TRACK TALK LIVE: April 2019

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Track Talk Live. I am Ms. ChooChoo and I am joined with Mr. Clickity, and we are here to answer all of your model train questions. So before we get into that tell us a little bit about where you've been what you've been doing since our last live event, Doug. Well, I think I mentioned at the last event, I was going out to Pennsylvania to visit actually a great school friend of mine who was a model train buddy and visited some museums out there including the BNO Museum in Baltimore, which is absolutely fantastic. Everybody should go see that. And then the Pennsylvania State Railroad Museum in Strausburg, Oh cool Pennsylvania and some other things just kind of looking at some various railroad sites. And then I went up to a RPM railroad prototype modelers meet at Greensburg, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh and saw some really good modeling. And so we, we had a great time. Cool. And I've got I've got a few pictures to show you from there. So as far as around here, you know, I haven't done a lot a whole lot since our last show. I guess I've been working on some model railroad estate things which kept me kind of busy. Anyway, so back to the subject at hand here I wanted to show you this picture because as I mentioned little, before, before the show you had some questions about people asking how to but multiple sizes of rail together. And I'm a real proponent about having multiple rail sizes real railroads don't use all the Yeah same size rail. It would be kind of counterproductive to use huge mainline rail and a little industrial spur. You know, so I was out for a walk, one of the few nice days we had in the past couple of weeks Yeah, a little bit of spring. There's railroad tracks a block from my house. So I actually was walking down the railroad track just to get some fresh air. And I, I noticed this and I thought, Oh I should take a picture of this. Now this is how the railroads join multiple sizes of rail. Yeah And I'm going to show you just quickly here. I won't do a lot of marking here, but if you can see, right Oops, gotta pick a lighter color. There you go. Right in there, you can see in the lower part of the left-hand rail, it actually sits below the right-hand rail. And so the right-hand rail is the older or more original rail, which is 90 pound rail. You know, they're always, it's always cast into the rail. You can look on the rail Yeah and see when it was made and what the weight of it is. And so that's 90 pounds per yard and the right-hand side and then 115 pounds per yard on the left. And so obviously the, the 115 pound rail is taller and the inside corner is the critical thing. As long as the inside corner matches then everything else is fine. So then the real railroads use these adapter fish plates to bolt the two different rail sizes together. And we've talked in model railroading. I mean, I basically, I would either epoxy or solder that joint together and then make sure, file it, make sure it's smooth. But I thought it'd be fun just to show this picture just so you could see it, what it what it's like in reality. And then on this other note I had some questions I had to use a little cheat sheet here. Remember I was I had to do some math, but we've had questions. The last show, I think it was, I talked about a clinic I went to and when I was in, in Florida about passenger car wheels, and there was a question about why do freight cars typically have 33 inch wheels and passenger cars have 36 inch wheels? Yeah And there's a good, good question, and modelers, sometimes if they're replacing plastic wheels with metal wheels on rail cars, you want to know why what's the difference. Yeah And modern freight cars, a lot of them, the heavier the a hundred ton type cars use 36 inch wheels but in the old days it was pretty much 33 inch wheels on freight and a 36 on passenger. Well, why the difference? So I just did a little math and if you take a 33 inch wheel, the circumference is 103.67 inches. Oh. And a 36 inch wheel, there's 113.10 inches. So there's only close to about 10% 9.09% difference in circumference between the two wheels. And you wouldn't think that'd be enough to make a difference. Yeah But, you know, they say that actually even more important is the braking of the wheels. And especially in a passenger train, that would go faster. Generally the freight cars just have a single class brakes. There's only one brake pad per wheel. Mm hmm Where in the passenger cars there are generally two, so they're in, one on either side of the wheel which can generate a lot more heat. Yeah. So, so I hope this will start a discussion and we get a lot of questions about this. Yeah Cause I think it's kind of interesting. Yeah it is. Anyway, so the area of a 33 inch wheel is about 855 square inches but the area of a 36 inch wheel is 1,117 square inch. Oh. So there's a lot more square