around 15°) and then rounding off the flange with the file. Then punch that wheel out and press on the other repeat and your done. To do the loco I kept the last dummy axle on which I pressed all the wheels of both A units, ditto. You have to make light cuts so as not to start the wheel turning around the axle; if your tool grips the flange pull it out. it only happened a few times and with attention it is very easy to do. I do it on my brass mth car wheels (impossible on the gray -Stainless? ones). And have even done my first Accucraft wheelset for one box car. Have 9 more to go... As I do live steam and still hope to scratch build a live steam lockey or two before meeting with the great chief, I have bought a lathe and am learning how to use it, these are fine beginners exercises. Sorry I didn't make any good close ups of the loco. Will try to do some to post. I had a pretty small modeling year as I had to take care of my father who was very bad with Alzheimer. He passed away last fall.

I would be interested in the Belgian version myself as they used to be used (two units mu-ed together) on the Paris Brussels Belgian expresses and came right down to Paris gare du Nord untill the line was electrified in the early '60s. I would prefer the early livery. I really liked those Nohabs and remember them well when I was train watching in Brussels back around 1974-'75 and still (but if I remember, modernised) in 1982 and 1984, it was the last I saw them in service, having left the US since 1975 it was one of the last time I saw a passenger train engulfed in steam from the steam heating. as it moved out of Brussels Nord station with a suburban train. The modernisation totaly ruined their look and the EMD parentage wasn't apparent any more. Belgian railways are very interesting with very caracteristic equipment. One of the things I would also like from Heljan is a Danish coach or sleeper, that way I would have the next to last missing car for my Nord Express to put behind my 2-3-2 U 1. The last would be the Russian sleeper but I am not sure it ran in the days of steam. That train used to be one of the most interesting consist on the SNCF with cars from all countries France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Poland and Russia as well as some east german cars. + a sprinkling of Wagon lits and even some DSG cars if I remember. Yesterday they annonced on the news that the last Paris - Berlin overnight sleeper train shut down, probably because the French rail agency charges too heavy a toll to run in France, what a shame. Our railway is really going to pot! It din't run into gare du Nord since the TGV 's did.

Accucraft is also offering nice 1/32 "generic" smooth side passenger cars, scale 85' length all (or mainly) extruded aluminum construction at a very competitive price Kevin check it out on their site. For those not familiar with meths firing I can give basic instructions if needed. Many of us old time gauge oners prefer meths to gas because it is nearly impossible to ruin a boiler if you run out of water (something that tends to happen, in such small boilers, more frequently than we would like it to) wereas with gas, it creates enough heat to undoo the silver soldering on the boiler. In any cas if this happens (running out of water) try to shut off the flame as soon as possible and don't pump fresh water into the boiler unless you do it right after the boiler runs dry (within a minute). Of course the stupid thing is that gas can be turned of in an instant wereas meths takes a few minutes. If you don't have any steam left to run the blower, place the fan back on the stack to create a draught that will cool the flame somewhat and prevent flames belching out from under the firebox and ruining the cab. Shutting off takes time with meth because when you turn off the meth supply valve, there is still meth in the sump and meth tube that burns for a minute or two before you can shut it off. This is done by shuting the blower (or removing the fan) and blowing through the stack a big blow. Wait a few seconds before turning on the blower again (otherwise it can start the fire up again...) Meth firing is otherwise quite safe. The meth tank which should be silver soldered, is an airtight container with a needle valve to let some meth out. This can only happen if some air is let into the airtight tank. This is accomplished by a breather pipe (I call it the "shnorkel") that takes air from the sump below and lets it into the meth tank. This system permits fine regulating of the meth level in the sump below the tank to prevent meth overflowing from the wick firetubes and creating a track fire under the loco. This can be adjusted using a silicon tube sleeve of apropriate size pressed over the bottom of the breather pipe and adjusted to suit. This silicon sleeve must be cut pointed so as to prevent a drop of meth closing of the supply of air. The reason the silicon tube is transparent between the loco and the tender is to monitor visually if you have run out of meth. Do not drill a hole in the filler cap of the meth tank as this would undoubtably create a meth fire under the overflowing burners. try to have the horizontal pipe going feeding the burners as horizontal as possible if it goes upwards towards the front it could starve the front burner. packing the burner tubes should be not too tight otherwise this will starve the flame, the rule is if you turn your burner upside down the wick shouldn't drop out. Never open the meth valve when the cap is unscrewed airtight. Always shut it when fueling up, usually there is enough meth in the sump to carry you over this operation. As meth is aquaphile you don't really need an extinguisher; if ever faced with a meth fire just spray water over it (with an old window sprayer) as it will mix with the meth and bring the alcoohol content down to an unburnable state. I keep an old window sprayer full of water near the steaming bay. Of course the design of a live steam track should be explained you must have a level track (unless you use radio control on your engines) and wide radius curves are recomended as these engines can attain unbeleivable speeds especially if they uncouple accidentally. Then you will see the loco shoot off like a rocket and head straight for the rose bush at the first curve! But then as an old advocate of John Armstrong, I firmly beleive in laying out your pike using the largest radius possible and the largest switch size possible . this holds true even with narrow gauge. The operation will be much smoother the trains will look much better, you can haul longer trains (which in turn tames the locos), and besides that is one of the biggest benefits of going out doors, there are much fewer constraint than indoors.

