you might try model railroader or Atlas fourms

Ah come on Bach-man.  If it won't do that you miss all the fun.  Don't you like smoking locomotives .

It is possible to convert to dcc.  How ever if your time is worth anything, than it is cheaper to buy a new one motor model

If you want dcc go with the one motor.  If you want the best of the two, go with the one motor.  In other words go with the one motor. 

Zamac -  From what i understand, Was good in it was mixed correctly.  It was used for car parts.  They mix up large amounts.  The problems really came in when mixing small amount.  Just a little too much of this or that and you had a poor mixture.  I have some 60 year old model that still look to be in great shape.  I had some that in just a few years fell apart.  I never heard of Samas being used in printing.  all of the printing block I have are lead. 

I have never used it, but if it is what I think it is, it is great for some things.   If it is the product that you melt with a heat gun, then you can make things like waves.  

I agree with most of the information given.  I started about 1950.  As I recall the signs were all about the same shape they are now.  How ever if you got off of the main roads you might find anything. I do not recall when they changed from yellow sign with black letters.  some one makes signs in the 40s-50s area.  It may be woodland. 

I think people but products that they want.  I do not buy $40.00 box cars.  Some people do.  You  have people who thirty years ago got a Bachmann locomotive.  They found out that it was junk.  Thirty years most of Bachmann models were junk.  Things have changed in thirty years, and now Bachmann makes some very good models.  How ever these people still think that Bachmann in junk.  Are there be models than Bachmann? Sure, but I choose not to pay $500.00  when I can get a very nice locomotive from Bachmann for 1/4 that price.

O.T.S.F. Ottawa, Tulse, and Santa Fe.  You never heard of it did you.  That is because it is my railroad based on the Sante Fe but I can do what I( want to.

I am sure that most railroads had housing for some employees.  Like operators and section crews in out of the way places.  It was common for the section foremen to have housing.  If they need them they had to know where to find them.  You young people might not know it, but they did not have cell phones twenty years ago.  In fact at one time the call boy had to go to the train crews house on a bike or on foot. We had trains before phones.

the Frisco and the Rock Island when to Fort Sill and Lawton.  The 1998 map shows BNSF and UP.   Today the UP may still go there, but I think the Stillwater Central now runs the old Frisco line. 

I move to Oklahoma in 1944.  Okla. City had 6 RRs.  All of them are gone. 2 folded, 2 became BNSF and 2 became UP.   In fact the only large rr left is the Kansas City Southern.  here are a handfull of short lines that are still holding on.  As they say Time Marches On.

Two things that would improve the safty of I-81 is for the drivers to slow down about 20 MPH and drive the speed limit.  The other thing is to fix it.

Well Big Bear, It is not that people still call them swap meets.  It is that is the way they start out.  Modelers had things that they no longer wanted so they got together swap or sell.  Then the dealers started to come, and now only a few modelers go to sell.  I go to a local show one time a year if I am in town.  For many years I went to the national NMRA convention and train show.  I liked to see what was new.

I didn't think that they were, but I opened up the one I have and there is a plug for a decoder.  The answer is yes.