inches and it has lot to do with the, you know, the heat heating up of the wheel and wheel being able to cool itself. So you have a lot more mass there to cool. Yeah And so there's about 20% more mass on a passenger car wheel than a freight car wheel. Interesting. Which was interesting. So anyway, I just wanted to pass that along. I hope to get some comments on that because it's just Some interesting information. I had to get my calculator out Yeah, do the math. Yeah. Okay. So We've got some more photos here. Okay There you go. There we go. Here's a, some pictures now from the, the meet in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, I just wanted to show you this. This is scratch built a Union Railroad Whitcomb. You know, it's kind of interesting in the Pittsburgh area, people like to model these steel mills and you think about how huge the steel mills were just huge. You know, they dwarf the trains and the buildings are just monstrous and all kinds of smoke stacks and the things going on and all that. And so this union railroad was a railroad that did switching duties around Pittsburgh. And I just thought this was a fabulous model just so well done. It looks really good. The real one was built by Whitcomb. Yeah. So, and then this was another, another guy that I and I just liked to show pictures of weathering and this one, this car was just superbly weathered and it's a more modern car, but it's, you know, I, the rust and the roof and, you know, it just you see a lot of real cars that are as beat up as that. Yeah. And this, this is amazing. Now the Maryland or Pennsylvania railroad ran out of York, Pennsylvania, which is kind of in that area. And it was a little kind of a short line just kind of a cute little rambling little railroad back in the old days. And this was a station in Muddy Creek Forks Valley. That was a combination general store gas station and Depot. You can see the gas pumps out front. Mm hmm Well, there was, you know, we've talked about 3D printing. Yeah. This guy actually drew the plans of this thing and sent it off to Shapeways that does the 3D printing. This was all printed in one piece. Wow. And the whole thing, all that detail, those gas pumps the columns, the windows, and this is HO scale. Printed all at once. Absolutely amazing that you could actually print that with a computer in one piece. Wow. That is, that is just phenomenal. I mean, that's the technology that's coming along and it's just so cool. And this is one of the museums that we hit along the way and I'll just kinda run through these just to show you what was out there, just. This, this is actually inside the museum at Strausberg and boy, they have a lot of equipment in there. Hmm. This is actually an old V and T locomotive that ended up we out in Pennsylvania on display. And there you go. There's a Pennsylvania railroad E unit beautifully painted. It looks really nice. They keep them inside and to stay nice and clean. There was a Pennsylvania, was it E 44? I forget the model number but this was the heavy duty electric locomotive. But these things are just monstrous, just a huge box. And they were all, all electrified. There is another one. There's the John Boll who this is reproduction. It's not the real one. I don't think the real one survived but just to show what thinking of the Pennsylvania the Pennsylvania area, Maryland area where some of the first places in the United States that where railroads were built. Oh, I didn't know that. So there's a lot of history out there. There was another Pennsylvania steam locomotive and they do a lot of their own restoration work here, and here's a wooden snowplow. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. And that was when they got it. You know, the always have these little storyboards up there Oh, okay on easels and they tell you the story about this. And of course it was pretty beat up when they got it. As you know, they did a fantastic job restoring it. And here's a Pennsylvania GG one, one of the probably the most famous electric locomotives in railroading those things ran just for, I'll guess for many, many decades. And just a very well-designed Raymond Lloyd designed a streamlined electric locomotive. Here's a cute little caboose. I mean, I just saw the museum is just full of stuff. If anybody's anywhere near the, the, this is not not too far out of Lancaster where my buddy lives Oh yeah near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, go out and see this museum it's just tremendous. And then, okay, now this is a picture. Now this actually is my old HO layout. And I came across this picture. I forgot I even had it but it was my Southern Pacific Redwood country layouts. I just thought I'd throw that in. Just for fun. You can, Yeah People can come and they can critique it, but then, okay. That's it for the pictures. All right. We can get into some questions then if you're ready Okay Just a side note for everybody