That was fun!  I liked when he out-bid the collectors, who never run their trains.   

Todd, I e-mailed Walthers information about the going prices of second-hand Hiawatha F7s on eBay & suggested that they produce one--especially since they are a Wisconsin company.

 The only trains that ran through my village on the western Mesabi Iron Range were iron ore trains pulled by Oliver Iron Mining &, possibly, DM&IR locomotives.  Outside of town, there were DM&IR & Great Northern freight trains.  I liked to see how many different railroads were represented by the cars.  Born in 1944, I don't quite remember seeing steamers.  I wish I'd been near passenger trains.  My dad loved his Fords; we never travelled by train.  I've never lived where travel by train was practical.  The only train I ever rode was a children's train at the Duluth Zoo.  My interest in trains began with Marx 027 train sets circa 1949-1952.  

 I've just been building my layout, acquiring locomotives & rolling stock, adding cargo to my freight cars, & arranging consists so that each train runs smoothly.   Now, I'm learning to program.

I will have to look up "waybills."  I can't imagine running a train for one lap to complete its job, so I wonder how those who use schedules decide the distance or time for a train to complete its run.  I wish there were a way to count laps without having to watch & count, which would take most of my attention.  I suppose setting a timer would be a possibility.

 "Young Tom Edison" (1940) has some good footage of a 4-4-0 "American" Civil War era passenger train.

EZ Command or Digitrax Zephyr with Bachmann's 5 amp booster.  Each of 3 concentric ovals has its own current feeder.  Manual operation of switches.  Each of 3 trains can have its own track.  I have run 5 trains at a time, but this eventually results in collisions.

pdlethbridge, I was in too much of a hurry & read 160" on the tape as 16'.  My inner oval is 6' 4" x 13' 7".   

Rusty, I re-measured & corrected the width of my outer oval.  I inadvertently put a 1 in front of the 7' 7".

Jonathan,
My room is 11 1/2' x 21 1/2', but first it was a library.  Its 4 walls are lined with bookcases holding 3000+ books.  My outer oval is 15' 4" x 7' 7"; my middle oval is 7' x 14' 4"; my inner oval is 6' 4" x 13' 7".  From the inner track, a switch leads to a branch of 2 sidings of about 6 1/2' each.  I've made the layout as large as I can without snaking a track through the adjoining room, thence to the bathroom, & out to the library again.  

WGL

 In our finished basement,  I have 3 ovals connected by switches:  42' (22" curves), 39' (22" curves) & 36' (18" curves).  I use DCC with either EZ Command or Digitrax Zephyr.  The outer track has my UP SD40-2 train (for where I live now),  the middle my GN F7A-B passenger train, & the inner my GN Heavy Mikado freight train (the latter 2 for where I used to live).  On sidings, I have a DM&IR 2-10-2 with ore cars & a 4-8-4 with Milwaukee Road mixed passenger & freight.  I also have 2 SD45s.

 Thanks Bob & Jim!  All is clear to me now.

 Thanks.  I have a Spectrum DM&IR 2-10-2 with 6 Bachmann DM&IR iron ore cars.  I saw a lot of them when I lived on the Mesabi Iron Range.  My home town of Coleraine, on the extreme western end of the range, celebrates its centennial this year.  There was a railroad up to the concentration plant overlooking the lake adjacent to the town.  Because of the low-grade ore & remote wilderness area, it was one of the last parts of the contiguous U. S. to be settled.  Coleraine was designed by the Oliver Mining Co as a model village.  Nearby Bovey had numerous saloons & some houses of ill repute.

 I have a Digitrax Zephyr.  I was unable to get the resistor to work by laying it across the track.  Tonight, I laid it across the track under the fuel tank of my Spectrum SD45, & it worked.  I laid it under the wheels of my Spectrum 2-10-2's tender, & that worked.

I found that CVs 3 & 4 in both Bachmanns were set at the factory to 001. Since the Digitrax decoders I installed into my BLI locos had CVs 3 & 4 set to 000, I confirmed that Spectrum DCC onboard comes with momentum, while the decoders I installed had no momentum set.

 Thanks, uncbob.  I enjoyed your pictures.  Do you ever run it?

 I saw the first 2 pictures & then   Cannot find "http://s453.photobucket.com/albums/qq258/GeneMoser/?action=view&current=PICT0262.jpg"  DNS Error - Server cannot be found

  Others seem to be having no problem, though.