MM-

A 2-8-0 steam locomotive is called a "Consolidation."

                                                                      -- D

Bill-

There are three aspects of track cleaning: the initial cleaning, maintenance cleaning and wheel cleaning. There are special cars which use proprietary cleaning fluids to do both initial and maintenance cleaning. These mostly do a good job. Then there are electrostatic cleaners. These give mixed results, based on what I have heard. It's possible that the mixed results are due to operator variability. Also, these cannot be used with operating DCC systems so a back up DC system is needed.

I use a Brite Boy block for initial cleaning and occasional touch ups, and a couple of box cars with a block of Masonite riding on the rails to keep things clean. This works remarkably well for the effort needed to do it. However, they're of little use on sidings, spurs and yards because they don't spend enough time passing over those tracks.

I don't find a need to clean metal rolling stock wheels. Loco and tender wheels are another story. For those I use a special brush-like thing. It has brass brushes which send power to the loco so the wheels get cleaned as the loco rests on its back. The brass brushes don't harm the wheels on the locos. I use the Brite-Boy on the non-driven power pick up wheels on the locos or tenders.

                                                                                                                 -- D

Bill-

The customary place for a smoke switch is behind the smoke box door but you won't find one with hinges so that's not really an option.

Take a look at the vertical sheet of "steel" which runs down from the back edge of the cab. That might work if it's sturdy enough. Then see if a sub-miniature slide switch will work there. If not, controlling the smoke only as a function might be your best alternative. Don't even think of putting the switch somewhere on (under?) the tender. That will add another wire between your loco and tender, and we all know the stock wires alone can cause derailment problems.

BETTER IDEA: FORGET THE SMOKE!!!
                                                           -- D

Bill-

The odds are you will use most of your modeling tools at the place (workbench, hobby table, kitchen table) where you actually work on your models so you might not need for them to be portable. The majority of the tools you'll use in building the actual layout will be the ones you use for other household repairs and projects. That said, I strongly endorse the use of a carrousel style tool rack for the hobby specific tools. These allow you to see the tools you have available and choose the one you need without rummaging through a tool box or crowded drawer. As for screws, parts, etc., well, there as never been a parts bin with enough places for the innumerable parts and pieces of hardware you will accumulate. I'm lucky (in a limited sense) that I need to take several medications daily so I have a near endless supply of pill bottles (they work very well) for parts but even I have a junk box with the odd piece or item which doesn't justify its own container.
                                                                                                                 -- D

Jonathan-

It looks like you are approaching model photography in a systematic way, which is the only way to acquire the basic technical skills which will allow you to exercise your creative talents (read: composition) productively. However, I do have a couple of suggestions.

It's not generally a good idea to have an extreme depth of field when shooting small or featured items, like your "test" car. It's more often better to have a fuzzy, out-of-focus background and foreground in order to emphasize the star of the shot. And that means a large aperture. Your f36 is effectively a pinhole aperture which is why the whole scene is in such good focus. Yes, there are times you want the whole picture in crisp focus but that true far less often than when you want to feature or vignette a subject. Think of your purpose in photographing a hillside covered with gorgeous colors versus what you want to accomplish in highlighting one exquisite rose amid other blooms in a garden.

Also, a clarifying note on aperture: An f36 is a much, much smaller aperture that an f2.8 or f4.0 because the f-stop is the reciprocal of the size of the actual lens opening. Thus, an f36 means that 1/36 of the lens' total area is opened to admit light which a bunch less than an f4.0 which means that 1/4 of the lens' total potential opening is being used. That's why you get sharp focus and great depth of field with a high aperture number and terrific low light performance with smaller f-stops. And that brings me to another technical point.

From the earliest days of photography until the digital camera era, f-stops, shutter speed and film "speed" were all interconnected and proportional to one another. Thus, a camera (or, more accurately, a lens) admitted exactly the same amount of light at f8.0 and 1/100 second as at f 16 and 1/50 second (usually 1/60 in practice). This proportionality permitted (and permits) photogs to exercise creative control of the exposure to get different results with identical exposures. In the film days, we also had film speeds, which means how sensitive a film is to light. And, happily, those film speeds were also proportional to aperture and shutter speed. This gave us another way to control the results. For example, a portrait photographer could select an extremely fine-grained but slow film to get the soft, translucent skin tones which look so great in portraits while a sports photog could select the fastest film available in order to stop the action on the court, field or race track. There are still ways to manipulate "film speed" with most modern digital cameras, but this dynamic is pretty much ignored today.

Quote from: Irbricksceo on December 28, 2014, 07:02:45 PM
...while I dont use them as much, I wanted a passenger train so I got older Athearn cars where I got 4 for 35 bucks. sure, the quality was far lower than newer equipment both in looks and running style, however i felt that laying out 200+ dollars for four coaches was way too much.