I only use a very short peice of marklin track which is actually inside my indoor terminal, I would say it's between code 200 and code 215 it is the same height as the Tenmille track so you could use both together although the tie height wouldn't be identical. I find that the old MTH has trouble hitting (very slightly) the rail fixing (not the ties) it is very nice reproduction of German track (Swiss, Austrian and Belgian is same); it is solid stainless steel. Oldis say before and including the GG1. My F3 hits the spikes a bit,so would have my GG1 but I returned the flanges on it so it is not a problem any longer, the VO 1000 and the PA 1 both run perfectly well on it. the ties are black treaded against UV and are scale size and closely spaced (at least from the European standpoint) so closer to US track. Simon

Hi there: Talking about putting a train together, I have recently found some cars I very much wanted to add to my 1950 first generation diesel era freight train. It now consists of 32 cars all 1/32 scale first are some hoppers mainly a whole bunch of MDC and Piko, I was happy to find at last the Reading hopper, (the recent B&O ones look just the thing I was looking for as well as the covered hopper) Then I added two MTH flats, once lowered, equiped with scale wheels and kadees they look just like the AAR standard cast integral ones then I also found two old MTH reefers a Wilson car line and a Raskin meat reefer, they add variety to the accucraft ones my real treasure was finding a couple of the J & M round roof box cars which were a PRR X31 design and which I wanted very much. All have scale or at least G1MRA standard wheels and Kadee or Accucraft couplers. This train handles very well which proves the point about using as large radius curves as you can, as I run live steam there is no grades or at least there wasn't supposed to be any, but thirty years of frost heave and tree roots have changed that ideal state of things. As things stand there is a short 11' section at 1% downgrade just about where the middle of the train is. This train goes indoors down the track in the forground to an indoor terminus and yard (now way too small) down a 1.8% grade by backing down (again backing down a N° 8 switch makes life much easier) to the yard than cutting itself in two it just fits inside the yard! the F3 A B A set, of which only the A units are powered, can lift this train out of the yard very easely. It seems most Class 1 main line railroads strived to stay within tha 1.8% limit. There were exceptions, that always incured great costs to the companies with double heading , helpers and so on. 1.8% which is what the east slope of the Pennsy used of course was a helper district too but things were manageable there. Yet in steam days trains would be cut in two at Altoona at the bottom of the grade and rescinded at Pittsburg Pitcairn yard. Then of course helpers (Snappers in PRR lingo) were added between Altoona and Galitzin were they were removed. It seems that when the PRR dieselised they had the very same problem that I have: Enola yard was too small so they would make up the train from two sidings in the departing tracks and take off for the main line, the cabin car was added to the leaving train by gravity, the crew would loosen the brakes and let the crummy coast to tag on to the moving train, I would love to do that on my pike! Well cheers every body, Du-bousquetaire

Jerry, thanks for the info; I too have been looking for proper camera bellows material, it seems that in Europe you can't find it any more. Now I don't know how it folds or if there is a special technique to fold it, but it should make a sturdier bellow than paper and the receipe for folding should be the same. 10" square is more than enough to make standard bellows. However paper bellows work very well especially since I treated them with silastic, whioch should keep them out of trouble in rain. Boy that Zephyr train is nice! Brings back memories of when as a teenager I used to climb all over the minuteman at Edaville RR. Museum. the folding doors could be opened and I used to visit it inside, there were some nice murals if I recall correctly. It seems that an association down east is trying to restore it.

