TRACK TALK LIVE: January 2018

Hello, and welcome back to another fabulous episode of Track Talk Live. I have some exciting news. It's been solidified. I'm officially Ms. Choo Choo, and I just wanted to bring this to share.

I don't have a mug yet, but I have a nameplate, which is very important. I just wanted to make sure you all know Ms. Choo Choo is in the building. Just a quick reminder that we'll be answering questions live, so please start submitting them so we can read them and answer them in the time that we have. And also, sign up for our newsletter.

There's a banner right below the video, so you can do that. Just click here. Doug, why don't you tell us what you've been up to since the last Track Talk Live. How was your Christmas? How was your New Year?

Well, uh, everything! Boy, it's a whole new year, and the whole new year worth of resolutions to break. I have to get more exercise, that's for sure. Everybody makes that their resolution, I feel like. But no, I wanted to talk briefly about DCC.

I actually did some DCC installation since our last show. And I get a lot of questions from beginners who are just not sure about DC versus DCC. And you know, DC has been around for decades, you know? And DCC came along and it really transformed the model railroad hobby. It's completely different.

And those of us who have been through both phases, we see the difference. And so people will ask me, "Well, isn't DCC really complicated?" No. Well, it can be! I mean, it's computer stuff. I mean, you can make it as complicated as you want, but it doesn't have to be.

Actually, DCC really simplifies things as compared to the old DC. If you're running multiple trains, the DC was a big pain. It's just you have to learn something new. And sometimes, that can be intimidating. Yeah, and you can fine tune.

I mean, course there's sound now, and you can fine tune everything and select the sound you want, tailor the acceleration and deceleration curves of your equipment and on and on. It's really great, consisting. So anyway, I was putting sound into a locomotive I got on eBay. Ooh. And I bought a small what's called an Econo Sound Decoder.

It's amazing. I mean, you know, the sound decoders now are about half the size it used to be. Wow. It's just really amazing what they can squeeze into this, all the data, I mean, all the sound files and all this stuff. It's a small thing now.

Yeah, and then I put one of these Keep Alive type circuits in and various manufacturers call it by different names but basically what it is it's a capacitor network that acts kind of like a battery. So if you lose power, if he hit a, oh a little piece of dead track or something, your sound doesn't sputter. It'll keep the thing going for, you know a couple of seconds or something, but enough to get it over the dead spot. And so I wanted to put one of those into my locomotive. And then I was working on a speaker, and people have used these little, what they call a sugar cube speakers, which are tiny little things-- The size of a sugar cube.

About the size of the sugar cube, an old speaker out of a smartphone. And I had one of those and I put it in. It was meh, you know. So then I remembered people talked about these iPhone speakers, and my son actually repairs iPhones. Oh, handy-dandy.

So I told him, well I, you know, I'm looking for a speaker. Well, anyway, I ended up with an iPhone six speaker and the darned out thing, it comes with an enclosure. And so it's about the size of a, well, not even a business card. I mean, it's very thin. Maybe an eighth of an inch thick, and the enclosure is part of it.

There's a transducer in there and the enclosure. Anyway the sound is absolutely fantastic. Cool. I mean, you can get it way louder than you need and it's just crystal clear, and it's so small, you can get it into just about anything. Wow.

And so I'm really recommending these iPhone speakers. They're just really fantastic. Something to look into, but I'm sure not everybody's son is an iPhone repair man. I was able to get them. I mean, I was probably any place that repairs iPhones would have these speakers and you could buy them.

I actually, you know, I didn't get this for free. I had to pay for it, but anyway, you could go into any place that repairs iPhones and just tell them iPhone six speaker. iPhone six is the best one. And it comes with this plastic enclosure, black plastic enclosure. But that's why I thought that was really, really, really neat.

That's pretty cool. I'm gonna upgrade one of my other locomotives now with all those same features. With a smaller speaker and then you can have more room for this little Keep Alive unit, so. Yeah, smaller makes it a lot easier. What kind of ambient noise do you have on your track?

Is it the sound of the trains that goes by, I don't know. Oh well, this is the locomotive sounds. You know you can select-- The choo chooing. Well that, but you can select like different horns and whistles and then steam sounds and diesel engine sounds. I mean, you know, there are different, different diesels have different diesel engines inside of them, right?

And so people want to have the right sound. The very specific sound, yeah. And of course, I mean these are real sounds that they're recorded off the real locomotives, and they put into these chips. And so you can actually select the right thing. You know, like if you have a particular, the real finicky detail oriented modelers will say, well I have a such and such a three-chime horn in my locomotive.

So I need that sound. It was made by so-and-so so-and-so, and I want to have exactly that sound. And so you can actually pick it. Wow. And have that sound.

I mean, it's just tremendous. So I highly recommend these iPhone speakers. Cool. Very interesting information. So that's my news.

Yeah, very interesting news. We'll get into some questions then right here. We have a few pre-submitted ones. The first one is from Jim in Ohio, who's working in HO. I'm planning a layout, but don't yet have rolling stock.

My vision is to have an all steam stable with a small to medium-sized locomotive. How can I decide what size turntable to include? I don't want it any larger than it needs to be. Well, I guess you'd think about it just as a real railroad would you think about it. I mean, what kind of equipment are we using here and what kind of equipment do we have to turn around?

And of course we want to have a turntable that will turn the locomotive around. Otherwise it was kind of pointless, . Not really, yeah. You know, so... So, you know, it could be a 70 foot turntable.

It could be a 90 foot turntable, depending on the power you're gonna run, and so, you know, if you're bottling a short line and you have a sharper curves and steeper grades, then the locomotives would typically be smaller, and so the railroad road wouldn't put in a turntable this way too big. Why would they just cost them more money? So they would just put in a turntable it would fit what they're using. It's like your garage. You know, when you put the car in the garage, you just want to have your car to fit in the garage, you know, that's it so.

Yeah, all right. Our next question is from Ken in Colorado, working in N Scale. Any ideas on creating real looking pine trees? Well, you know, back in the early days people who built what they called bottle brush pine trees which was basically a loop of wire. And then they put these hemp bristles into them and put one in and a vice and the other end and electric drill and going, .

Spin them around. You know, you can, you see those trees even at the craft stores like Michaels and all that, and that's what those are. And those actually, as a base, they're not too bad. Now you can upgrade those, fix them up you know, put a ground foam on them and things to to make them look better. And they're, the way they're made, they're really too perfect.

