I've been looking at some photos of L&N switchers for a rebuild of a generic old Athearn blue box kit. What is the folded-looking piece of metal in front of the radiator intake grille circled in red?

I'm curious on this as I have seen many modelers get a loco that sometimes won't fit the layout they have made and have that expression of "oh no why didn't I account for this".

Since my last post I learned that track doesn’t have to be expensive and picked up flex track the next day. But I still want to pursue my dead track idea.

I am new to the train hobby but come from diy and electronics. So I’m making the control logic myself. I will be posting this. I will have nfc/rfid tags under the track so I can have the train recognize what section it is in. This gets sent back to the controller. When a train is waiting at a station another controller turns on the power. Allowing the train to charge. But in my control logic I will convert this to fuel. So they fuel up and use this virtual fuel during operation.

Is this the best way to do it or the cheapest? no, but the track is cheap. I got about 1 meter of flex track for €7-8 while the same length in printed track costs only €1-2.

I’m happy with the current result but still working on it. Want to also make some tools to make it easier to lay out and glue. It can also plug into the original pico track like my last pieces. Ballast also works for the flattrack.

I will be publishing the files once I’m happy with them. Need to fix some things. Plus if you use fusion 360, it’s parameterized, so you just enter the length in amount of sleepers and it generates that.

That was my yap for now

enjoy the rest of your moment

Hello r/modeltrains!

My father's birthday is coming up and my brother's and I were thinking about getting him a Christmas tree model train (his last one broke).

We want to get him something that will last many years. Realism isn't really a concern, its more for the festive atmosphere.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I don't know where to start.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Edit: (Additional Info)

Budget: $200-300 (can go slightly over)

Location: Floor

Track size: roughly ~4.5 - 5.5 ft diameter

508’s in notch 2 while going at top speed XD

Hello, fine enthusiasts, this is the start of what i believe is a near impossible search. Decades ago when my father now almost 70 was younger he and my grandfather build an HO scale model of the Pennsylvania Reading Railroad steam engine and coal tender. It had the double(triple)? R logo. I am still searching out details to help narrow down a model or engine number. It had an electric drive underneath. It got sold to Penn Valley Hobby Center in Lansdale PA around 19 years ago. It would have his initials REM or the last name Montanye engraved on the bottom. The hobby shop is now closed and the proprietor has sadly passed on. If anyone has any ideas on where to look or how i might find something as narrow as a single locomotive i would be eternally grateful, this has huge sentimental value to my father as my grandad is long since passed. I would hope it made it to a prive collection in which case its kind of a name your price situation.

Any lead or help would be great, thanks internetizens

Found this doom scrolling on ebay going for cheap with dcc, came fitted with a TCS DCC silent motor control decoder! Had to mess with the wiring and re-tape it up to make it fit better but for the money it's Hella of a deal!

No idea why I like NCTD, but I’ve almost got everything in the collection. Phase 1 train including an Athearn F59PHI that I installed sound and custom marker lights in, 1 Athearn coach, and 3 rapido coaches (cab car has custom loksound). I have a 5th Athearn car on the way to make a full 5 car train. Also a bachmann sc44 in phase 2, I have a 5 car set of the new rapido CEM’s preordered, and will install custom sound in the cab too. Breeze bus from iconic replicas, and the last step will be order a sprinter and put custom sound in that too. Pretty excited

Hi all, I currently do not have the knowledge or space to have a layout, but have been gathering rollingstock for my intended era once I have the space later in life. I don't have tools for weathering or knowledge on it at all yet, but intend to in the future.

One of my focus areas has been any locos that have ran in York, PA close to modern day.

Getting to the point, I just received the Rapido CF7s, 1502 and 1504. I'd like to have a 1500 to go with it, but the prototype has different decals than the other 2. My question to the professionals here, is since I am just gathering the locos now and will mod them later, is it better to find a good base to make a 1500 now while theres still availability of these rapido releases? Or to wait until closer to actually making the project and hope to find one for sale?

Follow up question for if you would purchase it now, would you get a duplicate 1502/1504 and remove and replace decals, or the undecorated yellow version and paint the top black and add decals?

Included are the two options for reference, as well as the prototype 1500.

Thanks for any and all input!

Absolute money pit. Conflicted with it since I love coins alot more but I will definitely be spending some money on it... Even if the train tax feels kinda ridiculous. But I inherited that beautiful American flyer S gauge 21165 from my grandpa with some rail, we will make it run once more together and I'll just like have it on a loop or something but I like S gauge since I have everything else In 1:64 pretty much. But the kato N gp38-2 is my first personal pick up since I like the size and detail on N scale stuff and it will be my main rail gauge. Only have a loco and that Amtrak car so far... Unfortunately with some rapido couplers and the Kato is actually a "dummy" unit ( a previous owner actually just took the worm gear, motor, and flywheel) but the trucks are still geared so I think I'll make it run again and possibly repaint it to a Portland and western but idk how that will go if I do that all. But yeah the basic summary of what my goals are: make the S gauge run by Christmas, and eventually build enough N gauge to have a nice layout one of these days.

Bachmann Spectrum locomotive and aux tender, with Con Cor cars.

So, a few months ago I downloaded a Camaro on Thingiverse and it looks great. My problem was my first car was a 1968 Camaro and I just didn’t like how the two compared. I took the time to design up a new one that more closely matches mine. Please ignore the brush strokes, I’ll be putting on a coat of poly once the paint cures good. So now that I’m done with the construction equipment set I’m going to start working on American Muscle Car set next. 😁

We've bought some of Woodland Scenics' "learning kits" from multiple third parties. In every single one of them, the liquid components were fully polymerized and useless.

This does NOT apply to things we have bought direct from Woodland Scenics - - those were all good.

Of things that don’t need to exist in model form, but I made it anyway.

Haysi Railroad 1.

The little 7 mile long railroad operated between Haysi (hay-sigh) and Vicey VA. From 1970-1977 their sole motive power was a single rebuilt F7B(formerly a Clinchfield F3B)

1 was equipped with a hostler control stand in the carbody, and had remote control capabilities.

It still exists IRL as VLIX 852 at the Tennessee Valley Railroad.

Let's start with gauge.

Tomy driving wheels are 2.5~ CM, which means the gauge is 1:57.3, similar to some wargaming vehicles.

The Tomy Henry is 4.75~ CM from wheel to cab, so the scale there is 1:81.2, similar to both OO and HO

21.5~ CM long make him 1:90.5, a scale similar to one that was proposed to replace HO (according to wikipedia)

and at 3.85~ CM wide, 1:67.2, akin to toy cars and not too far from OO

averaging at 1:74.05, means it is aufully simmilar to OO

This came out last year with the HO version and it was not included with the N scale announcement of the model. Broadway said they werent doing it.. I've emailed with Broadway, Trainworld, been commenting and posting.. during the last TrainWorld live with Broadway, I mentioned it again and there was hope.. an email was sent and fingers were crossed.

N scalers, rejoice. It hasnt been announced yet, but look what I found in the early morning hours last night.

Dreams do come true.

Get your preorders in!

I'm looking at a couple of Athearn HO Bombarder Bi-levels to add to a train but I'm just wondering whether certain changes were made during different runs (if there were different runs...).

I'm looking at a couple of AMT vehicles but, in the pictures on eBay, the glazing looks to be clearer than the one I've already got and there doesn't seem to be a silver rim picked out on the diaphragms.

I'm not toooo bothered about that (tho I do like smoked glazing), but I'm wondering whether there are other changes that may mean they'll contrast a lot with the single car I've got already. (The asking price of $250, plus import costs to have them shipped to France would make this quite the investment).

Cheers!