Your Model Railroading Tips and Comments
Your input into model railroading… 
This page is reserved for any model railroading tips, suggestions or information that you may wish to pass along to other model railroaders including… • New or improved techniques in any particular aspect of model railroading. • Any new information that you want to share about the hobby. Include the URL for your own railroad website if you like. • Ideas or comments about how to promote model railroading. • Anything else you can think of as long as it’s friendly and about model railroading. (Hint: This is an excellent way to get free advertising or a create a new inbound link to your website!)
Comments Just fill out the form below and if the content is appropriate, I will post your comments on this page or in the Blog. (Your email address is optional and will not be posted to maintain privacy and prevent spamming.) Thanks in advance for your contribution!
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- Michael WOW! All this great information for free!!! I've been railroading for a little over a year and wish I'd found your site earlier (found you on YouTube). Keep up the great work!- Rick Thank You, Thank You, Thank You....I just bought my grandson a train set with the intentions of the 2 of us building our little empire. I've been buying magazines and researching on line, but this is the best site I've found to answer the one million questions going through my head. I'm retired and a golfer, but I find model railroading very interesting. Hopefully over the next couple of years we will have quality time together learning and building our railroad. I have a dedicated space in the basement 23' x 11 ' and that area can be expanded if necessary. Thanks again for an excellent and informative web site. Don from Cape Cod Ma. GREAT SITE!!! I am just starting a large n scale layout and your site will be very helpful. I haven't read thru the entire site yet, but I am sure I will. Thx. Curtis Wow, what a terrific site you've created! It's answered all of my questions without being overly technical or simplified. Thanks! - Ed I know you've heard this before, but I have to say, you have an amazing website. I have a bunch of old rolling stock that I just recently dusted off and am starting to get back into the hobby. I was a kid 20+ years ago since I've looked at model railroading and I cannot believe how much the hobby has changed. I've been doing lots of research in creating a realistic and technically modern railroad and this site is certainly going to be a heavily used resource. Thank you so much for your hard work in getting this together. - Colby Ralph sent in this question: Q - I hope you can help me. I am looking for a suitable reed switch to use on my O27 layout to trigger signals and sounds, but the ones I bought to use are not sensitive enough. Can you recommend a make and model that has worked successfully for you? A - I usually work with smaller scales than O27, so I don't have direct experience with your problem. However, several things come to mind as a way of troubleshooting. One is that the reed switch has to come very close to the magnet in order to work properly. With O27 gauge, the higher rails and larger wheels on the locomotives and cars may result in too much space between the magnet on your train and the reed switch lying between the rails. Try raising the reed switch up higher by placing a wood chip or piece of foam underneath it, or lowering the magnet on the passing train, so that when the train passes the magnet comes closer to the reed without touching. The other possibility is that you may need a stronger or longer magnet on the bottom of the train so it has more of a chance of activating the switch if it's passing by quickly. If this doesn't help, you might try checking the website at http://www.reedswitchdevelopments.com/ If they don't have one on the shelf that will work for you, they can custom-make one! I'll also put up your question on the Comments page and see if anyone else out there has had the same problem, and we can see how they resolved it. -GJW Q - I have just read your treatise on signaling and found it excellent--clear and most informative.However, it didn't quite hit the topic I was questing. The G-scale Penobscot and Pee Dee Railroad, which Charlie (miniature poodle) and I are building in our back yard, will, when finished, have 25 or more radio-controlled turnouts. I want to set up a 2-light signal at each one that gives the status of that turnout, with respect to the mainline. Thus, if the turnout is set to route traffic down the spur, the signal light would be a continuous RED; if the mainline route was clear, the signal would show a continuous GREEN.Can you sketch out how I might rig this or refer me to someplace where I can find such guidance?Thank you very much. A - I think the best way to answer this is to show you the "Instruction Supplement" written in PDF format that you can download from the Documents>Signal Animator section of the LogicRail website (logicrailtech.com). This setup requires that you use at least one Signal Animator circuit board and one switch machine (with auxiliary contacts) for each turnout. (See Figure #1 in the attachment.) When the turnout is lined up for the mainline, the photocell is connected and, if uncovered, the signal is green. When the turnout is thrown for the diverging route, the photocell is disconnected and the signal turns red. (Note that for signals with 2-LED lights as you are using, you will need to make a modification to the circuitry as shown in Figure #4, basically using diodes to connect the Y and G terminals on the circuit board to the green LED on the signal.) Hope this helps. Send me a picture when you can! Time for a Sound System...-- A great, very inventive article by John Thompson on how to use sound loops from old railroad clocks to add a variety of railroad sounds to your S-scale trains for only 25 cents. John writes..."Hi, I love your web site! I have an American Flyer, rare, uncatalogued #21004 loco and slant back tender with a rocket freight set including a rare car carrier with a blue semi and all 5 cars, also a rocket launcher car, red caboose and the gondola, which is really the key piece for me, especially for this project... (Click on the title to read more!) A long,long time ago I used to have a book that detailed home made electronics for model railroading. Does anyone have any diagrams etc.?
Model Railroad Forums There are several great forums where you can learn an awful lot about the hobby and where you can ask questions about anything related to model railroading...
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