So you can trim them so they're not just a perfect cone shape. So you got them at Michael's. They look like they belong. Yeah, uh huh. But there's a lot of other outfits.

There's some German outfits that make some really nice pine trees, but the trouble is if you're doing a you know, a sizeable model railroad, you mean you might need about 5,000 pine trees, you know. How many pine trees do you wanna buy? So the, the other thing is if you do a really nice pine trees in the foreground, you know, then the other ones in the back at the hillside don't have to be quite so nice. I mean, that's the way it's been but yeah, I mean, you can go online and just look up pine trees and there there's a lot of stuff available. There's also trees that are made for in architectural models, like when they do a architectural model for a building design, they'll put pine trees or any kind of trees in, but that would be, that'd be another way of getting the trees, but you can always fix them up.

Yeah, jazz them up a little bit. With scenic materials, too, yeah. Put your good pine trees in the front. There you go. Our next question is live from David.

Is there a product from any manufacturer that simulates real dirt, such as found in a farm field? I've used real dirt before but sitting and working it to the right size and texture is a lot of labor. Ah, well, you know, that's a good point. In fact, we just built a cornfield not too long ago using real dirt, and you know, real dirt, well, the first thing is free. Yeah.

And I found that for some odd reason that when I clean out my garage, the dirt is brought in by my car was already kind of pulverized. Yeah, it's been under tires . You know, it's pretty fine. So I sweep it up and you still have to sift it. But I mean, it shouldn't be that bad.

I mean, you can sift it down pretty easy. Just there's there's you can go to like say a kitchen supply store or someplace like that, and there you can get sifters with different sizes of screen, you know? So you can actually sift it down. I don't think it's that hard. I mean, considering it's free to begin with, and dirt sometimes tends to want to beat up more than like say some of these other scenery materials.

So you want to actually wet the surface first before you put the glue down or the dirt down I mean, so that otherwise, if you try to put the water on, wet glue on later, the dirt might want to bead up and don't necessarily have to, you don't have to cover it all in one coat. You know, you can do with some and let it set down and then do some more. And do some more. Yeah, and before you've mentioned taking your Gatorade bottles with you and filling them up with dirt. Yeah, we liked those Gatorade bottles 'cause they have a wide mouth on them, you know?

So you drink the Gatorade and then if you see some dirt you like driving around the country, just load her up. Just take it out, yeah. I've had some funny looks at the airport. Yeah people are like why do you have bottles of dirt with you? You have a hobby that's why.

All right, our next question is from Carl in Arkansas working in HO. I'm looking for step-by-step simple electronic projects for HO Scale model railroads. Can you suggest a source? Well, you know, yeah. There are certainly a lot of books on the subject and you could probably go online and find some projects.

I know I bought a lot of material from, electronic material from Circuitron over the years. And they have a lot of, eh, I don't want to say simplistic, but kinda the, what's the word I want to use? The more basic kind of electronics that all kinds of stuff that you can buy and try out. And then they have a very good instruction sheets. Oh.

So the work is step-by-step. If you wanted to say a crossing flasher or something like that, I mean that's probably an easy way of doing it other than looking online to see what's out there, but it's good to play with this stuff. And any of this, if you might think it's complicated but really once you get going at it, it's not tough. Read up, study up. We have another question from Carl asking can you suggest a source for HO Scale boats such as tug boats, barges and small pleasure crafts?

You know, I read this question before the show, and there is a place up in New England that has all kinds of really neat stuff. It's kind of a, they do all kinds of really neat boats, but of course I can't remember the name. So please, Carl is it? Carl, please send me a question through the website, and I'm gonna try to look it up and remember it, but it's a they have all kinds of neat boats, lobster boats and even lobster traps and all this stuff. Wow.

It's kind of a New England, you know kind of a New England type of thing but a little sailing craft and all that and dog on it, I wish I can remember the name now . Maybe it'll come to you mid live show and you'll just be like, ah, we'll-- I've seen them at shows. I mean, they display at shows and they've got some really neat stuff. Cool. All right, our next question is live from Mike in Tacoma, Washington.

Hi guys, love what you're doing for us fans. My next, my question is DCC or traditional analog performance? I'm so stuck with the hands on operations and now it's going all digital. What are the pros and cons of DCC? Oh, that's just what talked about.

Well, you know my layout, we've talked about my layout before. My layout is S Scale and it's two feet by 18 feet, 36 square feet, and it's a switching layout. I like switching and it's designed basically for scale speed operation where the train crew would really be on the ground. I mean, you have the engine crew but otherwise the crew walks along with a train as they switch to these cars. And so it's a very slow speed operation.

And I like hands-on because in that, in a real scene that's what it would be. Everything would be manual. The switchers are thrown manually. Everything is in a real road road scene would be hands-on. And so I actually had as an example I had Tortoise switch motors leftover from my HO.

And as long as I had them, I used them on my S Scale but I'm not actually using them electrically. I have a quarter inch dowel choke rod that I use to throw the switches. So I use the contacts and the Tortoises to feed the frogs of the switches. But my theory is to have the least amount of electronics possible. And you don't have to have a lot of electronics to have fun but I do have DCC because I liked the sound and I liked the way you can adjust the you know, like we were saying earlier you know, you can pick the sound you want and you can...

You can set the acceleration and deceleration curves and the top speeds and all that kind of thing. And so that's very handy, but as far as the wiring goes I mean, if you're running multiple trains with DC, you'd have to have a lot of toggle switches and all that to select what, where you want, what throttle for what locomotive and you know, people used to have just you know wiring nightmares with DC. It's very complicated. And so with DCC, all you do is select the locomotive number you want and off you go. So I think for, I think that's the best way to go by far, and the DC is really getting to be kind of old technology now anyway, so.

Upgrading to DCC. By the way, we've had an update from Arthur who says the vendor in New England on the water vessels is likely MTS, Model Tech Studios. Model Tech. Does that ring a bell? There you go.

I think that is it. Yeah, I think there was another one. I mean, I know Model Tech, but I think there's another one, too. It's like Blue Line maybe or something like that. But Model Tech is a good one, too, and I know they have some boats.

