You're welcome.

Willis, go to the Bachmann home page. At the top of the page are several links. One of them is to this forum. Right next to it is one that says Parts & Service. In the drop down menu, click on Parts Store. One of the icons states All Scale Kitbashing. Click on that and then click on the On30 icon. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the heads-up. I subscribe to Trains.com which includes using the Earth-Cam on top of the train viewing pavillion. Now I just have to hope that they park it where it can be viewed with the camera. Thanks again.

Dusten, one of my favorite places to shop for modeling "stuff" is the Dollar Tree store. I have found a lot of useful items just browsing their shelves. Some that come to mind are Isopropyl Alcohol (70%) - this one goes fast so if you find it buy it, window cleaner with ammonia - great for cleaning acrylic paint from brushes, CA glue - look in the tool section and Aileen's Tacky Glue in the Craft section. Also, look in the craft section for unpainted wooden signs and wall decor - a lot of these are made from very thin plywood and are great to cut up and use for scratchbuilding structures. Hope this helps.

David, I've never had that happen on my 4-4-0. The wood load and overspill have always stayed in place, however, if you think this might become a problem, I would put a small piece of double-stick tape on the overspill which should secure it in place. As far as the main load is concerned, I've never had it move due to its weight. Hope this helps.

Well, if its out of warranty and its not working, seems to me the only thing left to do is to get a replacement. Hope this helps.

Changing couplers on your locomotives is no different than creating a coupler conversion car.

Bachman, is it possible that the little clips don't have anything to do with the wood load but rather are the jumpers that are used to convert the locomotive to straight DC? I have several Bachmann locomotives that included these "jumper clips" in the package. On my outside-framed 4-4-0, the wood load nestles very nicely into the tender and doesn't require any retainers at all. Just a thought.

Basically, from a mechanical and electrical standpoint, there is no difference between a DC and DCC turnout, since both use the same solenoid and linkage to move the points. The difference is that the DCC turnout also contains a basic DCC decoder (known as a stationary decoder) that will translate commands from the DCC control station (throttle) that allow the points to be moved, whereas in a pure DC turnout, voltage from the power pack's accessory terminal is used to move the points. However, somewhere along the line, a switch must be inserted into the circuit to reverse the polarity so that the points can be moved back and forth. In a DCC system, this switch is not necessary because any polarity reversal is handled by the decoder depending on the command from the throttle.

Installing a DCC turnout on a DC system without also adding a DCC controller would be an exercise in frustration because there would be no way to move the points via remote control. Thus, as has been suggested, this would require converting the layout to DCC, which, depending on the size and complexity of the layout could be an expensive proposition.

If the layout is performing well on DC, why not just install a DC turnout. It would be much simpler. Hope this helps.

Besides the locomotive roof being on backwards, checking other pictures of the Moonlight Express shows that the whistle assembly is missing from the steam dome, implying (to me at least) that the engine has had some rough handling and has been (poorly) repaired at some point. Also, the Combine seems to be missing the second brake wheel (left side in the picture) again, implying rough handling - only a close inspection would really tell. Not much value, if any at all IMHO.

Great job! I really like the nice, new look. Just the right amount of info on the screen but not too busy. Thanks, Bachmann

Terry, I'm a subscriber to Trains.com and they have been running a series of videos on this train. Their title is the "Final Spike For The Canadian Pacific" since the new name is now the CPKC. One interesting item that I found doing a little research on Google is that the CPKC is the only railroad in North America to be able to offer service from Canada into Mexico. Don't know how true that is but I found it interesting since my father worked for the Canadian Pacific (colloquially known then as the CPR) at their office in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in the mid-50s. So far, Trains.com has published two videos and there are supposed to be more. Hope this helps.

Cutting gaps in EZ-Track works very well. Even though I run DCC, I've cut gaps where I want to isolate my programming track from the rest of the layout yet still be able to run the engine onto the programm track under its own power. IIRC, the piece of styrene I needed to use was either .010" or .020" but may be different depending on the thickness of your cut-off disk. The way I did it, I cut a small piece of styrene of the correct thickness and glued it in the gap with CA glue. I let it dry overnight and then trimmed it with a #11 blade to match the profile of the rail. Hope this helps.

Too bad. I'll bet it would have made for some surprised visitors to your layout as the rocket sled zoomed around.

Glad to hear your annual arrived OK. I've been enjoying mine.

As far as a drive for the "Professor Fakes Rocket Sled" is concerned, check out the Stanton drives at Nortwest Short Line (NWSL). One of the projects I'm currently working on is a "homebuilt" switcher for my car maintenance facility. I purchased one of the 0-4-0 Gas Mechanical shells from Bachmann parts and am fitting the Stanton drive to it. I'm at the point where I've got the drive installed along with a basic Digitrax decoder and the engine runs fairly well. The Stanton drive was finicky at first when it came to electrical pickup but cleaning all the wheels and contacts with isopropyl alcohol solved the problem. After weighting the engine judiciously it now runs very nicely. I am now working on building the undercarriage. One nice thing about the Stanton drive is that it is wired such that installing a decoder is a breeze. Perhaps this might work for you.