Quote from: Roberto Lodigiani on August 11, 2020, 03:20:44 PM
The BAchmann Silver Series features Celcon trucks. I cannot find any information about Celcon. I want to know the size of the wheels of the HO 13607, 72' Heavyweight COmbine Postwar car.

Passenger cars tend to be equipped with 36" wheels. There are some exceptions, but a heavyweight combine wouldn't have been such a car.

Quote from: WoundedBear on August 05, 2020, 06:45:52 PM
Wow......I built my dragster cheaper than one of their kits on the site.

https://auctions.discoverlivesteam.com/item/74077871/os-engines-baldwin-mogul-75-gauge-kit-with-super-heater-and-injector

Funniest ad on that site is for a "working shovel" 1/8th scale. I mean, finally! You have no idea how many dummy shovels I have amassed over the decades! LOL!

https://auctions.discoverlivesteam.com/item/93259951/working-shovel-in-1-8-scale-extra-capacity-extra-long-handle

R:    Right Rail
L:    Left Rail
M+: Motor Brush Connected to Right Rail
M-:  Motor Brush Connected to Left Rail
L+:  Light Positive
L-:   Light Negative

Source: https://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php?topic=34392.0;wap2

Quote from: Len on July 15, 2020, 05:40:50 PM
The GG-1 was bidirection, so either end could be the front. In general practice, the side containing the steam boiler was considered the 'Front' or 'End #1'. The other half was the 'Rear' or 'End #2'. At various points some units had an 'F' on one end to indicate 'Front", but often times they came out of the shops with either no 'F' at all, or an 'F' on both ends, since it didn't really matter.

Len

Len, please forgive, but I've just gotta poke a bit of fun at you for fun's sake. 

The "front" only really mattered when the engineer slipped it into drive and it started moving the wrong way! LOL!

But, seriously, the Bachmann model should have a tiny F right above the outer most wheels on the end that's considered forward. As with the prototype, it's handy to know which is the "front" when you set your throttle to forward, otherwise the model will run the wrong way round.

On the prototype, the F was a federally mandated requirement, even on bidirectional equipment, for an assortment of reasons, from maintenance record keeping to safety appliances to literally which way the locomotive should be expected to move with the reverser handle in forward or reverse. In addition, some diesel locomotives were setup to run long hood forward, while others where running short hood forward even before short hoods became half-height noses / snoots.

Quote from: Tiddles on July 02, 2020, 02:31:32 PM
Need help with my Sound DD40.

It is missing the left side cab door and Bachmann will not sent me a spear door but say i must buy a complete shell.

Hoe can I fix this problem?

I live near Oxford UK.

Take a look at Cannon & Co. thin wall cab kits if you need a door plus a section of cab wall. If you just need a door itself, "kvmodels" offers etched metal doors and several detail parts makers have EMD cab doors as styrene plastic parts. These can all be found on eBay, though you might need to set your "item location" to worldwide to find them on the UK eBay site.

Matching the paint to Bachmann's shouldn't be too difficult  - feathering the new into the old, a dab of weathering, and lots of practicing on a scrap of card or plastic card should get you there. And if you are fully weathering your model, it's even easier: leave the new door in unweathered primer paint to (literally) show it's a replacement door!

I have been intimately close to steam, diesel, and electric locomotives in operation. Some diesels and electrics have spirit; they are proud and majestic machines, but they are just machines. Steam locomotives have a heart and a soul, they are alive when a fire burns within them, and they are like attending a funeral wake when they are cold and lifeless, stuffed and mounted in some museum.

Quote from: Joe323 on April 13, 2020, 10:40:44 AM
Has Bachmann ever made RDC's?

Not to my recollection. Just Athearn, ATT (not the phone company), LifeLike / Proto 1000, and Rapido in HO, Kato and ConCor in N. 

Eric, on a side note, do you have space under your bed? You could build a roll-away or folding roll-away layout that could fit under there. Also, if you put a lip (say, using 1x4 or 1x6 lumber) around the edge of a layout to protect the track, you could lean it against the wall, or flip it to form a platform under the dining table or sofa when not in use. You could also uses pulleys and counterweights to lift it up to the ceiling when not in use.