Hi there everybody: I am the Simon who wrote the article on diaphragms, I am hapy to get feedback already, I don't see any reasons why using a magnetic face plates wouldnt work, although you would need to be carefull when uncoupling. However I find them unnecessary at least on the 11' minimum radius curves, which I use as the face plates act like central buffers and keep the train tight. I must mention that I use only the 921 (now the 1917) versions of the kadee couplers that do not have slack, slack would create a gap. As I said in the article I added another fold to the bellows and it does the trick. they now keep in contact , even when I have a three fold on one car and a four fold on the other. Of course this is all for close coupled equipment, and is possible when you use wide radius curves. But then, when you think about it, why use short radius curves outdoors? It is my opinioon that it is usefull that the faceplates slide sideways going through the reverse curves of switchwork and yard throats. My trains leave two different tracks from my indoor terminal each time I run (including one three way N°8 switch!) and return in reverse every day and I never have trouble with diaphragms locking, or creating derailments. Since the article I have, as an experiment to make the diaphragms water proof: I have put one coat of silastic (this coupound is used in the theater and film and TV costume business) which is like putting a coat of liquid latex on my bellows to try to waterproof them. This stiffened the diaphragms so much that I didn't try to put a second coat on them. they work fine this way still but are a bit stiffer. As we have had terific outdoor railroading weather this spring, I still cannot report on how well this works in case of a downpour. I will as soon as it happens and that I am cought with my varnish outdoors during a spring fresshet. Don't forget I didn't invent anything, this was in a 1960's Model railroader article by Canadian Gib Kenedy. take care, du-bousquetaire or Simon

Say Larry, that is very kind of you to offer to help me on this one. I am kind of an afictionado of the E units having ridden behind them quite a lot in early '70's Amtrack days between my school in NYU in the big apple and my mother who lived in the Boston suburb. before that time I rode behind FL9 on the New Haven when they were prime mainline road power and even remember riding behind a PA 1 on the old New haven in the sixties. But in the seventies when I was in NYU I rode maily behind E 8 and E9, even when I would go to Hoboken to ride the Erie Lackawana. I just like long units. Of course kit bashing one from an MTH unit would permit to do an E7. which would fit my period better... i understand that ST. Charles station did some also. A French friend of mine who models the Santa Fe and SP (he built a tehachapi loop in his garden in southern France, went to see him in Montana I think, he (the ma is from Marseilles where the railroad station was called Marseille Saint Charles...

Hi XL special: I am intrigued by that E8 or E9 truck and especially the sideframes as I would very much like to find a 1/32 scale E unit who made this one? I think that if I could find one I could make up an E unit from MTH parts.

I use MTH equipment on code 250 and code 215 track and have been since 2009. I agree that with the earlier MTH offerings you had to turn down the flanges, this I did on my GG 1 as it really had deep flanges, I also did it on all of my MTH cars(7 to date) which either I could turn down, or fitted with Garry Raymond wheelsets, but that was for esthetic reasons, it ran fine with the original flanges but it did look awfull though. Since I have aquired an F3 which has relatively deep flanges, but it runs over all my layout with no problems, It does hit a few spikeheads on one short section but this isn't a major problem. I have noticed that on more recent offerings: the VO1000 and the alco PA1 the flanges are shallower still and they do not make any problems on any part of the layout at all. So MTH seems to be on the right track... I find turning down flanges a relatively easy operation for the beggining lathe operator that I am. Some of the MTH wheels (and ditto for some of the Accucraft ones also...) are made of some very tough stuff that cannot be turned easely though (the ones that look fairly light grey). On the GG 1 the reason I turned down the flanges was mainly esthetic as the drivers are very well reproduced and very visible and I felt that it was part of the improvement program that I had setled on. (see photos on the FP7 forum) But it ran very well with the original flanges. These have all pilled up an impressive mileage in the past 5 years, derailments are practically unheard of. One may have to adjust the back to back distance (I widened it on some locos). Also my pike which has 11' minimum radius, was originally planned as a French railways line with left hand running, when I started to model the PRR, I switched to right hand running, and most of the pointwork is thus now facing pointwork, but it still runs with no derailments. and is as reliable as before. So have no fears. But beware of short radius that's the culprit, and it isn't needed in the great outdoors.

Hi: I just found a few weeks ago some of those Northwest meat packer reefers that were offered many years ago that I had been looking for for some time: I found a Raskin Siouxland beef reefer and a Wilson Car lines reefer, I was very glad as these are absolutely prototypical liveries (as seen in Reefer Cars a colour guide by Gene Green at Morningside books) the car body is a bit different (no horizontal seams) and these have pug doors were there should be swinging doors. But I can live with that. And it is just possible that some may have gotten some while in shopping. They add some variety to my Accucraft ones. They have roof walks with round holes, and make a nice variety with the Accucraft ones. once equiped with scale wheels body mounted kadees and with the wheelbase lengthened they look just as good.