you can start asking questions in the chat. I see where you already have some but there's a little like navy box. And it says, Track Talk Live April, 2019 put them in there and not in the smaller chat box that goes to customer service. And I won't be able to see them. So you've got to put them in the bigger box and you'll see some questions in there already. So our first question is from David working in HO and OO scale, "Why do almost all water scenes use imitation rather than real water? I'm currently building a layout part of which runs around a still-water indoor pond. And we'd like to add some small waterfalls and a flowing Creek cross by bridges, et cetera, et cetera. Is there a practical reason very few layouts do this?" Well, I've seen it both ways, but you know the problem with real water. Well, first of all, is the real water can get contaminated. Yeah You got to put chlorine or something in the water to keep it from getting contaminated, but it doesn't flow in scale Yeah I mean, if you have a, a waterfall that's going to fall in real scale and I don't know, model scale. And so you can actually have a more realistic looking water feature if you do it. I mean, I know it's a trade off. Yeah It's not real flowing water. And I have seen flowing water. You can certainly do it, but in the bigger scales especially like people that do outdoor railroads. Yeah. You know that'd be something else. You could really have a neat water scene but it's a personal preference. You can certainly give it a try, but it's it's tough to make a look right in scale Yeah, depending on what you're doing. Our next question is from John working in HO scale, who says "prototype RRs use different heights in parentheses weight of the track than the main for spurs, short lines, yards, and the like if I used code 83 for mains and code 70 for yards how do I make the transition where they meet?" Ah, well, we just talked about that, didn't we? Yeah That's very Very appropriate Appropriate. So, well, what I did at my HO layout is used code 83 for the main line code 70 for the passing sightings and then actually code 55 for industrial. Oh So I had three different rail sizes. And as we said earlier, that, I mean basically the easiest way to do it is just but the rails together, Yep You can solder them. You can epoxy them. Just make sure the inside corners lined up. Yep. And whether you soldered or epoxy you can always file a kind of a transition smooth. And then of course, I always paint my rail, weather the sides of the rail. So once you, once the rail is weathered, you know once it's filed and weathered do you really, you know you don't hardly even notice it. Yeah But it's a wonderful once you get used to seeing the multiple rail size you really notice that on other model railroads, Yeah And you'll notice that on real railroads. And then as I said, you can look on the side of the side of the rail, the real rail. And it's, it's actually cast right into the rail where it was made, what year and then the weight of the rail Cool You get down on your hands and knees looking at real railroad rail And give it a look And I've seen railroad rail that's a hundred years old. Wow. Pretty impressive Still in operation Still going. Our next question is from Michael working in HO scale, who asks "Is there a simple way to repair the older brass engine drives that use the rubber tube design?" Well, you know, the, actually there's two things you can do. The Athearn, we used Athearn nylon U joints and splines for a long time and I haven't bought Athearn parts. Cause I'm not, you know, I'm I'm not doing that anymore, but, and I'm not quite sure about the availability, but you could contact Athearn. And the, the Athearn, so they had a slip spline. So you went in and out, plus you had the ball, and U joints they had the best of everything. And then secondly, it was Northwest Shortline which was actually they're in Montana. And they are a fabulous supplier of any kind of model, railroad hardware mechanical stuff you can possibly imagine. And you can go online Northwest Shortline and look them up and they have an online catalog. That's just tremendous. They got everything. Cool. Our next question is from Angela working in O scale who says, "after building a table for a layout I have plywood on top and then use pink insulation sheets to lessen the noise. What should I put on top of the pink installation? I'm not too concerned about realism. Should I use indoor slash outdoor carpeting or the green grass mats made for model railroaders? If I use carpeting, I probably would not have to glue it down, which would help for future disassembly suggestions would be appreciated like your show. Thanks." Oh, well thank you. Well, you can certainly the grass mat might be easier just because it's thinner. Oh You can certainly glue a grass mat down using Matte medium? Matte medium is an example, or even tack it down. Yeah Maybe if he didn't want