Thank you, Arthur was it? Arthur, yeah. Arthur, thank you for that. All right, our next question is from Dan. And we've talked about this a little bit before about adding ripples and layers in your water but we've talked about that in while you're building the water up.

So Dan asks what's the best way to add ripples to already existing flat water? Well, the acrylic products they're really the best. I mean, there's different ways of doing it. You know, people would use like epoxy, glossy poxy varnish and then you take a hairdryer and try to blow ripples into it. But yeah...

That's a good way to make natural. Yeah I mean, it's too hard to get it right as far as I'm concerned. I mean everybody has their own kind of idea about what they think is good. But personally, I like the acrylic gloss medium and the gloss gel. Now with a gloss gel, you can actually brush ripples into the water like you're doing frosting on a cake.

You know, you can just kind of, and you don't have to do it all in one coat. There again, you can just, you know you can do some and I want to do some more and you can really take your time and play with it. 'Cause it takes a while for it to dry and you have to let it set overnight and dry. And it's, you know, it's white. It looks kind of like white glue.

It's white when it's out of the bottle but then it dries clear. It dries clear. And you know, if you had like white caps you can actually add iridescent white to the top of the ripples. On the edges there? And so for me, I like it where I can take my time and kind of look it over and, and play with it.

And then of course you want to have your finished lighting over it, too, because if you don't do it with your final lighting, it might look different when you, if you change the lighting. Yeah, you won't really know for sure. That's my theory, just the gloss, gloss medium and gloss gel. Maybe some iridescent white if you're looking for white caps. All right, our next question is from Dennis in Mesquite, Texas who works in HO, O and S.

I have a 16 by 16 room around the ceiling with a battery G Scale Polar Express train, ooh. And I want to replace it with an O Scale Polar Express electric train. Do I need more than one electric fast track for this length of track? Well, I would just to be safe. I mean, you could probably get by with one but what tends to happen over time is your track connections, you know, they can get a little bit dirty or corroded, and then they little by little it just kind of take away a little bit of that voltage you know?

And so they might have a voltage drop by the time you get to the far end. And so, you know, I would put maybe, you know I'll put a feeder, like every quarter of the way around, something like that. It doesn't hurt. It's easy to do when you're putting the track in. And of course you can always add a feeder.

If something went bad, you could always add one. But I'd suggest yeah, probably every fourth of the way around, just put them in to be safe. To be safe. All right, our next question is from Gwen. How do you create a working waterway, such as a river like the Pittsburgh Science Center train display?

Well, I don't think I've seen the Pittsburgh Science Center display, but if you're talking about a pretty sizeable river, a lot of people are with that early question, people actually have used just glass is a base or you can buy this stuff called ripple glass is kind of like you put in bathroom windows or the kind of thing, that ripple glass. And that already has like light ripples already in it. So you can start with that, especially if it's a fairly big surface and then you can go over with your various mediums. And now if maybe you don't want the water crystal clear. I mean maybe you want a dirty river, a polluted river.

You know. Maybe. So you can always add color if you want the, you know the river to be brown or green or whatever it is. Whatever color it is. You know, you can color it up.

So, I mean, that might be a good idea, too. I, not knowing how large a river we're talking here. Yeah, all right. Our next is from Eric asking what makes a better road bread, road bed, cork, or home? Homosoday?

Homasote. Homasote. Homasote. Well, there's probably a lot of opinion on that. I actually would use homasote.

That's what's on my layout. Cork is fine. And you know, that's about a quarter inch thick and then it has the beveled side. So it gives you the drainage ditch on the side, but cork over time just gets real hard and brittle. And, you know, so if you're gonna use cork and you want that the bevel to the side, after you get the track in, I would seal it.

Now we've had questions on other shows where people talk about ballasting the track. And I suggest using Matte Medium, not that this would not be the gloss medium, but the Matte Medium to glue the ballast on because it's a lot more forgiving. It dries sort of rubbery. And that way it's a little forgiving if something moves a little bit. Otherwise the hard glue, the ballast might crack and also conduct sound down, too.

So if you have a rubbery surface it doesn't conduct the sound. But anyhow, if you use Matte Medium to glue your track down to the cork, the cork doesn't hold a track nails very well either. It's kind of mushy. It doesn't seem very, yeah. That's the other thing.

But anyway, if you use Matte Medium, it seals the cork. I mean, it just, it's like a varnish over the cork. It seals the cork down. So if you use Matte Medium, that that'll preserve the cork. So if you are using cork, then that should work.

All right, our next question is from Dave. When building a separate standalone modules over a period of months that will eventually be connected together, how does one make sure that the tracks from modules will connect to each other? Ah ha. Well, that's a good question. Very carefully.

That's model railroading for ya. There was no, . There's nothing that said they're going to, but basically the thing is if you keep all your modules, design them so you have a little bit of a... A little bit of space in the rail joints to allow for expansion and contraction. And then the best thing, I mean, the humidity is harder on that stuff than the temperature.

So if you try to keep them as much as you can at a uniform humidity, and then of course nowadays people are building these modules out of like say aluminum rather than wood. And so if you did say an aluminum frame and using aluminum angles and what have you to put together a same sort of a frame, like a bench work, a wooden bench work would be, you know, you don't have that problem with the expansion and contraction. So that's an idea, too. All right, our next question from David was already answered but I'll read it out anyway, just to retouch on it in case someone's joining us after the fact, asking what is the best method for ballasting track, which is the Matte Medium. David, yeah David, try and Matte Medium and get it at a place like Michael's.

They're all over the country aren't they, Michael's? Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's Michael's all over. So a place like Michael's, a craft art store. Craft store, art, something like that. Okay, our next is from Thomas in Long Branch, New Jersey working in HO Scale.

On cleaning track, I use a Brite Boy followed by a CRC contact cleaner. What have you found to be the most reliable cleaning methods and products? Well, you know, you could boy, you could really start an argument with that. An argument? I mean, well, I mean, everybody has their own idea, but I don't like my track oily.

Some people, you know, use this oil stuff and they think is good for conductivity which, and you know, you don't want to attract too dry 'cause it would tend to affect the conductivity. But no, I do exactly what he says. And depending on how dirty your room gets, I mean I do, I've cleaned some commercial trains and, you know they can get really dirty. I suppose if there's a lot of traffic, and then people come in and looking and touching it. And it's a lot of feet of track.

