I currently have a 4x8 HO layout set up on a table in my family's Rec Room but I have to take it down for Christmas as my family uses the table for wrapping Christmas presents so my trains will not be run from Thanksgiving weekend until sometime after Christmas like late December/early January. I have a Bachmann Spectrum DCC C40-8W, a Bachmann Spectrum DC C40-8W and a Bachmann DC B23-7.. is it safe to not run these engines for a long period of time like that and is there any break-in procedures that I have to follow when starting the engines again?
Note: It is possible to plug in the layout when it is put away but only for short periods of time and I can only do it if needed.

Thanks,
Cody

Thank you for the tip

Thank you for all of your help,
Cody

Jonathan:
I'm modeling WV so they are to be used in a forest environment. I am looking at trees that come in packs of 3/4"-2", packs that are 2-3" and packs that are 3-5".
And that's a great idea to put the larger trees in front.

Also, how do you make your own trees?

Thank you,
Cody J

Okay, thank you

I'm looking into getting operating signals for my layout.. I was looking on hobbylinc.com and found out that Atlas makes a number of operating signals such as this: http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/atl/atl239.htm

I'm looking to get about 3 of those and 2 of these: http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/atl/atl235.htm

What else would I need to buy or do to make them all work in sync with each other?

Thank you,
Cody

Okay, thank you ABC

As long as you want it to be but I'm shopping online for trees and I'm seeing trees that are 3-5" tall, 1.25-3" tall, 2-3" tall and so on, I want to know which I should get because I don't want any that are to tall or are too short?

What is the proper height of a HO scale tree?

Thanks,
Cody

I don't know if any of you guys have seen this or if it's been posted recently (I haven't been on in a while) but this is amazing also, how stupid people are and how they are willing to put their lives on the line just to get top a baseball game!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW9RrPUu6j0

Cody

Jeff:
Living near St. Clairsville, I hardly ever go to Ollie's but last time I was there they had some HO IHC passenger cars, they had some RF&P combine's and some SCL mail cars. But that was a few months ago and I'm not sure what they have now.

Cody

Very cool mining facility Jonathan.. is it for coal?

I just ordered the book and I saw that it has 422 pages! That is quite a bit as the largest book I have ever read was 360. I guess it's time to break a new record 

Hmm, Since both of you like it and both of you are from my neck of the woods then I'll see if our library has it or if I can get it from another library.

J3a:
Ollie's does have a lot of strange things for cheap prices but we tend to stay away from there because the store is so messy and disorganized.