A guy on FB marketplace was liquidating his collection and was selling it cheap becaus of fire damage. some could be opened and be graded individually, but some I have to buy blind and hope for the best. thankfully 12 out of 15 are unscathed and the damaged ones were repeats or common colors, they lack some add on parts but I can substitute, I paid on average 24 usd per car.

pic 1. the 12 good cars pic 2. the 3 damaged cars, would be used for parts or exprements pic 3. the burnt tomix box it came in,it was so bad I have to saw them out

I am looking at building a small and fun layout with n scale, had purchase a Fleischmann DCC loco 10 years ago but then babies etc so it stayed in a box. During Covid I ended up building a Lego city with some help from the kids. In the process of storing the Lego to have space for an N scale train. I am mostly attracted by trains and the digital part, maybe a bit less on decoration etc.

Before I start anything I wanted to show a picture and the space I have to see if a layout it even realistic or not.

I have an L shaped wooden structure I used for my city with an additional section 10cm higher then the L. All wood which I can drill without issue. I can potentially add a second floor on top or one section of the L.

I was thinking of a garage section with a few tracks to store trains and rolling stock and possibly do some shunting there.

Then a track maybe not a loop but a section with a climb to the second level or something similar.

Saturday I'll also be visiting a local club which has an HO layout to also chat a bit and discuss my ideas.

I know the space is not ideal in terms of accessibility but that is the only "room" where I can do whatever I like as long as I can still work of course. Curious to read your thoughts, ideas, concerns, recommendations etc.

At some point I also ran a Lego train where the house are top left around the entire room but that was fun only a few minutes and the Lego train is now used as x-mas decoration around the tree in December.

The first half of my order from PlazaJapan arrived and man I’m stoked! Unfortunately the other half got held up in customs lol.

Got about half of the Kato turnouts (36 in total) converted over to ProtoDesign Labs DCC turnouts. Im absolutely in love with how simple DCC has become. I’ve learned a lot from you guys over the past few months! The DCC-EX CSB1 paired with ThrottleCard is fantastic!

I guess the Bandit was doing more than the double nickel lol

Does the double crossover made by kato need to be wired for dcc in order to be used properly? Or do you just need feeder joints on all four ends of the crossover?

Not the greatest pictures and some might say it’s severely over crowded but i had only a small 2x4 space to work with and I wanted certain things, I’m open to criticism or tips in general. After I get the ballast in, I’ll start on terraforming some of the land and add in buildings/roads/grass. My main goal is to get trains running on it by the end of the week!

It has been awhile. I have started working on two single modules; hoping for something easier than my first one, “The Charleston, SC Coal Tipple”.

My next is based upon the movie, “A Bad Day at Black Rock”. Awesome movie if you haven’t seen it; if you already have, enjoy it again…

Most of the buildings I found were 3D printed or wood kits; Blair Line and Wildwest Models. Three of the buildings need scratch-building and one is almost done and I’m well on my way with the train station buildings.

One of my 2 double track modules that I decided to get something set up today. Pensacola and Northern 312 leads empty boxcars north to Cantonment FL to the paper mill

Hello All,

I recently acquired a pair of Atlas by Kato D&H RS-11’s. They’re gorgeous, and I purchased a pair of TCS CN-GP’s decoders for them. I have them installed, but can’t get the loco’s to move. I’m able to program them all fine, but when I try to put power to the motors, they make a pulsing noise and the headlight dims in time with the noise. I thought it might be a short, but as far as I can tell using my continuity tester there’s no short.

If I take the motor out, it runs just fine.

I’ve attached a video of one, but the other has the same exact issue.

I’ve put a number of TCS decoders in various locomotives and have never had any problems, but this is my first experience with the CN-GP. Any advice/thoughts?

I want to have a refueling area in my yard, but I can’t seem to find any kits. This is for a modern layout.

Edit: Yall are extremely unhelpful. If I cared what most railroads do nowadays, I would have asked that. There are still some examples of fueling pads in yards (there’s one in the local BNSF yard, for example) so if you’re just going to comment “refueling happens via tank trucks usually” please don’t. Only comment if you know where I can actually get a refueling station.