And so I use like commercial cleaning products and I actually made a track clean car using one of those 3M foam, oh, we got one right here actually. Oh, we brought an example. Where'd I put it? Yeah, a 3M foam sanding block. Well, this is, yeah, this is 3M.

Anyway, this is what it looks like. And I, you can cut this with a bread knife. I mean, it's just foam inside and you'd cut up to whatever shape you want. Let me feel it. Yeah, pretty pliable.

And, and so it, you put it on the underside of the car. So it just kind of floating. I ran a couple of bolts up through the floor and it just sort of hangs in there. And then I actually put some weight on the top. So it's just sort of weighted down to the track and then it just, you know, it just slides along the track and the car and it really works great.

And then you can just clean this off periodically. So that saves a lot of, you know if your track is up on the shelf, it saves a lot of ladder work and believe me, I've done a lot of ladder work. A lot of ladder work. That's a good one. A nice example there and demonstration.

Yeah, that was perfect. We just happen to have this here. Okay, our next question is from David in St. Paul working in S Scale. When are you going to scratch build a model, when you are going to build a, scratch build a model, excuse me, what factors do you consider for choosing the materials?

So if you're starting from the bear minimum, starting from scratch. Oh, well, you know, I actually haven't been I haven't scratched built rolling stock I don't think. I don't think I've ever scratched built anything in S. I've done it in HO but I've been doing buildings. And I think we talked about this.

I liked this cardboard you can get from the post office, the priority mail boxes. It's really neat because it's thin cardboard and yet quite rigid, and you can cut it up. And, you know basically when you get something priority mail, I mean what the heck. If you mess it up so what. It didn't cost you anything.

So, you know what I mean? You just, you can make a shape. And so that's what I like. I make a cardboard shape and you can draw a windows on or even cut windows into the openings. And in a lot of, you know, you can adjust the roof line or the size of the building, whatever you want.

And then, you know, if you're happy with the building, then you can actually just sheet over it. You know, whatever you're siding is gonna be, is gonna be brick or wood. Or I actually did some stucco buildings because I'm doing California. So I actually used stucco. What did you use to make your stucco?

You know, I wish I remembered the name of it. It was something I bought at an art store. Yeah, anyway, from a Michael's store. Well, you know, I tell you what, I'm over 70 now, my brain. I can't remember names, but yeah, it's a product you can buy it a Michael's, or you could actually make, I know people make their own.

They just take sand and put it in paint. That's basically all it is. Yeah, to get that texture. So get some very fine sand and mix it with paint. But I liked that stucco look, but all of that can go over this cardboard.

Put anything you want on there. Model, I've told you this before, but model railroaders like it when you can get something for free. Yeah, like sand and dirt . And cardboard, hey, a free cardboard. And cardboard, there you go.

It's being resourceful, that's what it is. Yeah, otherwise it ended up in a landfill or something. So this way you're reusing and repurposing it. Okay, we have another question from David asking what is your least favorite thing to do on a model railroad? Well, you know, I don't know if I have anything that's really my least favorite.

I don't know. I'd have to think about that, but no, I mean what I try to do is I don't, I just work on the things that I feel like doing. I mean, the good thing about model railroading is you have to learn a lot of various talents. I mean, there's you know, all kinds of things, but if I don't feel like doing something, then I know I'm just not gonna do the best job, so I'll do something else. But actually as I get older, probably crawling under a layout is the-- Have to hire someone to crawl.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or climb on a ladder maybe. But no, no, no, I pretty much enjoy it all. I really do. It's been a wonderful hobby.

Have met some really neat people over the years and-- A great community. Somebody mentioned the other day. It's kind of neat. It really is an arts and crafts hobby, and when you think about it, I mean this, our model railroading has been around for oh, I don't know in the US probably over a hundred years now. And, you know people really had to be resourceful in the old days.

I mean, you couldn't just go to the hobby store and buy stuff. I mean-- We didn't big craft stores. Make stuff out of tin cans or whatever you could get, you know? And so it really is an arts and crafts hobby and so this guy said it was kinda interesting when you think about it. You know, the early arts and crafts, the talent that came over from like say England, William Morris, you know, his theory was, it was a combination of heart, heads and hands.

Those three things all put together. Sounds about right, yeah. And I think that's what model railroading is. Yeah, it encompasses all of them. Yeah, if you love model trains or you love real trains, and you want to recreate that, and so you're you know, it's just a, it's a wonderful arts and crafts hobby, I think.

All right, we got another live question. I just want to remind you again to keep asking your questions live down below so that we can answer them in the time that we have. So send them on in and we'll answer them. So our question-- I'm talking too much. Our question is from Bernie asking how do you run your wiring for DCC when you have multiple tracks on your table?

Well, that's the whole point. You don't need fancy wiring for each track. What I normally say is because you're, you know you want your bus wires to be heavier gauge. You know, it could be, you know you can use actually people use house wire like 12 gauge or 14 gauge stranded house wire depending on how big your layout is. But what I normally do is follow the track underneath on the underside, just basically, you know you drill holes in the bench work or whatever it takes and just basically follow the track around underneath.

And if the track happens to make a full circle, that's fine. Then interconnect your bus wire. So your bus wire has a full circle that will help eliminate any voltage drop that might be in that bus wire. But then when you do your feeder wires up to the track, they can be very light gauge because they're going a short distance. So, you know, you might be running a six inch maybe or something, light gauge wire up to the track.

And then I use solid wire for that. I use like, I use for my S Scale, I've been using 22 gauge solid wire. And you wouldn't want to use that for long distances like I say, but for a short distance, it's fine. Then you can solder it under the side of the rail and it doesn't make a big blob. You know, I've seen where model railroaders run heavy wire right to the track and there's a big blob of solder on the side of the rail.

And you don't really need that if you have a heavy bus wire underneath. So that's, does that answer the question? I think so. Good, okay. All right.

Our next question is from Daryl in Las Vegas working in N Scale, saying that he's living in Las Vegas and modeling an N track. I've avoided kits using stick-on such as roofing and windows and doors. How would these items stand up to the temperature changes when traveling anywhere from indoor AC to 150 degrees outside or better while in a pull up or trailer? It says p slash-- Or maybe he means pickup. Pickup.

