Quote from: Old John on March 14, 2013, 01:13:16 PM
I have a Peco (kit) that I picked up on Ebay, works great, scales out at 75 feet though!

Yep, 15 feet too long for the average branchline turntable of 60'. The 100+ footers offered by other brands are more typical of a major late-steam-era engine terminal. A 1918 listing of Boston & Maine turntables shows 116 turntables (and 18 wyes) with a range in sizes from 45' to 85' - 53 of which are 60', 12 are 50', 12 are 70', 10 are 75', 4 are 80', and 4 are 85'. The remainder are odd sizes of which there is usually on one of. Everything bigger than 60' dates to between 1900 and 1917, but they were still installing new / replacement 60' one in that same time period.

And the point of this exercise being that the turntable should be sized to the type of equipment - steam era equipment - that your railroad would be turning at that point. Although it probably happened somewhere, I cannot recall reading about a turntable being enlarged to accommodate larger diesels. 

Frankly, I think nothing tops the realism of P-scale, but few of us have room for 1:1 scale trains in our homes.

The older I get, the smaller the trains have gotten. I "modeled" with Lionel from age 3 to age 12 with my uncle's trains from the 1950s. Then I discovered Model Railroader magazine... through my teens and twenties I modeled in HO because it was the most common scale with the most to offer from the shops I could visit. Took a break for about a decade, largely because I couldn't fit an HO scale layout into my tiny NYC apartment. Still can't, but my interests have changed thanks to the internet.

Two years ago I got back into the hobby with N-scale. I was originally thinking of going over to a British prototype because of their branchline terminus layouts with fiddle yards. It seemed a good fit for an apartment. But then I rediscovered Iain Rice's Peterboro, NH, plans in the 2000 edition of Model Railroad Planning. I can pretty much model the railroad facilities in that town full size (roughly 500' x 650') in N-scale with the room I have available. This decision cemented the switch from HO to N.

Now, if I had a choice... or, rather, if I had the money and the space to do it... I think I would model in O-scale (two-rail) and probably build a railroad based on Frank Ellison's Delta Lines, but using more recent trains of thought when it comes to layout design. Instead of a "bowl of spaghetti" plan, I would do it as a linear walk-around plan, incorporate staging yards at the ends / interchanges, and more strongly tie its southern end to the actual routes through New Orleans - which is where Frank lived. Sadly, even his house is now gone, destroyed in the Hurricane Katerina flooding, as I understand it.

Here you go, UP, the Schnabel car on 22" curves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gxk5R2mao4.

Quote from: union pacific 844 on March 03, 2013, 10:34:21 PM
im tireder of ruing stuff  so im done with painting

Everything has a learning curve, from painting a scale model to... more intimate things. Some progress quickly up that curve, others take a bit longer, but nobody succeeds if they surrender after their first couple of missteps. You __CAN__ learn how to paint, you just need to practice and you need to use the right things to practice with. Start by learning how to paint neatly with a brush. You can use a small bit of lumber and a sampler of latex house paint from the hardware / paint store. Use water-based paint as it's easy to clean up and can be thinned with water. Thinned paint is what you want to work with. It goes on smoother, doesn't hold onto brush marks, and flows into the nooks without filling them. Once you can do a smooth finish on a block of wood, then move onto a junker piece of equipment and learn how to paint that with water-based model paints - again, thinned so as to go on smoother.

Now, how do you thin paint with water?

Easiest way - for me - is to keep a plastic cup with water in it next to me while painting. I start by dampening my brush with water, dip it into the paint, blend the water and paint by dabbing the brush on the newspaper covering my work surface. If it is too dry / thick, I put more water on the brush and blend again. Too watery, add more paint and blend again. Just right, I test it on the item I am painting.

It's a balance you learn to get a feel for. But the nice thing about water-based paints is that they are easy to wash off if you screw something up - and yes, even after nearly 30 years in the hobby, I occasionally make a mistake. It's part of the learning process. Be bold! Take chances! Make mistakes! Learn! And have fun!

Info on the Ma&Pa's equipment: http://www.maparailroadhist.org/non-rev.htm

Most of the cabooses were 4-wheel bobbers. At 77 miles long, there really wasn't any need for cabooses with bunks and other plush accommodations for when at their away-terminal. Numbers 2002 and 2007 appear to be the only 8-wheel cabooses. The 2007 is an ex-Reading car, and the 2002 is home-built car. Educated guess is that 2002 was used for end-to-end runs, while the bobbers handled local runs. The 2007 appears to have replaced the 2002 in its assignment.

All that said, the bobber would probably be the most common caboose to have behind your Ma&Pa steamer.