Hey Larry: That is really very nice, I had a lot of work and things to do these months so didn't reply untill now. There is absolutely no trace of the splicing of the parts to lengthen the units. That is quite an acheivment! Many paints need to be mixed well before using I shake my tins and then use an old HO code 100 rail to mix up what is stuck on the bottom, and I make sure I get it to a good fluid consistance. Often that is where all the binding agents setle down, and they are what makes the paint tough and resistant. That will turn into a very usefull unit. Right now all I have time to do is to work on some freight cars just made some AAR flats and some reefers from MTH bases. The flat is great reproduction of a cast integral AAR flat all it needs is to lower it about 5 or 6 mm. and it comes into its own. On the reefers, I put the bolster about 7.5 mm. outside so that the trucks are the correct distance from the ends. That way I have a bit of variety to my reefer block, made up of Accucraft and MTH (some of those north west meat producers). The MTH ones are very nice and look good when equiped with Garry Raymond wheelsets, the above modification, and Kadee couplers. Unfortunately though they only make them wit Pug doors, a bit modern for me and I do not know if the Raskin and Wilson car lines ever had any... It would be nice if MTH corrected the wheelbase of their cars (the bolsters are too far in on account of the overlong couplers they use... Made some swing door reefers, and made a Youngstown door for their box cars (As hard as I have tried on the internet I have yet to find a photo of the prototype of their box car door?) It may very well exist (as I am in Europe it is difficult to check on this, but I havent found any photo of it yet). Modifying the wheel base of these isn't too complicated but it takes time... I glue the polycarbonate with chloroform obtained at a professional professional plastic supply shop.

Hi XL special: I am pretty interested in trying out such a conversion myself. What sideframes did you use for the trucks? Because once you solve that, you really can consider doing it. Untill now I did not consider this because of this problem. I am motivated to go for an E8 because they became very universal on the Pennsy. I heard also that the motors in the NWSL trucks aren't really very good. Do yours run OK? I hardly have any grades, as I run live steam without radio control and wide radius, but I do run long trains at track speed. Then again with four power trucks on an A-A lash up it should be OK. Your truck sideframes look pretty tasty! Great job and it gives one the urge to get with it. keep up the good work., Simon

Hi there: I have the very same problem on my track which has an indoor terminal (out of sight from out doors) and since this is indoors, when I still had problems making my DCS work correctly, I installed cab control type of toggle switches to control each siding separately. As when I had a short outdoors (my switches are hand made with live frogs and are therefore insulated beyond the frog with insulated rail joiners. If an engine arrives from the end of the switch which is not the one the switch is thrown to, it automatically creates a short.) ( I also took the precaution of increasing the distance between the wing rail and the switch blades so as not to have shorts when the engine goes through a switch, These are very nasty because they are virtually invisible operation wise, yet can really create havock in the indoor terminal!) All of my other engines stored indoors would start and head for the yard throat. This actually created a very big problem solved thanks to Raymond when an A-B-A set started for the three way switch at the yard throat and the lead engine automatically shorted out but the trailing one kept running and burned out two traction motors! The way I now solve this problem is to put only one engine on a section of track. When I want to use this engine during a session I go indoors after stoping or slowing the outdoor trains. I call this engine on my handheld, and then I flip on the track voltage with the toggle switch and immediately as the engine starts up, I hit the shutdown buton. This stops the engine, I can then start her up again and take it outside or wherever it has to go. This works very reliably, now that I have a Bridgewerks power supply. The only limitation to this is: only one engine to one cab. If you have two engines you need to have two handhelds and call both engines and stop them simultaneously. I have not tried this because so far I only have one handheld. I may be able to try this soon however. However this solution sounds very interesting also. Just a suggestion to help others especially those beggining in DCS.

On the contrary, I think this polarity indiference that is announced for PS 3 might just be a very usefull item in the following cases: Right now my layout does not have a wye but I plan to install one for two reasons: One is based on US railroad practices: Very often Passenger trains are turned before entering a large terminal(I have photos of PRR Saint Louisan entering Saint Louis terminal backwards this way), so that the head end cars are behind the engine and observations are on the tail end. Also this helps people detraining not thaving to walk by the head end equipment. I have an indoor terminus and do want to install this as soon as time permits. This would of course inverse the direction of the locomotive, creating a problem with PS2 locos. If it reads that and automatically adjusts, that would suit me fine. I also want to install the wye for turning long engines: My T1, or diesel lash ups, or visiting friends articulateds. There is also the case of the turntable although it is quite easy to flip the direction switch while the loco is on the table. But think of those of us who have return loops on their layouts! Such a system if it is automatic can be a real boon for these cases. Although I agree with Raymond in that I doubt that I will modify my locos. All my best, Simon

Hi every body: Here is the finished D78 diner. A detailed construction article on it (and the B60 baggage which uses a slightly different construction approach) should be out in a few months in Steam in the Garden magazine. The technique although applied here for a PRR car could be employed with equal success to build any heavyweight car. The idea beying to keep the detailing relatively basic but to concentrate on a car giving years of trouble free service out on the garden road.