Maybe. He's abbreviating pickup. Well, I actually, I tell you what I've done. And you have to do a little experimenting with this because I think as what that other question I think the humidity is gonna be more of a factor than than the heat. Although, you know, I mean, when you're talking that kind of heat, things, who knows what's gonna happen but I think you're gonna have to do a little experimenting.

What I have done is I've actually I like the stick on stuff 'cause it's easy to work with. But you can always add a little glue to the stick on. And don't be afraid to add more. Depending what you're doing, I've been using this stuff called Goop that you can buy it, like at a Home Depot. It's a little tube of household goop, and it's sorta like Walthers Goo, except it's clear, and it's you know, it comes in a little tube like goo and then it comes with the little nozzle like a needle point nozzle.

So what I would suggest is do a little experiment. Do, like say he was talking about doing like a roof with a stick-on shingles or something. Do just a practice. Do one with just regular, the stick-on material. And of course, I suppose it depends on the manufacturer, too, because I'm sure as some manufacturers' stick on are better than others.

I've been using a lot of that Monster Model stuff. And for me, I've had real good luck, but anyway, do maybe do half the regular way, and then half by adding a little bit of goop to the stick-on. Half and half. And... You know, well it's gonna be like the backside of a tape, you know, so you're just gonna like on the tape just put some little dabs of goop along the way and maybe the very ends where it might tend to curl up.

Try that and just see what happens. Put it out in the sun and see what happens. Give it a test, yeah, put it out in the sun. All right, our next question is from Warren in Australia. All right, then!

Working in HO. Hi guys, I would like to control my trains off my computer and I downloaded JMRI. Can I control all my DCC locos with this program? Oh, yeah, you can do all kinds of stuff. I mean, it takes a little, there's a bit of a learning curve and we've talked about this before.

I mean, JMRI is really fantastic. I mean, it is really a cool thing but it is a bit of a learning curve. And if you, you know, if you're pretty good at computer software and all that kind of stuff and coding, you know, it shouldn't be a problem. But you know, there's some wonderful things. In fact, I was talking to somebody the other day, there was an article about, oh, a month or two back in the NMRA Bulletin about a model club in Greeley, Colorado.

An HO club has about four different modes they can use to run their layout. They can have a completely automated. They can have it operated with a dispatcher control. They have, they can just have a sort of a manual operation. So, and it's all done with software.

It's really cool, but yeah, so it's certainly doable. So long story short, yeah. Find somebody in your area that's already doing it that can give you some help. Yeah, that you can learn from. Yeah.

All right. We have our next question from Dave in Fort Mill, South Carolina, working in O Scale. I run battery power in my large-scale locomotives. That means I have a large battery, RFC receiver, soundboard and assorted stuff like a charging port, fuses, on and off switch and a speaker. I end up with a maze of wires which I tend to keep so long that I can work on individual components when needed.

Any rule of thumb or tips on how to maintain a neat installation while allowing for future maintenance if needed without pulling everything apart? Well, I mean I think he's got the right idea, keeping everything modular. I mean that's great. I mean it's, in O Scale he's got a lot more room to work with and if he was using a battery, you know in something smaller, but you know, the batteries are getting better than they ever were. And you know, that'd be like designing any product, and you're gonna have to come up with a system that works that you know, I mean you don't want the wires too long.

I mean, you just want the wires just long enough to work and then you know, bundle them. I mean I always am a fan of shrink tube and tie wraps and everything. Keep everything in a nice, neat bundle and label everything. I was just gonna say label everything, yeah. So all of those things, I don't think he should have a problem, and oh, standardization.

That was the other thing. Just to make sure that you standardize it so that you can go maybe back and forth between multiple locomotives, and it all pretty much works the same. All right. Our next question is from Paolo in Brazil. Brazil, okay.

Working in HO. Do we need to pass varnish after weathering with pastels? Well, we've talked about this before, too. There's, depending on the quality of the pastels you get are chalks that you get. The higher quality ones have a kind of like a powdered glue type of thing mixed in with them.

So actually rubbing, the motion of rubbing activates the glue. So when you, when you rubbed the weathering chalk onto your model, it'll stick and-- Instead of blowing off or wiping off. The lesser quality chalks don't have that. So depending on the brand of chalk you have, and how much you want to handle your equipment, too. That's something else.

I mean when I, I mean regardless of, I mean I use the better quality chalks but I try not to handle my stuff too much. After I get a detailed and weathered and everything, I try to handle it as little as possible. All right. But you can always put varnish if you wanted to. It's not gonna hurt anything.

Yeah, but you don't have to if you have the nicer chalks. We have another live question from John who says you are encouraging me to get into DCC. So you're having-- All right, John! What do you suggest as a starter for a small HO layout and what is the range or total cost for a starter kit? Ooh, well...

You know, I mean, I could tell you what I use and of course you can start another argument you know, as to what manufacturer, you know, what brand to buy. And they're all, basically they're all made to be standardized to the NMRA standards but there's little quirks, and each system has their own quirks, and I have NCE, and I think that's a very simple and easy to learn system. All right NCE. Somebody else might not agree with it. But anyway, that's-- That's what you're recommending.

That's what I think, and I recommend that to the guys I work with. And what was the other part of the question? What is the range-- Oh, the range of price. Well, depending what you want to go. The radio, if you want to go radio power, probably add maybe another a hundred dollars to the set.

You can buy a small set. I bought a small set just for, basically for testing. And it's only a one amp set. And I think it was the only, I mean, I could be wrong. I'm, you know, maybe 160, $170 for one, the programming throttle and the unit.

Now, if you're gonna run a lot of trains and the next step up is a five amps and that, oh, it was probably about $400. If you want to go radio, it's probably about 500, but a very good investment because you're just, you're unlimited from there. Once you have that equipment, you can just go on and on with it. And very few layouts need more than five amps. You know, if you're doing a bigger scale or something you can, the next jump up is 10 amps, but-- Yeah that's a lot of trains.

Generally speaking, five amps is plenty 'cause you have little cam motors in this stuff now and so that's what. And all right. John go for it, John. Our next question is from Patrick in Ontario, working in O Scale. I may be doing something wrong but I have noticed running two locomotives in an opposite direction to one another on the same track with DCC control creates a real problem with the decoders fighting each other.

Is there something I'm not realizing? They run quite well in the same direction. There should not be anything in the decoders. The decoder has no idea what direction is going. It's just putting out voltage, you know what I mean?