Since others have covered the more traditional methods, I'll throw out one that a buddy of mine did a few years back, not as part of a model railroad, but for an architectural art exhibit. He made the base of the streets out of plaster of Paris with a dollop of black paint to tint it a light-to-medium grey. After that had cured, he gave the roads a coating of blackboard paint - thinned, if I recall correctly - in a splotchy pattern so as to break up the uniformity. He then took advantage of the blackboard paint to add lining and weathering with chalk, which he then sealed with Tester's dullcote.   

At the risk of repeating what Ken said, it sometimes sounds as if some people see the train sets as complete trains that are to never be mixed and matched with other equipment. Perhaps this is because some toy stores only sell train sets and do not carry individual locomotives and rolling stock.

A train set is the first step into this wonderful hobby of ours. Not the last one, or the only one. The 2-foot by 4-foot (or the 4x8 foot) plywood board isn't the only shape of the universe, and the oval and figure-8 aren't the only track configurations in that universe. Think outside the (train set) box! If you want a DT&I GG-1 or Santa Fe TGV, why not paint it yourself? The flatter factory look is from using an airbrush. It might be the only way to get what you want if it didn't exist in reality. Factory-made fantasy paint schemes are becoming as rare as DC layouts and $20 locomotives.

One site I have bookmarked is this one: http://www.summit-customcuts.com/homeproducts.html - but they don't have office buildings. There was a company some years ago that, as I recall, had ads in Model Railroader for modern office towers. Perhaps a search on eBay might turn something up.

Other than that, I'd like to suggest a book that's been in my modeling arsenal since it was published in 1982: http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Professional-Architectural-Industrial-Building/dp/013370601X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359344582&sr=1-1&keywords=building+architectural+models+prentice+hall - it's a little dated, but it has some good skills and suggestions for building models like the type you want.

It might seem daunting at first, but they are pretty much just boxes with layered on details. Between http://www.plastruct.com/ and http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/ you should find most of your raw materials - and also check out local craft stores, too. Just because they don't carry model trains doesn't mean that they don't have scratchbuilding supplies. One upside to this approach is that the buildings will conform to your vision instead of your vision having to be shaped by commercially available kits.

~AJ

Quote from: jbrock27 on January 24, 2013, 09:38:17 AM
How are you able to know whom is a "newbie"?
How do you define a "newbie"?
When is one no longer a "newbie"?  What do they have to do?

Although I am not Jeff, I'd like to offer an answer to those questions. A "newbie" is not a precisely definable word when it comes to model railroading. You can be an expert model railroader with decades of modeling under your belt, but if after 50 years of running your trains with dc-powered cabs and blocks you decided to switch your layout over to DCC, then you are probably a newbie - as far as DCC is concerned.

Newbie simply equals a newborn baby to some aspect or another of a "thing." You become a beginner when you have learned the basics of that thing. For example, once you know the vocabulary associated with that thing, have a general understanding of what it is and does and why it's different from that other thing. At that point, you become a beginner. How fast you move toward expert - if you ever do - is dependent on your interest and skills in the thing. You might remain a beginner - or even a newbie - at DCC for the rest your life because, after learning a bit about it, you decided it wasn't for you and stopped learning about it.

So, how do you know who a newbie is? Simple, they just asked a very basic question about something. It could be because they just discovered this hobby, or they are returning to it after many years, or, despite having a 50' x 300' layout in the basement for the last 50 years, they just discovered something new and want to learn about it. We are all newbies at something. Nobody is a know-it-all - they might think they are, but that's a whole other topic! 

Quote from: sd24b on January 24, 2013, 01:17:54 AM
I think I understand where Doneldon was coming from.  The same as I was some questions were asked that most of us would have probably figured out in time.  We all have been down this road.  and yes some of us are close to or have a LHS nearby   at the time we didn't know his personal status but no matter.  the media is out there we just need to look for it.  Phil

I know, Phil. But sometimes - and I'm in my 40s, so I'm looking at this from the days of Usenet's rec.models.railroad thru to present - we can be slightly unforgiving of newbies and their questions. A couple of generations ago, you'd have had the model railroad club full of guys in their 50s and 60s, with the occasional greenhorn 40-year-old, coming face to face with the teenager wanting to join and play trains with them. Today it's this newfangled interwebs thingamabob. Tomorrow we'll probably be sticking the cable wire into a port on the side of our heads and become one with all knowledge. Until then, we've got newbies to care for and nurture.   

