It's not a huge deal, you just need to run two wires from your auxiliary posts to a point where you can have the other wires join them.  You can just wire things together at that point, or you can look into the wiring supplies that are available from a hobby shop, dollhouse supplier or an electronics house like Radio Shack.  These would include things like terminal strips, jumpers for said strips, and good old wire.  

Depending on what you are using for bulbs, you may want to wire at least some lights in series.  This has the effect of reducing voltage to individual bulbs.  It cuts down on the light, but also extends bulb life considerably.  

The other wiring scheme is parallel, which is what is in your house.  All bulbs (or your appliances, etc.) get the same voltage.

O--Bulb
----Wire

Series (with return wire below):   ---O-----O-----O------O-----O------O------
                                               -----------------------------------------------

Parallel:  _________________________________________
         __O___O____O____O____O____O____________  

The two can be combined, depending on how many bulbs you may want in series at any point, or how much you want to reduce the voltage.  The particular arrangement shown below would reduce the voltage to each bulb by 50%, assuming the bulbs are matched.  In other words, if you have 16 volts coming out of your auxiliary terminals, then each bulb in this case would get only 8 volts.  That would be well under the typical 12 volt ratings of the bulbs in the railroad hobby, and would result in a nice golden glow instead of an overly bright light--which would also signify voltage being higher than it should and shorter bulb life, sometimes measured in seconds or less!

______________________________________________
      [                                     [
      [-------O------O----]         [------O------O-----]
___________________]____________________]__________

Do keep in mind that while these voltages are very low compared to your house current, you do need to make sure you have no bare wires, especially bare wires that can touch another of opposite polarity.  That will be what's called a short circuit, and even at only a couple of volts from a battery would result in an amazing amount of heat buildup and a fire hazard!  

It's not a big deal to prevent that, but it does require you take a few common sense precautions, such as what I mentioned above.  

Might be. . .can you provide a link or copy of the picture you found?

A very brief check came up with this piece from Model Railroader.  According to its author, it looks like the Porter was based on a catalog engine, with an added electric headlight, representing a locomotive that had been modernized.

In short, it may not be a specific engine, but it is a standard prototype from the builder.

http://mrr.trains.com/product-reviews/staff-reviews/2013/11/bachmann-trains-ho-scale-porter-switcher

I remembered this from a while back. . .wonder what the diameter is.

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,13419.0.html

Maybe it'll help out.

Pretty fast start there!

What do you plan to use for a new boiler front?

It's an old topic, but this ties in--commentary on John Allen and the Gorre & Daphetid by Jim Findley.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rK99FrHAHw

If you don't have them, you might want to get some tweezers and magnetized screwdrivers.  They help considerably in situations such as you describe.

Alternately, if you have something sticky but removable, such as certain rubbery cements, a little dab on the screwdriver or even on something like toothpick can help; the latter is used to pick up and hold the screw while you use the screwdrivers.

Yes, it would also help if you were an octopus!! 

Given that Acela sets are still available after so long in an era of batch production could argue against this, but FEC-Brightline isn't the only customer.  Some of these units have been ordered by Amtrak and another carrier. 

Would they still sell?  I would argue the units need more exposure, which may come as the Amtrak units go into service.  That might be what will drive your demand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Charger

Quote from: jonathan on August 07, 2017, 02:24:18 AM
Yep. Acela must be a popular set. Got mine around 2008/9. I notice the online store still has them for sale.

Regards,

Jonathan

I've got one, too, but my wife lost her job, and this was with a house that was supposed to have two people paying for it.

Now, having retired, finances are FINALLY getting back in shape, and I wouldn't mind getting those extra three cars--but those don't seem to be available! 

And I haven't seen any at the train shows in my area.  Any ideas?

Thought this might be interesting here.

http://gilbertho.org/rolling_stock/tyco_gilbert_passenger_cars.htm

Home page.

http://gilbertho.org/index.htm

For inspiration, you might also want to check out what John Ott has done.  This is a pretty unusual model railroad. . .besides its period setting, its theme is the town of Arkham from the pen of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft!  Actually it's intended as a New England railroad in the Victorian era, with a few examples of black humor (the shop for artificial legs is on the second floor of a building, for instance), and the effect and work is first rate.