And they're totally independent. I mean, the locomotive just pulls up the information for its own particular address which should be the locomotive number. And there should be no way that two decoders should conflict unless there's something mechanically wrong, like say a short or something like that. But as far as the DCC decoders go, there shouldn't be any reason why they would fight. But I would check for a short.

A short. You know, a short in the wiring. There could be a wiring touching inside somewhere or touching on the track, or that would be my guess. All right. Our next question is from Bob in Massachusetts working in HO Scale.

When installing road, bed and track switches is it best to nail or glue down? Oh, okay. Well, we talked about that. I mean the first of all the nail, I mean, you can use nails. I mean, people used nails for a long time but then the nails do conduct sound down through and people are more conscious about sound.

That's why they use homasote or cork or something like that as a sound deadener. But-- but nail probably doesn't go to-- But if you put a nail through down to something solid , then it's gonna conduct sound down. And so what people are doing nowadays more and more I'm finding is that they're gluing their track down using Matte Medium. Yep, and Matte Medium-- And I'll tell you what I do. I use the ribbon rail track edges.

I use straight edges and everything to make sure everything is true, but basically when you're gluing your track down, all you have to do, I use various kinds of pins and nails and things to hold a track in place. A modeling tee pins or map pins, you know, depending on what you're doing, or what kind of materials are going into. Basically any kind of pins or even if need to, a small nail to hold the track in position while the Matte Medium is drying. And then when the Matte Medium was dry, you'd take them up. And Bob's your uncle.

Bob's your uncle . There you go. So that's what I'd recommend. All right. Next question is from Andy in California, working in HO.

Lotta HO and O today. I have some Cliff Line model kits. Do they have any value to collectors? Yeah, I remember it Cliff Line. Well, you know, I would check eBay.

I mean, that's probably the best thing. I don't know. I mean, it depends on what they are and how rare they are and everything, and you know, what's kind of happening unfortunately is the, you know, the new modelers kind of like ready-made stuff. I mean the younger people. You know, the old people like us like to build a, like you just open up the box and there's a whole lot of miscellaneous wood in there .

You know, but now nowadays they want something that goes together quick. So I don't know, I mean, they're wonderful models. I certainly remember them. Check eBay and see. You know, you can look at eBay history and see if you know-- To get a price range.

What they've sold for. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Our next question is from David and Alabama, working in HO again.

Any and all information, hints, videos, online tutorials on trestle bridge building, spacing of the support, girders, bracing, ground bedding, from rock and earth to water streams and deeper water. My upcoming project will be a high rise trestle, curved bridge made of wood timbers of HO Scale. Detailing and weathering is also a must. Any help or recommendations or direction in this area would be much appreciated. Well, I'll tell you, there's a book out there that I've had for, I don't know, it's been reprinted, but I've had it for decades, and it was a big help for me when I got started.

And it's written by Paul Mallory, and it's called "The Bridge and Trestle Handbook." And it goes through every-- Sounds like the book to find if your looking for-- Style of bridge, you know, wood, steel, every type of construction trestle work, arch bridges, I mean lift bridges, drawbridge, you name it. Every bridge in there, and then they'll show like say construction diagrams for a real bridge to show you how they were put together, and what all the structural members did and how they worked and everything, you know? And so I'd recommend that. I mean, I'm sure there's other things out there, but I mean that's really the best resource, and I, I'm not sure if it's still in print. You can check that out but if not, you could probably find it online.

Yeah, eBay. Paul Mallory, wonderful, just wonderful book. All right. Our next question is from John in South Gate, Michigan, also working in HO. Track road bed, there are a few ways you can go on this, cork or new rubber flex road bed products.

While at the local Dollar Store, I found a product for wrapping pipes in your house and it was a very large role and it had achieved on the back and you can shape it to fit the curves on your layout. So I tried this and worked. I went back and bought two cases and installed it on my new layout. What a savings it was. And I just put the ballast in contoured sides, and you can not tell.

Okay, I guess that wasn't a question. That was just some advice. Well, no, wait, he went went back. So we spent $2. He went back, $2, the $2 dollar store.

But no, I-- Any thoughts on that? I know people have used that. The only, my only, the thing you have to watch for, and did he say what scale he's in? HO. HO.

It can be because that stuff isn't really designed for road bed, it can be a little bit imperfect as far as the thickness. And so you can lay it down but you have to be real careful because your track might end up doing, you know this because-- It's uneven. It's a little bit uneven. It's not perfect. And you can adjust it out.

You can shim your track to account for that. But that's the only thing I would say to look out for, otherwise, fine. Well, thank you for that information, John from South Gate. Chuck from Florida working on HO asks do you how do you measure amp draw on DCC engines? A regular M meter doesn't seem to register it right.

Well, you mentioned this before, too. There's only one good meter I know. A regular meter won't do it 'cause it's, you're talking about an AC signal that has radio waves super-imposed into it. So a regular meter doesn't work but Tony's Train Exchange in Vermont sells a thing called a Ramp Meter. And it was a combination of volt meter and ammeter that will read DCC.

And that's only one I know about. And it's a really great meter. You can buy it in different forms or you can mount it on like on the side of your layout. Or you can put test leads on it if you want to use it like that? So, yeah, Ramp, calls it Ramp Meter.

All right. Our next question is from Richard in Hillsdale, Michigan working in HO, another HO today. What can I use to freshen up my trees? They are drying up. Well, people have always in the old days use glycerin.

Glycerin? Like your soap? Well, liquid glycerin. Oh. I don't know.

I don't, I don't know. The soap probably has glycerin in it I'd say. The glycerin is sort of, kind of like almost like a varnish sort of a thing. But anyway, that, or if you're gonna, if you're going to put some more like a ground foam on them to freshen them up, then you can just take, people use hairspray or spray glue and spray the tree. And of course that'll seal it up.

'Cause hairspray is what? Just what is hairspray? It's glue. It's glue. It is.

You're putting glue on your hair. I don't have any hairspray in my hair. Anyway, so yeah, I'd say if you use a spray glue, it's gonna seal the tree anyway, and then just sprinkle on some new, you know, there's all different textures of ground foam and colors and everything you can do, you know, summer trees, fall trees, whatever you want to do. And so it might be worth it to freshen them up anyway, because it'll make them look better than they were to start with. Whatever you're working on.