Juhrich,

The number sequence for a steam engine is called the Whyte system (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whyte_notation ). It is simply a way of identifying a locomotive based on the number of wheels it has under the boiler portion of locomotive. You say you have a 4-8-4, which means that there are 4 wheels on the leading truck, 8 driving wheels, and 4 wheels on the trailing truck. When writing it out, dashes are used between the numbers, and when saying it out loud it's pronounced "four eight four".

These numbers don't directly correspond to pulling power or whatnot - especially on a model. However, they can be used for certain generalizations of both the prototype and the model.

Engines without lead or trailing trucks (0-4-0, 0-6-0, 0-8-0) are switchers. The can be found all over a railroad's system, switching in fright yards and major passenger terminals, and occasionally venturing out onto the mainline to switch nearby industrial areas.

Engines with a 2-wheel lead truck tended to be freight locomotives, designed for slower speeds and more pulling power. While 4-wheel lead truck locomotives tended to be passenger power. They would have slightly larger driver diameters for higher speed at the sacrifice of pulling power. For both of these generalizations, there are a couple of thousand exceptions to the rule, because any steam engine can (in theory) be used for any kind of work. The Boston & Maine, for example, used their 2-6-0 locomotives for both freight and passenger runs. The New York, Ontario & Western had 4-8-2 locomotives that were bought specifically to haul freight trains. And on and on I could go.

Looking at Bachmann's online catalog, the 2-6-2 Prairie might be better suited to your tight radius tracks, but as I've not ventured into N-scale steam (yet), I'll defer to others with more experience on the subject.

BTW, you'll frequently see a name after a wheel arrangement (2-6-2 Prairie, 4-8-4 Northern, etc.) In addition to the Whyte system, there were also common names given to certain wheel arrangements. The link I gave you above lists these names. Some, like the 4-8-4 have more than one name for colorful and historic reasons. Sometimes learning railroad history is as much fun as model railroading! 

The closest hobby shop that sells HO-scale equipment looks to be 80-odd miles away in Troy, IL. A&R Paints & Crafts. As for train shows... probably well over 150 miles each way - the downside to living in the middle of Nowhere, IL. Then again, I live in New York City and all of the train shows around here are out in the "countryside" making it rather difficult to reach them via mass transit, so they might as well be 150 miles away. The same with our hobby shops - I go to 6 different places in the city and combined they don't offer the variety of, say, Denver's Caboose Hobbies.


By the way... Doneldon, try imagining someone who is patient, helpful, and respectful of their fellow modelers regardless of their modeling or computer skills.

A couple of shots in the dark - mainly to eliminate them as possible problems.

1) Have you tried cleaning the track and the wheels?

2) Have you tried setting up a test track (preferably with previously unused track)?

3) Is the track bare - in other words, is it as it came from the manufacturer, or have you painted / ballasted / otherwise added scenery material to and / or around it?

~AJ

Quote from: rustycoupler on January 02, 2013, 02:16:06 PM
I am building a kit and would like to know the interior colors, i seem to remember something about a horrible green color. lol.

"Interior Green" tends to be a post-WWII era thing as the government sold off, and factories used up, surplus paint.

From the link another poster provided, the colors used on that tower were cream with a pale blue ceiling. I'm not sure how historically accurate that is, but it makes sense. A pale blue ceiling is commonplace for the underside of porch roofs on houses. The "cream" color, too, makes sense, as whitish paint readily reflects light into and around a room.

Welcome to the hobby!

I'm 40 and though I've been in the hobby for 38 of those years, I'm just starting into N-scale myself. The best advice I can offer is advice I'm trying to follow myself: start small with an experimental layout. I'm building a 36"x69" (3'x5'9") layout with a loop of track and a couple of sidings. No electrical blocks nor DCC control -- if you don't know what those are, don't worry, you soon will. It's a test bed to explore new scenery methods, and just get a feel for N-scale. In the past, I modeled in HO (which is double the size of N), and I'm finding that 1) I love that I can do so much more in less space, and 2) a cheap pair of drugstore reading glasses are an absolute must for seeing what I'm doing!

I would recommend subscribing to a model railroad magazine or two - such as Model Railroader (http://mrr.trains.com) or Railroad Model Craftsman (http://www.rrmodelcraftsman.com). Both of their publishers also carry magazines on real (prototype) railroads and they publish various books on prototype and model railroads. Your local public library *might* have some of these books, but that can be hit or miss.

There are also free electronic magazines / blogs - such as Model Railroad Hobbyist (http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com) and Model160 (http://www.model160.com) you can read.

You don't say where you live. Depending on the area, you might also have such resources as your local model railroad hobby shop, a model railroad club, train shows, etc.

I wish I could offer more free resources, but I've come up a bit dry on them too.

I hope that is of some help.

~AJ~