Model Railroader had an article about that in their 'DCC corner' column a year or so ago.

take it to the store to see if they can identify the problem. If you're not sure of what you're doing once you've taken the shell off of the frame, don't do anything. You might make the problem worse.

Hey guys,
I swung by my LHS today, and picked up a recently manufactured Athearn Blue-box gondola. I was surprised when I opened the package- it had metal wheels included, like the RTR series, instead of the standard plastic ones. It also had smaller scaled sprung McHenry couplers, instead of the larger EZ Mate Mark I couplers with the plastic coil.

What are some fallen flag freight cars or locos you've seen while railfanning recently? I don't mean recent mergers, like a BN hopper or a SP boxcar. I'm talking about railroads that haven't been around for 30 years- or more.

I'll start us off, I guess.
Recently I've seen a CE&I 70-ton hopper, an orange ex- Milwaukee Road covered hopper, and a light blue Great Northern woodchip gondola ( with the goat painted on the side!)

My LHS has great prices (20% off) although sadly it doesn't pay the bills. The wife runs the store and her husband has another job.

3x5 is incredibly small. you'll want a 4x6, minimum, although a 4x8 is considered the best small-layout size for beginners. You'll find a lot of military stuff out there. What era do you plan to model? WWII would be a great era for what you're trying to accomplish. What locale do you plan to model? What season? This all matters...

Thanks for the interest.
If you live in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, or Arkansas, pick up the March/April edition of the Cowcatcher Round-Up. An article I wrote about trimming the horn-hook couplers to make them knuckle-compatible (like the thread) will appear in the 'Workshop' column.
http://www.cowcatcherroundup.com

I have a Proto 2000 GP7 with a split gear, and it runs okay, if you can get past the pounding and lurching...

OTOH, I have a Proto 2000 FA-2 that runs just great, almost as good as a BLI or Atlas.

My LHS has a lot of the older MDC Roundhouse kits...

From my understanding, all N-scale Roundhouse went straight to the Athearn line, the HO scale cars were re-tooled with different underframes and then put into RTR (Roundhouse brand) or kit (Athearn blue-box). All MDC Roundhouse cars with prototypes later than the 1950's (there weren't many) have been transferred to the Athearn line, either blue-box or RTR.

If it's this set:

you'll need the Bachmann FT locomotive with DCC.

Let your 10-year-old play with it, definitely. It's collector value would probably be about $10.

There's a method for creating realistic grass out of fabric like felt that's pretty cheap in one of the Robert Schleicher scenery books, definitely go with the fabric.

Here we had a Hobbytown USA with a convenient location and hours, but higher prices and poor customer service. We also have a small LHS with short hours, an inconvenient location, but 20% off MSRP prices and great customer service.

Guess which one stayed in business?

If it doesn't say E-Z track, it won't work with it without major modification. Both Black Steel and Gray Nickel-silver EZ track are compatible with each other - however, the Nickel Silver track is overall better because it stay cleaner longer.

Where's your location, because the TRE in the Dallas/ Ft. Worth, Texas runs some RDC-1's on occasion, although they're getting rarer.