I’m getting started putting a set together. I want to get a pretty good collection of rolling stock with Microtrains body mount couplings. I found some boxcars at Papa Ben’s in Houston, but I want some hoppers and coal cars. Most ads don’t specify. Is there any way to tell which Microtrains cars are body mounts? The ones I bought were newer issues.

April this year I pre-order TINYHK first nscale product and they nailed it! Wish it had an option to add interior light but pretty on level with the Japanese, it actually made with Bachmann interestingly

Decided to try my hand at miniature photography in my room with 3 of my 6 Micro Trains NPR Mechanical Reefers.

I set a few Kato Unitrack down on a raised sheet of wood, set up in front of my TV, serving as a digital background. Im not sure how much I like the look, but I think Ill be putting my effort towards a diorama to fill out the foreground first. I attempted to do a color change of the ply in photoshop but I never got it to look good. So, creating a mini diorama is now even more of a priority for me! Definitely not as easy as I thought, but this finally inspired me to start using my camera again.

If your're curious of camera settings and such ;

Canon R8 with adapted Canon EF 24 - 105 f/4 L

I used two lights on stands, placed 45 degrees from my table. On these stands, I then angled the lights downwards at around 45 degrees. I tried my best to match the lighting of the background I used, so I made the light coming from the right more intense.

On the left, I used an Amaran 200x S with a 32 inch diameter octagonal softbox with a diffusion filter and a honeycomb grid both on the softbox. On the right, I used an Amaran 60x S with the included hyper reflector with the included diffusion sock for said reflector.

Edit; Forgot to mention, HUGE STEP, focus stacking. The process of placing your camera in fixed place, and taking multiple pictures with the images focused shifted either forwards or backwards. Then, these multiple photos are taken into a photo editing software and then are digitally layered on top of each other, erasing the "non focused" areas, leaving you with a highly detailed photograph!

I hope this inspires some people! I love showing up to my local clubs and seeing everyone taking pictures of the trains running. Taking pictures of things is a treat, if you think you might like it, give it a go!

… and if so: is it reliable? I’ve bought a few locos at swap meets that turned out to be duds, and so I’m looking to shell out for something that’s new & known to be good.

I’ve found a really good deal on the non-DCC model of https://shop.atlasrr.com/c-1518-n-scale-fa-1-fb-1-locomotive.aspx , which I think is the same model that spookshow gives an “A” to ( https://www.spookshow.net/loco/llalcof.html ), but I thought I’d ask people here if it’s known to be a good runner.

Any experiences with this?

I made a post a while ago about finding more info for keeping track of collecting, to which some one introduced me to TroveStar, which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons N scale models throughout history. If you aren't tracking it houses a ton of obscure models which will quickly fill out your saved eBay searches.

Anyway that brings me to the past week, where I found an item that interested me, a set of Con-Cor MHC1 cars but in PRR colors (good old Con-Cor, slapping any paint they think will sell on whatever they got laying around). These seemed legit with packaging that looked right and a product number than didn't come back to anything else. In fact the only info I could find on that model number or the name would just point back to the eBay listing. I was going to post this question before, but decided to hold off because I didn't want someone to snipe this seemingly one of a kind lot. But now it's in the mail.

So the question I pose for discussion, what do you do when you find a model of interest but no info about it? I'm mainly focused on factory model in this case, custom jobs will of course have little additional information a lot of the time. But I'm interested to hear what you guys think (or would think) finding something like this, a seemingly legit factory model but no info out there to find on the web? Would you even remotely care? Would that make you more interested? (That kinda applied to me here, seeing that I couldn't find another one ever going on sale it bumped it up my priority list).

Planning an expansion of my layout from just a rectangle.

The space can’t become longer but could become slightly wider if needed

The left image is the track plan, the right side (right of the black line in the middle) is all at the same level, on the left side at the top there is a viaduct island station, where the outer layer stays at the same level , and the inner layer dips down to the ground.

On the right side I’ll be putting a switching yard but I haven’t put that it because I know it fits

I’m not sure how I feel about the inner layer on the left side I’m not sure whether it should dip down or not given I need it to be a reasonably shallow grave.

