With a 5 by 8, I'd say do tidmouth sheds and yard., have a 2-3 mainline oval with the shed and yards at one end and add a good stretch of mainline for a more country view. I'd say give 3 about 8ths of the layout to that and 2 8ths to the main line part.... just a quick idea, I didn't mention certain areas cause I figure your mind can start wondering and figure ideas out to fill in the gaps I left.

Just my 2 cents but when Im looking for old time rolling stock, I buy roundhouse, sense my local hobby shop usually has a good selection.

I enjoy they released something new, mainly the S2s.

i forgot what broke on my S4... but i think it was a gear in the wheels, the 3rd wheel (second truck, first wheel) would want to hover above the rail with no load at all! This caused it to go slower and pull a lot less. A friend was running it and he popped it back in. The same thing happened with my FA-2 and that had to be sent in because it happened again after putting the gear back in, so i sent it in and got a replacement loco.

Mr. Bachmann, i have been looking at the NMRA announcement page for a bit now, and i can't help but realize that there are different railroads for DCC ready & DCC sound value, but both descriptions say "available in DCC ready and with DCC sound value", yet there are 8 roads listed, 4 in the sound value and 4 in the ready. Does this mean that 4 roads will have sound and the other 4 wont? I know its early but any info on this would be great.

Thanks for releasing so many great items this year, as usual!

The trolley works fine.I call it $100 cause the only reason I bought it instead of the trolley alone was the reversing mechanism, but like with you, it didn't work. so for an extra $70... it didn't do me much good.

Smoke units are trouble, moving eyes are more reliable. I'd rather have a cross eyed Thomas than a smoking Thomas and the smoke fluid leaks onto the tracks. just an opinion.

I had problems with mine, so now I got a trolley that I practically bought for $100. I gave it a try and managed to get it to go to the shed.... but never got it to come back. Gave it 5 minutes. this was over 3 years ago. Maybe someone here can help. I never got much help and I remember another person reported this problem.

Being the steam fan i am, i wont be skipping up an opportunity to meet this famous locomotive a 4th time! (Owosso train fest 2009, CVSR steam in the valley 2010 , CVSR steam in the valley2011 & this) Got some great clips of them running, wish i had money to go to Toledo next week, but my next chance is probably the ferry move on the 7th. Either way, hope you enjoy the video and feel free to share your photos/videos of the NS 30th Ann. steam tour!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf4TD8YiEX4&list=UUs4YMd6QdOPf3spoIYhDPwg&index=1&feature=plcp

Thanks everyone, i'll look into these!

Went to a train show and a friend from the model train club i go to was part of a module layout group, and one of the people that had a section of the module layout had a B&O F7 dummy, looked like a athearn model, was being pushed by a B&O Shark made by Bachmann. The dummy had a hollowed out area where the head light was suppose to be. Inside, was a small camera that would record what was in front of it onto a TV. I can't remember what the make of the camera was sadly... but go figure i only remembered my friend said "you should buy one of these." Its not the first request i got to get one, and it seems like a fun project. Anyone know what this camera might've been and if it can be one where it records video, then you can transfer it to a computer? Would be neat to do this to a locomotive or a piece of rolling stock like a box car or caboose.

any help is appreciated!

Ah, i overlooked that, thanks!

Looking at a 1931 map of the Ex. nickel plate road line from rocky river ohio to Cleveland ohio and noticed that the industries have numbers after them.

Examples would include:
Jones (9)
Standard Oil (3)
Basket Co. (3)
Robinson spur (13)
Cleve. Furniture (22)

Then you got stuff like this:
Brown Bros. (10-10)
Lampson sessions (3-7)


so on, so forth. Any ideas what the numbers mean? here's the map

http://www.railsandtrails.com/NKP/1931Cleveland/NKP1931Cleveland-100.jpg

I would either sell it or give it to a collector. I had the John bull set and as much fun it was running, it was more of a display model.

Rich,

That's a good example of what i mean, The rolling stock is Ringling Bros, yet the motive power is owned by Union Pacific, im trying to look for a Circus that owned its own motive power