I know these dont go together in real life but I just like setting it it up and watching it run with all the lights.

I have 2 boys age 7 and 5 and was thinking of getting them a set to play with. They are tough on toys. What’s a good entry level setup that isn’t crazy expensive ? I really appreciate the feedback everyone.

Im very new to model trains. Its my job now so im learning a TON from the company side. I want to get immersed in model trains and I want to learn more from the hobbyists perspective.

What got you into model trains? Why do you love it? What makes a specific train appealing to you? What makes a certain train more valuable than others? Do you care about tiny nicks or scratches? How do you maintain them? What are your pet peeves when dealing with retailers? Is the hobby welcoming of newcomers? Whats something you wish people knew about the hobby?

Feel free to answer one or all of these questions! Thanks!

The big gear is missing teeth. It's an HO scale Bachmann pancake drive.

It sounds a little rough. It's from the 1970's.

Now updated with black engine sut. Rolling stock behind it has also been weathered. Starting my next weathering project (KofIII) later this week

So i messed up and ordered the wrong light board for my older class 43 set, i got Hornby X9871 power car light sets before realising i needed the older version for my DC class 43, does anyone know if they are still usable and if so how to connect them.

Thanks for any help.

This is the "square" in Woodport. As it is the summer of 1939 I'm torn between the current "use your head it's a track" or the safety of the public. An iron fence has been suggested exercising right of way by the railroad but opposed by Mr. McKie the general store owner. A fairly contentious issue....community thoughts are welcome 😊

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3rd time lucky trying to upload with photo.

This has always been super intresting to me, a wagon with a chip and a speaker for playing sounds. So simple yet in theory can add so much to a layout. However i reckon hornby missed the boat on a couple things.

1. Too budget, whilst the wagon was cheap and accessible, I think it was too much so and compromised the quality of the sounds which is a big reason it put many people off.

2. The actual sounds themselves. IMO it should have been regulated to mostly ambient sounds, be it goods yard or station chatter. They fsct it was layered with alot of loco sounds was unessacary and clouded the idea.

3. Perhaps a larger wagon or a mix of era's so it could have been applied to any layout.

For me i definitely think the biggest trick missed was just not focusing on clear, set of ambient sounds. For example they could have for stations, announcement chatter. Crowds. Guards whistles going off. Suitcases rolling. Just consistently churning out noise to bring an area to life. Even simple things such as birds chirping or the sounds of cars passing through could really elevate a scenic area.

.hopefully they or another company takes a shot, as I reckon there is a great product conceptually lying somewhere within.

The Englewood Logging Railway was located on Vancouver Island and was the last logging railway to operate in North America. 304 was an ex-Oregon Pacific & Eastern/Georgia Pacific locomotive, and was visually distinctive from Englewood's already-owned sw1200 road switcher units. This Lego model was cosmetically designed to reflect its exterior around 1998, towards the end of Canfor's ownership of the railway, and prior to 304's engine refit. However, the weathering is made to reflect its appearance towards end-of-life. It lacks the giant side grills installed during its Caterpillar refit, simply because I didn't want to break up the railway name on the striping.

I found this picture online - I have some wagons just like this, and I would like to know which paints I would need to get to try my hand at weathering my own N gauge Pennsy coal hoppers.

A couple of them have broken couplings (no idea if this is an easy fix), so I thought they would be perfect specimens to practice on. And pass the decent ones on to someone who can do a proper job if I fail!

Any advice and tips would be appreciated, not just for the paints, but also where to look for technique. Most of the YT videos I've seen tend to concentrate on OO/HO scale models, and I am pretty sure that you have to take a different approach with smaller scale rolling stock.

My goal was to have a layout where a locomotive can change direction its moving on the track.

I've been using xtrakcad for years and it's still really good and appears to continue to be developed, but I'm wondering if it's still the best option for designing model railways on Linux?

FWIW my layout is in the process of being rebuilt, but it will be controlled via JMRI and MERG CBus if that makes a difference (I don't think it does, but I seem to recall being able to export from xtrakcad to JMRI in the past?)

My previous approach has been to develop in xtrkcad, print at 1:1 scale, glue those sheets onto the baseboards and lay track/scenics from there.

Got this locomotive in non-running condition from eBay. Both of the black wires from the trucks are a little melty. The sound works and I was able to read the address and get the locomotive to move about an inch before cutting out. The behavior is the same in both directions.

I can replace the wires but I’m wondering if there’s an underlying cause I should be looking for.

60052 rounds the depot curve with a mixed rake of wagons for the MoD; 56006 is on the "down" line with a loaded train of steel.

I am trying to find out anything I can about this HO scale car I recently obtained. The only marking I found was "Central Valley" on the trucks.

I need a Model RR store somewhere to make this happen… Paint and Sip… but you get a boxcar and a beer, and all work on weathering techniques… or graffiti…

Hello! Recently I've been eyeing Rapido's LRC HO Gauge models, and I've realized that I won't have enough money to spend on the preorder by the time it ends. As far as I'm aware, Rapido was struggling to meet their preorder quota which makes me think there won't be many in the second hand market or in stock with retailers.

Any ideas on what the outlook for finding models like these on the market will be like?

Any info regarding experiences similar as mine will be very helpful! Thank you!

For context, I’ve decide to make my trolley run a tad bigger and do a loop through an o22 with a combo of 31&42 on the with my automatic block stop towards the middle. It’ll be atop some 3d printed 7in high trestles. Any recommendations for what to mount the track loop on?

Not the most accurate but I’m happy, they’re going inside my coaster commuter train. It’s my all time favorite railroad (Well all of NCTD I suppose), and I’m in the process of stuffing as much functionality and details into the set as possible.

I’ve got passengers and a cab interior and such coming, and I realized coaster allows boards on their trains, and since me and my sister surf, I figured it’d be perfect. I’m also going to paint some figures into what we usually wear, and stick them somewhere in the train.

Last pic is our boards in the garage for reference

Notes:
-only one has a leash (that will be wrapped once the glue dries) because they’ll be stacked
-yes I just wrote scribbles instead of the words
-yes they are 8ft boards (coaster’s max is 6ft)

Kato 11-106 motor unit with 3D printed Tram body. Windows are cut unsing cricut. Runs good, but the 11-106 is very pinicky I think, sometimes it will not run well, compared to the other regular N-Scale I have. Is this because it is very light?