And this guy needs a whole fleet of passenger cars of this time!

Anyway, despite the dark humor and some other things, consider this a source of inspiration.

http://www.ottgalleries.com/MRR.html

http://www.ottgalleries.com/index.html

Well, the easiest thing to do would be to take Bachmann's own passenger cars and paint and letter them yourself for the Strasburg.  They will be shorter than the car you have illustrated, but cars weren't all the same length.  The Sierra Railway had (and still has) a couple of cars. . .No 5 and No. 6 a combine and a coach. . .that were VERY short to get around the curves on the branch they were assigned to.

Next easiest thing to do would be to take some Bachmann cars and kitbash two cars to get the length you need.  You might even be able to sacrifice one body to extend several other cars, though you then have to make two splices per car instead of one.  Interestingly the prototypes sometimes did this sort of thing.

Finally, you can still get craftsman wooden kits for similar cars, though this particular example has a somewhat different paired window arrangement that might not have been typical in the wood car era.  

https://www.labellemodels.com/1883-open-platform-coach-p-38.html?osCsid=nj4315ct9kctcdmplbsq2ie984

Be forewarned, this is a model of WOOD, and has a lot of pieces.  It's what model kits used to be, and for some modern people, they can be intimidating. . .but they are not impossible!  I speak from experience.

If you take this route, I would suggest you try something simpler, like a box car first.  

The other thing would be to follow some advice another company places in its kit instructions. . ."Take your time and get your money's worth."

Take it slow, be patient, enjoy the building process. . .and when you're done, you'll have something most other people won't have, including the right to say, "I built this!"

Looked at both the prototype and model photos, and whatever the model is, it looks good, though it's a bit shorter by one window, which with the structure around it would account for much of the 10-foot difference in overall length.  You could scratchbuild or kitbash to get it right if you were a perfectionist, but I wouldn't worry too much about it unless I was a perfectionist, or if I only wanted one or two cars to model the Ma & Pa! 

But a whole fleet. . .that might be another question!

Interesting prospect!

I would suggest that, like the 2-8-4s that were built for the Richmond, Fredricksburg & Potomac that were based on the Van Sweringen 2-8-4, the 4-8-4s that were built for the Central of Georgia to an SP design, and the B&O's own EM1s that were built instead of diesels, these 2-8-4s would have been a wartime expedient.  In that regard, and considering the T3 4-8-2s that were rebuilds of old 2-8-2s and 4-6-2s, and the rebuilt P7s, it seems the B&O would have gone with the centered headlight.

Having said that, another railroad had a 4-8-4 that some people said looked like it belonged on the B&O.  This was the Western Maryland J1, a large engine with low drivers, a high headlight, off center bell, and fore and aft sand domes, like a B&O Big Six 2-10-2!

http://www.railarchive.net/randomsteam/wm1406.htm

http://www.american-rails.com/images/CJ4841409.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/54/3f/8a/543f8afe92ed610f0699af1819e707fd.jpg

http://www.american-rails.com/images/WM1403484Hgrtwn.jpg

Quote from: jonathan on May 18, 2017, 08:34:37 AM
Those trucks appear to be the type mounted on the B&O C-15 REA Baggage Car.  Haven't seen a C-15 at the museum, but I've built the model, and those are the trucks used on that car.  Semi-educated guess...

Regards,

Jonathan

I hope I don't raise the ire of the site administrators with a link to another firm (I hope they understand this is for a small specialty company that has things a mass producer like Bachmann wouldn't normally do)--but those trucks are available in HO.

Scroll down to Trucks, and what you want to look for is part 231:

http://bethlehemcarworks.com/Products/Kit_Bits/index.html

As to the prototypes, I wonder if any survived at all.  I do remember a string of these and other cars used to be at Brunswick, Md., but all that was scrapped when things were cleaned out years ago.