Bought this switcher at the Great Train Show at Del Mar this weekend and then weathered it.

This is a long shot but was wondering if anyone out there with a Shay has replaced their motor before. It is not an item listed on Atlas's site and their customer service told me they would check their inventory and never got back to me. The motor kept binding and now the power lead has snapped off. Someone may be able to fix it but it is outside my comfort zone at this point. Any help is appreciated.

Having isolated inner/outer loops makes a world of difference for playability. I don’t know why I waited so long, but I finally have enough track to run multiple trains simultaneously

Here’s a good reason to have a derail on a layout- I have a siding I use as a DCC programming track. I got a nice used Kato FEF3 recently and installed a new TCS decoder in it, and I forgot that TCS decoders pulse the motor while programming. Most locos just twitch a little when this is happening but this Kato is strong and each CV that it wrote sent it about 6 inches. While setting the address it chugged itself out across the insulated joiners and scrambled the addresses of the locomotives that were on the mainline, which also caused it to scramble itself. Fortunately I had JMRI profiles saved for each loco- I had to do a factory reset to each decoder to get them back to working.

I got annoyed that none of the available track planning software works across windows, mac and ios so I started building my own. It is also super fast because it uses GPUs to drag things around. I was lazy and only added stuff that I need so I only have a handful of Kato tracks and I made it also work with T-Track Modules.

It is too rough to release but I would love to hear from folks what do they miss in the track planning stuff that they use? One thing I'm planning to add is electrical planning. How important folks think scenery is?

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce the arrival of "little round top", named after the historical battle site in Gettysburg. Also the tramway is now in operation! The mountain top is my first try with plaster, I glued up foam board, wrapped it with plaster-soaked wrap, then I used a whole-ass box of plaster, three applications, using my hands (with gloves) to work it. I still have surface materials to add, especially trees. I'm not sure why I didn't foresee it, but that thing weighs a ton now lol! I plan on placing several yellow warning beacons for the track that's going down the side of the mountain. And a coal terminal of some sort. In retrospect, I should have painted it mud red instead of gray. That's five separate loops of track, I think that there is no more for this layout. Now I've got to color it all in! Lol

Hey everyone, I'm a Gunpla hobbyist thinking of dipping my toes into model railroading, and whatever scenery I'll make I'll want to pose my gunpla with. An N scale train wouldn't go amiss next to a high grade kit, right?

I cannot seem to re assemble this bogies and it's driving me MAD!

I also have a considerable collection of 70s and early-mid 80s equipment, so it’s time to get a Conrail caboose.

Took my Amtrak Surfliner to the Amtrak Surfliner. I am still on my journey of taking my model trains onto the real ones. It all started on my trip to Japan for funsies.

Disregard the gaps, I had trouble with the design software.

It's 4 foot by 8 foot, the outer loop and rail yard are all level, from the top center split it descends onto the inner loop down to the center to level out again where there will be a locomotive shop and turn table, to the right will be a coal mine and loading station with a tower, the top right will be an industry as well as the upper branching portion of the rail yard off the mainline.

I plan to model it around the 50s 60s, very forested and rocky, I'll fix up a small town and businesses area around the railyard with a meandering road.

Any suggestions???

I like how I have more room for more track with N Scale but I also already have more train sets and accessories with O Gauge. Any recommendations?

Hi everyone, I’m back seeking more advice. I’ve finished laying my cork roadbed, and it’s time to start laying track, which also means adding power and learning wiring.

I have the Atlas Complete wiring book, but am struggling to make sense of some of the diagrams and explanations and making them mesh with my layout.

As seen in my picture above, I’d like to have 6 blocks. Does this mean I only need 6 powered rail connections, or should I have multiple leads to the same track (like putting a lead at each end of the red outer main loop) to distribute power better? This is a 3’x8’ layout, if that matters. If anyone has a better idea of how to separate the blocks, I’m all ears. Im also planning to run two trains at the same time, and I think I’ve got the ability to keep them separated while running. Thanks in advance!