I just finished building and installing a new building for the town of Dos Manos, on my In-ko-pah Railroad. It's a rock and mineral shop, housed in an old, false-front wood building. It has a detailed interior, complete with working lights and a lighted display cabinet. All the rock specimens are real stone.

Here are a few pics:





The door is a modified Grandt Line product. I added the window and an Ozarks Miniatures door knob. Everything else is scratch-built:



The interior details really show up well at night. The hanging lamps were made from fancy "pewter" buttons and a small bead:





I also finished wiring up the lights in the two-story house:



You can see a few more pics on my site:
http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Dos_Manos.html

I couldn't choose a single loco as "most beautiful". I like 'em all, and there are too many really good looking ones to choose from. There are a few that I would put near the top of the list though... like that Eureka & Palisades 4-4-0, and the UP Challenger, N&S #1218, etc.

There are some nifty diesels but they just don't do it for me in the same way as steam locos.

Thanks Cale. I may take you up on that if I can't get the specs. What I really want to do is use a different LED that has the same operating voltage, etc. but produces a brighter "warm white" light instead of the dim yellowish glow.

Somehow, the rear LED on my Anniversary edition 4-6-0 went kablooey (actually broke in half and blew the lens cover off the light!), so I need to replace it. What are the specs for that, and are they the same for the headlight? I'd like to replace both with brighter, "warm white" LEDs if possible.

As a result of my recent hard drive crash, I had to recreate my website files. So I also made a few changes... nothing huge, mostly just fixed a few glitches, added a few new pics here and there, etc.

Since I'm now using a newer version of iWeb, I'm also hoping that the site will work better for folks using Firefox. If anyone using the current version of Firefox has had trouble with my site in the past, please try it again and let me know if there's any improvement.

www.raydunakin.com

Be sure to check out my In-ko-pah Railroad pages!

Also, I discovered that through some oversight, the pics I shot last summer of the Nevada Northern did not get posted to the site. That has been corrected.

http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/Nevada_Northern.html

The newest addition to the In-ko-pah Railroad is this shiny new Bachmann "Anniversary" edition 4-6-0 from Barry's Big Trains! It has the custom BBT drive mechanism and is equipped with realistic Phoenix PB9 sound.

I added the "smoke" in Photoshop...




It looks and runs great! Nice and smooth, and a strong puller. The sound is awesome too.











Now I just need to weather it and letter it for my railroad.

Thanks! With my eyesight, 1/24th is about as small as I can get. I can't even imagine trying to do smaller scales.

I've sculpted a few custom figures in 1/24th scale for my outdoor model railroad. I've even modeled myself and my wife:



You can see all my figures here:

http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR-Figures.html

Some of you may know me from other forums, but for those who don't I'd like to invite you see pics of my railroad:

http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR-Photos.html

The In-ko-pah Railroad is a 1/24th scale outdoor model railroad built on a steep slope. The theme is a narrow gauge railroad serving mines and small towns in a rugged, rocky desert area. The scenery was inspired by the San Diego & Arizona RR's famed Carrizo Gorge. At least 20 tons of rocks were used to create the mountains. There are numerous tunnels, bridges and trestles, all scratch-built.

There are just a few structures completed at this time, also scratch-built. Eventually there will be many more.

Enjoy!

Wow, seeing it next to the others, it's actually a good deal smaller than I'd thought.

Any chance that Bachmann will re-release some of the cool locos which are currently out of production? Like for instance the "indie" mogul, or the Climax?