Brian,
Great job! It was also nice to finally meet you at the show. How did you place in the contest?  The Dunkirk looks great in person

Mark,
Is this a large scale loco? If so, make sure the power switch is "on". This is behind the front boiler plate.

You may also need to add more than just 3 drops to get it smoking. And in case you haven't noticed, smoke is a touchy subject on this board. Some hate it, others don't. Honestly, growing up with O guage, we ran smoke all the time and never had any issues. To this day when my neice and nephew come over, they want to see smoke. They don't care if it looks like a real steam engine or not, they just like the smoke. You do have to run your train at a farily quick pace to get it to smoke.

Good luck

The Wilmington and Western has just done ALOT of reconstruction work, and is a nice ride. Plus it's all done by volunteers!
The Strasburg RR is the oldest running short line still in operation since 1832

http://www.strasburgrailroad.com/

Plus while you are visiting the Strasburg, you can just walk across the street to visit the RR museum of PA.

http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/

If you wanted to spend a weekend in the mid atlantic area, there are alot of areas to visit to see steam!

Wow,
That really looks good, nice job   

It's definitly a dump truck body. You can see where the lights were as well as the gate release lever on the front. However, it looks like there is a pivot in the center on the bottom. Like alot of MOW equipment, they make what they need.

I'd like to know where it's at.

pbroome,
I'm guessing you are talking "big haulers", but like Steve, I don't have a clue unless you mean "DCC"

If you are talking about large scale, you can find these routinely on ebay. It's a great place to pick up items for kitbashes and repairs 

Once folks start contacting them with open house dates, they will put the listings up.

You can check here to keep up to date on open houses. There is also a link for garden open houses.

http://www.modelrailroadopenhouse.com/


The garden tours usually start in May, but mostly in June. These open houses are for the tri-state area

They are hit and miss. There are times I go to shows and walk out with only a few items. Then there are times when I make multiple trips out to our truck. At the large scale show in York last year, I found a car that I had been looking for, yes it was used and needed some work, but it was part of a collection of rolling stock I have. I thought he was asking too much, so I offered less and was told "no way". I was OK with that, but when I went back on the second day, I picked it up for less than I was willing to pay on the first day.
Timing is everything, and sometimes you find your pot of gold, sometimes you don't

Lucy1,
I use track cleaning cars with great success. We don't have many sidings for switching like Jim mentioned, as that would create a problem with the cleaning cars.
We use the cars on HO, O, and our large scale layout. The HO car you fill with cleaning fluid, then just pull it around the track. The O car is an old Lionel car from the 50's that is still going strong.
The large scale (1:22.5) cleaner is mounted under a caboose. 

All of the cleaners are non abrasive, as the abrasive ones actually will end up scoring the railheads, and causing more dirt to stay on the track.
I have also used the Labelle oil, and that works well also.

Good luck

I feel very fortunate that I have multiple train and hobby shops within driving distance. I live in MD, only 12 minutes from the PA line, and 1/2 hour from Delaware.  For the most part, the folks have been a pleasure to work with. I have been in some where the people treat you like you are interrupting their day. I simply don't go back.  do have my favorites, and I'll drive the 50minutes to get to it. I also buy alot on-line to save on gas, but there are those times when I just want to walk around and look.
There are also some mail order companies that have very rude people working for them. I won't mention the name, but my wife won't order any train items from a particular large scale warehouse because of the way they treated her. I know they are working on their PR, and I haven't had the same issue with them, but she was very insulted.
It's a shame folks have to be like that. When we started visiting other peoples RR's during open houses, everyone was so nice and welcoming. We have made many new friends that we routinely talk to and see. Some of our very closest friends we met at open houses.
If you have questions, please post on this board as there is ALOT of knowledge, and friendly folks willing to help.

Sorry you had such a bad welcoming, but from us who enjoy trains......

Welcome aboard!   

Mike,
They are great little runners. I have several that I picked up over the last couple years. With only having 4 pick up wheels, dirty track can be an issue, but nothing to the point where I would not run them. They are fun to weather into different stages of use. They show up from time to time on ebay as well as the cars from the set. It came with a red ore car and a yellow caboose.
I took one of mine to several open house's this past summer and ran with my kitbash MOW set. It got lots of compliments on how it looked and ran.
If you can get them, you won't be sorry.

How about........."the Arttie" 

Did you know.........

In the early days of the Pennsyvania RR, they also owned steam powered boats along with the trains. I don't recall how many or exactly what kinds, but I do know they had some tugs.