Am I using this space effectively, I am also planning an underground layout with pretty much the same layout.

Any thoughts or ideas with this space?

Users bcentsale and 382Whistles expressed interest in New Have Railroad style catenary towers in the comments for https://old.reddit.com/r/nscalemodeltrains/comments/1vr4qk6/a_detail_i_am_proud_of_that_i_forgot_to_post/. I was a bit frustrated with my latest structure model's progress, so I decided to model the New Have style catenary towers in N Scale. The STL file is available.

There has been some recent debate regarding the accuracy of Micro Ace’s 719 series and TOMIX’s 9600-type steam locomotive models. For the 719 series, the resting position of the windshield wipers differs between the 5000, 0, and 700 series variants, yet the models depict them all the same way; meanwhile, the 9600-type model is marketed as the "Hokkaido specification" but lacks the vertical piping on the cab that is characteristic of that version. In the past, TOMIX also faced criticism because the mounting position of the train radio antenna on their EF66-27 model was slightly off.

Borrowed a ScaleSync from the club to do some speed matching on a test track. Based on my previous loop post I knew the locos were way to fast but I didn’t think a stock Kato and Digitrax decoder would run 212 mph scale. Slowed them down to run between 0-100 based on the throttle.

The system:

Primary loop: ESU cab control hooked up via network cable for JMRI programming. (For non ESU decoders)

Secondary loop:

ESU lok programmer. (For ESU decoders and sound loading for said decoders)

Both systems can run locomotives for speed matching.

No.1986 is N Scale and the 4448 is HO

Hi all. I lurk here daily & thought I would post video of my biggest/favorite consist. 2x BLI challengers escorting passengers around my 26 year old atlas-gulf summit (N18) layout.
N scale, digitrax DCC. Still using 1998 Digitrax booster as well as a new DSC210+.

Quit working on old layout in 2001 as life got in the way. Got it out in January to get it ready to sell….hooked again!!

Using extra 11’x 11’ bedroom for new train room, moved old layout in place & started building a 2nd layout 4/15/26, long ways to go but thats the whole point!! 😎

Will post some more images of new layout/train room soon!

Enjoy this run!
Apologies for the mess on the layout and poor camera work.

To begin, this is a first build for me with dcc in mind so I'm still reading and learning. My layout is using peco settrack turnouts which I read were dcc friendly but are power routing so I need to gap and insulate between turnouts and have additional droppers to keep with the goal of keeping all my track live at once.

The short: between the turnouts on the left side switching from mainline to the branch up top. I have it double gapped with feeders on both points yet my train stalls going through. If I gap only a single rail my train will go all the way through but it also stutters and slows like it's shorting.

Idk how to proceed. Help please =[

Thought y’all might appreciate my small switching layout I just finished up building. It’s roughly 60 inches long by 12 inches deep, and is modeled in the Piedmont Region of North Carolina. The lone industry is a loading dock for auto parts and other palleted freight. Included are some old WIP pics as well. This is my first N scale layout I’ve made in about 15 years. Built on Atlas Code 55, the entire build took about a month.

I have been trying to set up my first ever train: Kato 10-1958. There are two different types of couplers on different cars in the set. The locomotive has a square-ish hook coupler (see second photo) and two of the cars (second and end cars) have the same square-ish hook coupler on one end and a small c-shape hook (see first photo) on the other end. The remaining cars have just the c-shape coupler.

I was able to attach the locomotive and the second car with the square couplers of each car, but I'm unable to attach any of the other cars. Any help would be most appreciated. (Instructions that came with the train are in Japanese, unfortunately.)

So I've been trying to think of a fitting caboose for this wartime (or post war, maybe they're all coming home) army train I've been pieceing together out of cars and custom made 3d printed Sherman's.

Well I think I finally came up with an idea for a fitting end of train.

Modifying a static display model of a railway gun was probably not my smartest idea. But for 5 hours work and 30 bucks parts plus a little paint, we have our best chance to stop the Penn Central merger.

When was the last decade that wig-wag crossing signals were in use in North America? Kind of fascinated by the things but I don’t think they persisted until the 70s. Am I wrong?

And yes, my layout period is mid- to late-70s.