All right, we have another question here live from Jeff. I plan to use a Tortoise Switch Machines for the 31 turnouts on my HO layout. The power supplies is it will power 30 machines. How will 31 machines fail if I use the power supply for one or more than the number listed? Oh, well, that's just kind of, you know, that that's not a real exact number, and I can't, you know I've, I don't think you're gonna have any trouble.

I couldn't tell you exactly what the current draw is in a Tortoise. And of course, that can vary. One thing I'd recommend though is I put a heavier wire on them, spring wire. It comes with an old 20, and I've been using depending on the scale, either an old 32 or an old 39 wire because sometimes that old 20 wire, the you know, the points can get stuck if there's a little ballast or something in there. So I like a little heavier wire, but then of course if you have a little heavier wire the spring tensions a little more.

You know, so it takes a tiny bit more current but I don't think you're gonna have any trouble at all with 31 Tortoises. No problem, go for it. The Tortoise is a wonderful unit. I've used them for decades. All right.

We have another question referencing back to your iPhone little hack there that you asked. It's from Bezoomer or Bazoomer. Don't know how to say your username, but will the iPhone speaker work on an N Scale? Ooh, that might be too big for an N. I don't know you know, there is, it comes with this enclosure and I don't know if you could adjust the size of the enclosure.

I haven't tried that, but for my purposes, the enclosure, there's a little vibrator thing on the side that the thing that when your phone vibrates. Yeah, like an alert. You can just click that off. 'Cause that has, you know, that doesn't matter. But as far as making the enclosure a little smaller, I don't know.

But I'd be happy to try it. I mean, I think somebody should try it and get back to us. Yeah, let us know if it works for you. 'Cause the sound quality is just, I mean you could play a classical music thru your locomotive I mean, it was so good. Play something super fancy, huh?

All right, our next question is from Larry asking where does one look to get specific information for installing full functioning crossing gates, lights, sound and action in an HO, DCC environment? Well, there are various manufacturers out there and of course seem to my, I don't know, I can't remember names all the time, but the last ones I brought were from an outfit in Texas and they're very good quality. They're LED lights and I know NGI makes the flashers, but I'm not sure. I don't know if they make the flasher unit. There's also people who make the triggers for these flashers.

And there's different ways of doing. There's a photo sensors. There are infrareds and they're even current sensors. And you have to kind of decide what you want to do because like for example, a current sensor, well if you're gonna change the lighting. If you're gonna do a, like say a day and night display in your layout, well, of course, if you change the lighting it's gonna throw off the photo sensors, but the infrared is twice as much wiring because you have to have a sender and a receiver so it's more wiring.

And so you have to kind of look at that. You can use the current sensor, too, like a DCC track detector, the same thing you'd use to turn on like a railroad signal. And whenever there's current detection in that piece of track, that would turn on the flashers. But then of course, if you have a long train, it might span over that. And so you have to have extra conductive wheels in the middle of your train and all that kind of stuff.

So, yeah, it's something to think about, and talk to people maybe in clubs in your area that have used them and see what they like. See what their feedback is. Our next question is from Mike in California working in G, ON-30 and HO. He's asking how can you color plaster hard shell coating so that every little chip doesn't show through as white? Well, I just put color in it.

I'm sure there's no big deal. Color it before hand? I, yeah. I mean, I suppose if you overdid the color it might affect the plaster, but I would yeah, just put latex, I'd just put latex paint in it, and in fact, the other thing that I've done is kind of neat. You can put sand, we talked about sand earlier.

Sand, yeah. If you want to get an automatic texture in your plaster, throw some sand in there. Get some sand, and sand is also free. There's another really crazy thing I'd done. And I don't know, you can try this, but I've done this and it works, is I put white glue in there as a binder.

So you take your hard shell, your paint, your sand and your white glue and mix it all together. Wow, quite a mixture. And... Yeah, you can either dip, you can dip, you know like shop towels into it, or actually even brush it on if you already have a surface. But yeah, a little experimentation is always good.

Start mixing things. Try it, you know, try it on something that's not too important to begin with. Yeah, put it on everything. But yeah, color is no big deal. Just add, you know, I had like a tan kind of a, you don't want it too dark, 'cause it's hard to cover up.

So, you know, like a tan usually it's good. All right, our next question is from Trevor. I'm making my own buildings from scratch. I need to know how, when, what to light them. I need to know how and what to light them with I think.

Also, how to make an incline and go up into a mountain. Ah, well, okay. First of all in the buildings you know, there's so many neat things going on with LEDs now. And in the old days, they'd put one bulb in the middle of the building. Well that's kind of hokey.

That doesn't look like a real building you know what I mean? So-- A real low budget building. Yeah, I mean, what I'm doing on these buildings that I'm building now, I actually have interior walls, so that maybe have like one room that's lit up and another room that's dark. I mean, you don't want the whole building lit up like it's under a Christmas tree. So, and there are, oh yeah.

I mean, you can buy these LEDs that are so dog on small, that you can't even see them. They're like a little dot, I mean it's so small. So you can actually hang these LEDs, like a real room light would be hung and you can buy, there are, Miniatronics has lights you can buy that has shades. So you can actually hang a light with a little shade. You can buy LED strips where if you want to kind of a more spread out lighting, you can actually put a...

Sticky tape, backed LED strip in across an area with these little tiny, very tiny square LEDs. And so, I mean oh yeah, it's just, there's just all kinds of ways of lighting buildings in a more realistic way where the you know, the light would come say from a ceiling light rather than the floor. Yeah, any tips on getting the incline into a mountain? Well, no. You know, in the old days you had to do a lot of mathematics.

Rise and run. Get some graph paper and draw it out. But actually we were talking the other day. You know, you actually on my iPhone, I have an app that is a inclinometer. The iPhone comes in handy again, there you go.

That'll actually read it out in the percent of grade. You don't have to do anything. Wow. So any, and you want to get the grade true. So you can take your iPhone and mount it on, oh, like say a traditional level which would give you a more true grade over a longer distance.

So mount on a level and read that grade. And the, you know, the neat thing is if you have to adjust the grade for scenic purposes, or if you need to clear another track or something, you can adjust your risers and read out exactly what grade you're getting. I mean, they make it so easy now, that you don't have to know hardly-- You don't have to do all the math. Don't have to know hardly any math to do it, yeah. Handy-dandy.