Model Railroaders have been thinking outside the box for decades! 

Kadee is shuttered, not out of business.

Like many businesses throughout the US - and the world, too - they are a non-essential workplace, and thus subject to local stay-at-home mandates. In addition, according to Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine's owner, Kadee recently suffered the loss of one of their key employees (not COVID-19 related), so this whole shuttering comes at a bad point of time for the company. It's impossible to fill a vacancy under these circumstances.  While factory-direct orders may not be possible for a few weeks (months?!?), there are still online sources for most, if not all, of your Kadee coupler needs.

Stay safe and God bless, y'all!

I suspect that the 14+ age on American-market items might come down to childrens' toys having stricter regulations (choking hazards, lead content, etc.) than hobby products for mature people (14+).

That said, I'm 48, and it amazes me that so many of the toys I grew up playing with, as well as stuff from earlier generations, is now considered dangerous and / or illegal to sell as a kids toy. I'm not sure if we were lucky, or if people today are just living in a Nanny State.

On the edge of the layout, you could make a little turntable and stall diagram in white paint on a black background. Use blackboard paint for the black, and then you can just chalk the engine number  or decoder channel for the units in each stall.

I am going to assume that you have no interest at this time in changing from DC to DCC.

What you want to do is called Block Operation or Block Control. For a great many decades, this was the primary - if not only - way for the average hobbyist to run their trains. You divide your layout into a series of mainline blocks, and do the same for sidings, yard tracks, etc. The power packs - also called cabs (as in the part of a real locomotive where the engineer runs the train from} were electrically connected to a block or blocks via some sort of switching device on the control panel(s). I say "device" because there have been many variations on the theme over the decades depending on the number of cabs in use, and whether the hobbyist built it from, say, Radio Shack parts, or ready-made components from Atlas and others. It could be as simple as a single-throw switch: left is Cab A, right is Cab B, or as complex as 12-position rotary switches or a 1/4" plug and a series of sockets (think old fashioned telephone switchboards).

Usually, the wiring was done with a common rail -- no isolated joints (except for reverse loops), and all power packs were daisy-chained to it, while the opposite rail was the hot one and only one cab at a time was connected to that. Common rail also makes sense under the KISS or Keep It Simple, Stupid! ideal because you can easily test for mis-wired rails before you short out a power pack.

Model Railroader Magazine has a guide to walk you through the wiring process.

https://mrr.trains.com/how-to/dcc-electrical/2014/06/how-to-wire-a-layout-for-two-train-operation


~AJK

Len, I was merely pointing out that there are larger sheets of styrene available than we normally encounter, let alone think of. Bulk savings aside, do the majority of us need such huge sheets? No. But maybe someone needs a 12x24 / 24x36 / 24x48 / 12x36 / 12x48 (inches) sheet, and now they know they can find those online too. 

Quote from: Len on December 02, 2018, 07:17:55 AM
If you need a larger piece for a base board than styrene usually comes in 8<---------
Len

Just to boggle the mind....

On eBay one can find .040" styrene offered in 4x8 sheets - that's 4x8 feet, not inches. Granted, it's a bit pricey at that size, but if you do the math, it works out to $0.025 cents per square inch vs. about twice that - 5 cents - per square inch when you buy it in the normal size sheet sold by Evergreen. So it might make sense for larger builds, or when you are doing a ton of scratch building.

One can also use these large sheets of styrene for backdrops and / or layout fascia, or even control panels. The 4x8 (48x96) is just one of many sizes offered online, although I cannot recall seeing anything larger than 4x8.

Happy modeling! 

If you are on Facebook, BBMiroku, you might like to check out the Micro/Small Model RR Layouts group (direct link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/728920213839816/). We are a 4100+ member discussion group focused on building tiny yet "high play value" layouts in apartments, dorm rooms, and other situations were model railroading is forced to take a backseat and minimum footprint in daily life. We even have a monthly newsletter, Townhouse Model Railroader, for group members.

I think we can show you that you can build a fun layout in your one-bedroom apartment.

Alternatively, you can look at  http://www.carendt.com for hundreds of small layout ideas and plans.

Best of luck with your model railroading!