Thats awesome Ken, i am looking for a good track cleaning solution.

A little side project I've been working on:

This is the Center-Line production of their 'track cleaning car.  It
comes with the knurled brass cylinder.



The cylinder is heavy enough to scrub the top of the rails.
I use corduroy strips wrapped around the cylinder.



I also use Parafinic Hydrocarbon as cleaning solvlent soaked on the corduroy strip.
It cleans the wheels of whatever engine is pushing it, it repels dust and is electronicly
conductive.

Here I added a Woodland Scenic track cleaning product to the frond truck.  These are usually
used under of any rolling stock and less noticeable, but the brass cylinder is already
taking up that space.



It was pretty obvious rolling around so I wanted to make it appear as a maintenance-of-way
car.  This is what I came up with:





It looks great in from of Bachmann's Shays...



More to follow,

Ken

Both should be able to handle 18" radius curves, but will look better on larger curves. Especially the SD45.

Len

Tap drill for a 2-56 screw in plastic is #50. Use a #49 for a self tapping #2 screw.

Len

Hello

I decided to get back into model trains and dug up some of my old equipment. i still have two of the bachman plus diesel locomotives. A gp35 and a SD45 black PRR models. my main question is what is the sharpest turn / curve radius that they can take. i have 18" and 22" atlas code 100 snap track but no turn outs. I was thinking using atlas snap track for the layout.

If you damage the truck pin extracting it there's no loss at all.  You just have to fill the hole with styrene rod. Scrap plastic sprue from kits is perfect for this job. After the cement sets, re-drill with a pin vise to take a 2–56 screw.  If you use the right size drill, you don't even need to tap the hole, the plastic is soft enough to take the screw .  It's a much better mounting job than the cheesy plastic pin Bachmann used to use in the Jurassic.

I fried my On30 Mogul PCB board trying to do what you want to do. I had to make my own diagram by looking at another Mogul and I obviously didn't get it  right. I ended up buying another Mogul.

If your time and money is at all valuable to you, you should send that engine to a professional to straighten out.  Unless you really like backfeeding each individual circuit at a time to see what works what, burning the LED headlights out because you got the polarity wrong, and re-soldering half of it because you didn't get it right in the first place.

If you really want to identify the circuits, I've heard people say that you test each pair of wires with a 9 V battery.  I've never done that though .  I despise electrical work and soldering of any kind, and I would much rather be running my Railroad than running down blind alleys trying to figure things out.  You'll probably spend about $100 if you send it to a professional, but you'll have two or three evenings back, no heartbreaking errors, plus something that's done right the first time.

Been thinking about future releases in the rolling stock department . Tankers we have a ton of tankers 7 on total compared to 2 cattle cars . So I think More cattle  cars are needed for the 2024 NMRA

Meaning that there are more versions of James then cattle cars options

My pics for the solutions to this problem are

Circus cattle car
McColls Cattle car
Farmer trotter cattle car

The circus one is a good option since the circus vans have been so popular and they have not even came out yet

McColls cattle car was a cancelled item from 2017 but unlike g scale diesel this item never happened . And I think it deserves a chance and could also fit in with the new figure picks

Farmer trotter cattle car - pink wagon with farm logo
This could work for the same reason as McColls ones

Hello railroaders, i am at a dilemma with my bachmann alco 2-6-0 mogul and its wiring connections, about 3 years ago i accidentally disconnected all 8 of the wires connecting to the plug, and now im buying a new plug but i dont know where the specific wires go on the decoder. It is dcc sound equipped from the echo valley set, but not ez app equipped. I was just curious if anyone had any photos or would be willing to take some of where exactly these wires go, from the plug and to the decoder, Thanks!