All right, our next question is from Tom asking can you operate lighted signals manually? Switch manuals and track detectors are nice, but sure seems like a lot of time and money. Yeah. Well, I mean that's what people did in the old days all the time. Did it manually.

You can, you can buy a little toggle switch or a slide switch and hook it up. I mean, generally, you know, depending whether you're using bulbs or LEDs or you know, like a 12, maybe 12 to 16 volt, additional power supply, auxiliary power supply, you can use it to run all that stuff. And yeah, I just, you can put a like a toggle switch in or side switch and change it from red to green or that kind of thing if you want to. Yeah, sure. All right.

Our next question is from Charles asking what's the best method for stripping paint from a postwar Lionel F3 engine. You know, that it's, they really put that paint on to stay in old days . That's real hard. But you know, we've tried everything over the years. We've tried lacquer thinner, people have used all kinds of crazy stuff, brake fluid.

I mean, you name it. Brake fluid? Ah, you know, but there is a thing that I've, and I don't know how it'd work on this old Lionel. I should try it, but is there a thing called a Scale Code two makes the paint stripper and it's supposed to be a non-toxic stripper, and I haven't really used it I have to admit, but they say it'll strip paint and it's not toxic. And I gotta, I need all the brain cells I can get.

I can't afford to lose brain cells. So I, you know, I gotta have something non-toxic but I guess you could get, go to a hobby store and get a jug of this and try it and see what happens. I mean, that's probably the best. The other thing we did in the old days, too, you could shake it off with an ultrasonic and you can buy a ultrasonic cleaner, like they use for cleaning jewelry that have, you have to get one to have the right size tub that would fit your locomotive. But if you put that cleaner in the tub you know, and then the ultrasonic-- And shake it?

Would just basically shake the paint right off of it. Wow. So that would be, that'd be an experiment, too. Shake the paint off. A lot of experimentation in this hobby.

Yeah, I'm noticing that. That's a running theme. Try it out and see what works. All right. David asks, how do I construct scale telephone and power lines and systems.

Do you have any commercial products available to recommend? Yes, but I'm trying to think of the name. There's a... Oh, why can't I think of the name? There's a product out there that is just absolutely fantastic.

And the only one I, I know of it's actually a line that you can put in that will give you a realistic droop. People in the old days, they'd use thread or fishing line and it would it be like stiff you know. Straight, yeah. And it wouldn't hang right. So you could probably look it up online or send me a question through the website.

And it comes at different weights and different colors. And the neat thing is, was kind of springy. And so if you're in working at something and it catches your finger in this line, it'll just go spring. It'll go right back up to you know, where you're had it. I mean, it's fantastic.

I don't where they get this stuff, but it's it's the only manufacturer I know that has it, but it's truly great stuff. And it looks so natural. Not like the fishing wire, looking straight across there. Our next question is from Howard in New York working in N Scale and HO. About 28 years ago of the highly recommended backdrop, one of the highly recommended backdrop materials was Upson board.

It was used mainly for theatrical sets. I use it on my layout for 28 years and it has been and still is an excellent shape. Any idea why it has been forgotten by the hobby media? You know, that's a good question. You know, most of this stuff that you buy would either have a craft or like a say, you know a residential, commercial kind of remodeling purpose.

And I don't know about Upson board. Maybe it just, there's not enough. I mean, there wouldn't be enough enough sales to keep it going just for the hobby business. Oh yeah, just for the-- So maybe it's not being, I don't know, like architectural scale models, I don't know. I mean, that's a very good question.

I know that's really good stuff. I mean, I use Masonite myself, and it's fine. And we like Masonite if you're gonna use the curves in your backdrop 'cause you can use like they use eighth inch Masonite and then bend it into a curve. So you don't have this square corner. I don't know.

I guess you could go online and look up Upson board and just see what they say or there's probably some art dealers or somebody that might still have it. All right, our next question is from John asking how do you power more than one train at a time? Do you have to have separate transformers? I plan on running 18 trains. Holy mackerel.

That's a lot of trains. Well no, he needs DCC, so that's the thing because-- So there you go, that's the other running theme of the day. You'd drive yourself insane trying to run 18 trains with DC. What you need is a DCC unit. And then each a locomotive, it can run completely independently with its own address, and so your locomotive number is the address and your locomotive only takes its information out of that bus wire.

So it doesn't care what the other locomotives are doing. It just takes its information. And so that's the only real practical way these days is definitely the, DCC is just. DCC is the way to go. DC is getting kind of old fashioned now.

It's just old technology. Is there any, do people like to keep it up just for the sake of keeping it up the nostalgia? I mean, I'm sure there's some people that do that. I mean, and maybe some people don't want to, because you have to buy the DCC unit and you have to buy decoders and all that kind of stuff. And if you want to keep your old locomotives running and have to retrofit them with DCC decoders and all that.

It's a little bit of a messing around, but I don't think it's that hard and if you really want to enjoy your model railroad, I mean I want to enjoy my model railroad. I don't want to fight with it, you know . You don't want it to be a struggle. I want it to be pleasant relationship. And so I wanted to keep it, keep it simple.

And I remember all that old DC stuff, and I wouldn't recommend it. All right, we have time for one more question, but it's a question that we've already been talking about a little bit. I'll read it out one more time though. What is the best way to put down track, glue it or nail it? Oh.

I'm not sure, other option was? It's up to you of course, but I would recommend gluing. I mean, I think it's the easy way to go. I mean, and then you get this rubber base underneath it which acts like a sound deadener. The Matte Medium is rubbery.

The Matte Medium. You got the nails reverberating sound or-- Not conducting the sound down. And, you know in the old days people would actually put a curtain in front of the layout because you know, the bottom of the plywood underneath would be like a speaker cone you know, and it would, after the sound would go down and then come out from underneath the layout. So people would actually put a curtain under the layout to deaden the sound. And of course that's not quite so bad nowadays with the cam motors.

Everything is much better than it used to be, but in a bigger scales can make more noise, too. They're heavier. Yeah, have more to work with. All right, well, that's all the questions and time that we have for today. Do you have any closing remarks for us?

Well, it's been really wonderful working with Ms. Choo Choo today, and we're looking forward to our next episode. Yeah! And so... You wanna cheers here at the end?

Yeah, and this is Mr. Clickety. And Ms. Choo Choo, we'll see you next time. Bye.