Irb-

Believe it or not, this is a time to be looking at brass! While Walthers asks $60-70-80 for plastic cars (no lights or interiors on most), you can usually find Balboa, Soho, Westside or other brands of brass passenger cars on eBay. These have great factory paint, lights and seats. Most will have adequate metal trucks and wheels but no couplers. On occasion, you might find Central Valley trucks with snap off bolster mounts. I've often seen five-car sets in the $100 area. The Tenshodo "shortie" lightweights can be found for around $10 each.

Heavyweights (Lambert or equivalent) usually cost more. Forty dollars per car isn't unheard of, but you will likely need trucks and couplers at that price point. And the heavies are unlikely to be factory painted or even painted at all.

These older brass models are unquestioningly superior to plastic in detail, paint an operating characteristics, especially the lightweights. They are also much more durable. Don't expect Coach Yard, W and R, Overland, Division Point or Glacier Park level models at these prices (or anything Harriman for some reason) but you'll find lots of cars to make a sleek lightweight train for a very reasonable price. You won't find everything everyday, of course, but some careful shopping and a little patience can really pay off.
               -- D

Dhiraj-

It's certainly true that there are a lot more resources and merchandise for sale in HO compared to N. But that's not the only consideration. Your available space is a major factor. People and written materials will tell you that HO is roughly twice the size of N (roughly 1:87 compared to 1:160) but that's really not true. HO takes more like four times the area because it is nearly twice as long and twice as wide as N. It's also about twice as high which becomes a factor if you plan a layout with elevation changes or, especially, a multi-level layout.

The general rule of thumb for modelers with space constraints (most of us) is the N-scale is best for layouts which feature long trains moving through broad vistas while HO is more suited to a layout which emphasizes switching and operations over just running trains continuously. This is only a guideline, of course, not a rigid rule. And both types of layout are legitimate and worthwhile. It all depends on your preferences.

Other things to look at are cost, whether the kinds of equipment you want to run is available in either scale, your preferred railroad(s), the time you want to model, and the nature of the landscape you envision.
                                                                                                                                             -- D

Jim-

It's not difficult at all. You just slide the thread across the spring
and maybe wrap around once and you're ready to go.
                                                                                 -- D

Steam-

There's an awful lot of satisfaction in watching a scratch-built product roll down the tracks for the
first time. Or even a heavily adapted, kitbashed one. Model rails who ignore these parts of the hobby
are missing out on two of the most rewarding parts of the hobby.
                                                                                                  -- D

Quote from: jbrock27 on December 27, 2014, 12:06:06 PM
Are the couplers you have shaped like the hands on a GI Joe?  Like how someone would hold a beer, only w/o the beer?

Jim-

Really??? There are hands without beer in them? Where can I go to see this phenomenon?

                                                                                                                            -- D

Quote from: jbrock27 on December 27, 2014, 11:42:41 AM
Len I have read about the thread trick thru the knuckle spring many times but never had any luck doing so.  What do you do to get the thread thru the center of the spring?

Jim-

You don't have to, nor do you want to, run the thread through the length of the spring. Doing so will often result in pulling
the spring off of the nubs that hold the ends of the spring. All you have to do is run the thread across the spring's length and
maybe wrap it no more than once if you want a little more security. This is enough to corral an errant spring.
                                                                                                                                                                  -- D

ms-

What kind of couplers are you using and what kind of rolling stock do you have?
This information will help us give you a good answer. Otherwise, we'd just be
speculating and that's a recipe for failure.
                                                                -- D

Brad-

The Chattanooga is a notoriously inexpensively manufactured, train set locomotive. I wouldn't count on it for long-term use
nor would I put a significant amount of time into getting it operation smoothly because something else will be a problem before
long. I believe you would do much better going on line to purchase a new loco without all of the gremlins you'll find in the
Chattanooga. In the alternative, check a recent Model Railroader for ads and you'll find some excellent prices for new,
reliable merchandise.
                                   -- D

Quote from: jbrock27 on December 27, 2014, 07:11:57 AM
I always found keg parties to be a drain on the college wallet

Jim-

True, but you learn so much!

                                    -- D

Bill-

The short answer is yes. But it may not be as easy as that. You also need to install wipers on your tender's wheels or axles. The easiest way to go about that is to add a brass or nichrome wiper so it rests on an axle. This can then be wired up into the innards of your tender. Have one truck for each pole (rail) of the tender's electrical system.

It's also possible to put wipers on the backs of the wheels but my experience is that it doesn't work quite as well as axle pickups. The main thing to be careful with is making sure that the two rails are not bridged by the tender causing a dead short. In any event, you will significantly improve the operating characteristics of your locomotive.

God luck with your project.
                                            -- D