Ken,
Sometime, maybe we can get together. I've got a lot on my plate right now as my wife is laid up for a few weeks.

Ken,
I was down there (Tracks Ahead) the week before last with my grandson. Were you one of the guys there?

That's some of the most real looking fake water I've seen.

Physically or mentally?
Started with wind-up around the Christmas tree in earlier fifties when I was below 5 and Dad had an O-27 layout. That was up until I was about 8.
No trains then until about 62', when I met a kid down the block who had an HO layout. I guess I was 12. Dabbled with HO through high school.
When I moved to NY in '70, I painted up my O-27 in black-light colors and ran  it in my black-light room.
In '74, I moved back to STL and didn't mess with trains again for about 20 years.  Not that I wasn't thinking about them and building layouts in my mind. In 95, my grandson was born and there just had to be a train around our tree. And each year I've gotten back in deeper.
I just took him to a model railroad clinic in Farmington Mo. this past Saturday.

Derek - If the 2" straights are not used in the new layout book, then I wonder if the layouts in there are not going to be much different than those in the old layout book?

Bear - You're going to let ME in on a  secret? Now what might that be?
Apparently you weren't following the threads about 2" inch straights on the old board and all  of the track combinations I did using the 2" straights.
And yes, that 1/4" can make the difference between track being aligned and track being misaligned.

I'm converting a battery combine to track powered.
I decided to use the LGB ball bearing wheel sets that Curmudgeon recommended.
They have the contacts built into them. Just attach the wires to the two little prongs sticking up. They even include the fittings for attaching the wires to the prongs.
They are expensive, though, at about $26 per two axles.
Curmudgeon also recommended wiring all the wheels together on each side.
I'm also using plugs, so I can remove the body when I need to change bulbs or passengers.
I'm still doing the wiring on them now.

Looks like the 2" straights lost out this time.

That's a good idea.

I'd guess that, if you are in doubt, twist a couple of them together before you run them to put your mind a little more at ease.

I've been looking at wide screen TVs lately and it sometimes is hard to figure out comparisons with regular screens.
I decided the easiest way for me to figure out what to get is to measure the vertical size of my present screen and get a wide screen with at least that vertical size. I don't want to go smaller.
I also understand that plasma isn't the way to go as the quality declines over time.

I like washes of diluted India ink if you don't want to mess with powder.

I'll add my thumbs up to the Rail-It. Works great and saves time!

1 DCC oval - 3 DC ovals

A good book is "101 Track Plans for Model Railroaders" by Linn Westcott and published by Kalmbach.
Here is a website with some layouts -
http://www.trainplayer.com/Site2/Track%20Plans.html