Malachite green it is! I grew up in the era of the MG-A and B that were painted BRG - British Racing Green - another color that has given way to more modern paints and colors.

I live near a Rover dealer and they have some cars that are close in color to BRG.

What is the chance that one of the new private British companies will resurrect some old color schemes - like GWR cream and chocolate brown.

It is possible to hand lay HO track for outdoor use. Any manufactured HO track with plastic ties would certainly not hold up. You would need to treat the ties and you'd need spikes that wouldn't rust. Shrinkage and expansion would be a real big problem.

As mentioned above clearances and tolerances become an issue with smaller scale trains. You also need to put in roadbed.

As for the price of G gauge trains, keep in mind that although they might cost more than H0 trains (which I don't really think is the case) you need fewer of them unless you have a yard the size of the White House lawn.

I haven't heard Strathmore or bristol board mentioned in years. If you look at Model Railroader articles from the 40s and 50s, these papers were the mainstay building materials.

I have seen samples of printed brickwork and they are really great. The Railroad Graphics papers are super!

There is a parkway in the Bronx called Mosholu Parkway. If you are from the Bronx you call it "Moshula." How about the proper pronunciation of Yemassee, South Carolina or Kissimee, Florida?

I went to college with a guy from Madison, Wisconsin. He said that Wisconsin should be properly pronounced; "cheese."

There are many models of the various F units by EMD. It was the first HO diesel to be done in plastic - first by Globe and then later by Athearn when they bought Globe. This was over 50 years ago. Since then there have been a lot of companies producing EMD models in plastic and brass.

The FT was the pioneer and hadn't previously been mass produced. It was done in brass and Cary made white metal shells for Hobbytown mechanisms. Bachmann were filling a niche in the market, same for the Baldwin sharks. East coast modellers of the post WWII era are very happy to see sharks. Again, bachmann is filling a niche market and the models are happily received.

Having taught in a high school that educated many Korean Americans I can attest to the potency of Kimchee! Students used to prepare meals for Teacher Appreciation Day. I thought they were trying to do us in!

With the numerous UP Challengers and Big Boys out there, as well as numerous other engine types, I suppose the 4-12-2 might fit right in on a UP layout. I'd love to see the projected minimum radius.

To add to what Gene has written, the feeders should be made of a heavier gauge wire than the normal hookup wire.

A former teaching acquintance who was an art teacher also was a professional model builder. He built things for architects and lawsuits, and he hand painted everything with acrylic paint. He once duplicated an accident scene for a lawsuit and used a soldering iron to bash in fenders on model cars that he placed in the diorama. It had every detail but the blood!

As for the Tweetsie colors - the G gauge Big Hauler was based on the Tweetsie engine and the real one was done in green.

A friend who reads these posts has chided me and said that the Southern Ry green was called "Sylvan" green, not "Virginia" green. My response is that the color was copied from the British Southern Railway so it should be properly given the British label - whatever that was!

Michael Palin, of Monty Python fame, is a huge railroad buff. He started as a kid with the British hobby called "train spotting" and has spent a lot of time riding the rails all over the world.

A little research shows that soviet engine pictured above to be a 4-14-4. Being 5 foot gauge the thing was a real monster. The prototype had the three center drivers blind to negotiate the Russian curves and it spread the rails and derailed. One article I read indicated that it was planned to be a 2-14-4 but the front truck was added to help guide the thing through switches.

It was started in 1935 as class AA20 - the twenty meaning the loading in metric tons per axle. The engine was started in Essen by Krupps but was finished in the USSR. It was planned to pull long coal trains in the Donets Basin.  It was soon retired and was stored until 1960 when it was scrapped. I'm surprised that it wasn't scrapped during the war.

When I was a club member we had 4 long passing sidings as well as a two track main line inside a mountain - the operator's panels were the back of the mountain and we staged trains there when we had open houses. A freight train would enter the mountain and a passenger train would emerge. All done with two way traffic.

The main freight yard was used for switching. When we had club shows freights started and finished in the freight yard.  Switching was left for club operating night, not open houses. We never got around to building a proper passenger yard/terminal so the passenger trains were stored in the mountain (which was 20 feet long!) During operating sessions we actually stopped passenger trains to add and remove head end cars and diners as well as change locomotives..

You might be able to find a used airbrush on Ebay. Out here on Long Island the two county community colleges offer evening adult ed art courses. A friend developed air bruch techniques in an evening class and he is now working part time with a car painter-when he is not putting camoflage on RC airplanes!

I think Kalmbach has a DVD which deals with airbrushing.

Growing up looking at Southern Railway trains, I think green (especially SRy Virginia green) looks good on any loco.

This is one suggestion that I would agree might be something for Bachmann to implement.

An Atlas FA-B combination that I bought in the mid seventies are still running on a friend's HO layout. Some of the Atlas engines by Roco were noisy - the E-8/9 comes to mind. With regular lube they will run a long time. There used to be a problem with the wheels moving on the axles and going out of gauge. I fixed that with super glue.

A good way to learn about HO kits is to go to Ebay and bid on an older engine- there are lots of Varney 2-8-0s and 4-6-0s in differenst states of disrepair. Most of the Bowser engines have plans available on the Bowser website. A good hint in doing any disassembly is to mark parts with tape and make a diagram with some notes.

Rich - I too am ham fisted but having worked and a good number of HO engine kits I can tell you that drilling a Bowser or similar boiler is best done with a pin vise or Dremel Tool running on slow. Positioning a boiler in even a small drill press is too much trouble.