to glue it. Yeah. I'd recommend the grass mat just for the ease of installation. And then if you're going to put the track down over the grass mat, I assume. And then, you know, if you balance the track then you can just balance that right over the grass matter. Same thing with roads. If you put roads in or using the foam you can actually see you wanting to cut a riverbed Yeah Or something into it, you can actually cut into the foam Carve it right through Carve it through. So I just lay a grass mat out and, you know maybe there'd be areas that we had cut the grass mat out for something, but that's what I'd recommend. All right. We have another question from Angela, same Angela. "Repairing Lionel operating accessories. What type of crimp or solder-less connectors would you suggest for small telephone wiring, these units often time use or do you always solder them?" Well, you know, nowadays I would use the, there's so many different kinds of terminal strips out now. And I think rather than soldering, you know, she was talking about maybe being able to take this layout apart. Well, maybe you don't want to solder. Maybe you want to have it so you can disassemble it. You can buy these mini they call them Euro terms where they you can just stick the wire into the hole and you'll tighten the screw down kind of thing. Yeah And that's what I recommend and do it that way. You can use a little year old term terminal strips can be cut or sawed into whatever length you want. You can buy them. I, you know, I think, I don't know. I think they sell them up to like 20 terms or something but you can buy them in different sizes or cut them to whatever number of wired you're using. Yeah. All right. Our next question is from Tommy working in HO, who asks "When I got back into model railroading I went through a lot of different track. I finally settled on using Kato track in HO, as you know Kato is big time N scale and has much more accessories than their HO line. Can you dedicate some time discussing the Kato products in HO? It's much easier for us old timers to get back into the game." Well, Kato, I mean, it's, it's good. It's good track. Yeah And they don't have the selection. I mean, that's, what are you going to do? Yeah But you can, you know, you don't have to stay with Kato, necessarily, if you want a special switch or something you can, you know, you can make it up to the Kato. So I think, I mean, that's the idea of the Kato is is if you're using the sectional of fixed radius track, you know, you can, you know you got the perfect radius and so lay it down. And if you need to, if you need to made another piece of track up, you can always use like say cork railbed and made it up to the, to the keto plastic railbed. So yeah, I think that just don't don't feel that you're being held back because of the Kato. It doesn't have all the products Yeah Because you can certainly made it Expand out With other products. All right. Our next question is from Alex, working in HO, who asks "How would you recommend to do model grass?" We just talked about grass mats, but do you have any other Well grass, there's a million ways of doing grass. I mean, people in the olden days, people used to take sawdust and dye it, Oh, interesting, yeah You know and sprinkle it down. But oh, now there's so many ground foam products and static grass products and everything. I would probably check Scenic Express. I think they have the best selection Walthers of course has a lot of stuff too. Yeah And Woodland Scenics, all of those places, they have there's so much available nowadays. And of course you can use natural products too. Yeah I use what I really like to mix in with some of that foam just to give it a little different texture get dried leaves. Oh It'd matter if you could find them around like say in Minnesota right now but Yeah, no Dry dried leaves, put them in your blender. Well not in your your blender Oh. I was gonna say, maybe a dedicated blender. Somebody else's blender and grind them all up. And then, then when they're ground up then you'll sift them. You get one of those big, oh, I've seen like, you know cooking strainers about so big in diameter, and then strain it through. Then you get these really nice, just nice textured sorta broken up. I don't know how to describe, but just like little little leaf chunks, you know, little flakes. Yeah. Huh. And I've used that. And I've also used a pencil sharpener shavings Oh, that's a good idea. And done the same thing, sifted pencil sharpener shavings and you get these funny little kind of like little curly things, Like abstract shapes Different texture from the ground point. Yeah And then you can blend them together. Sometimes I put a little, just a little like sifted dirt in too Yeah, a combo So because you don't want to use it all like too perfect one color, Yeah no You want to blend like real, like real nature Get a good gradient and some different textures in there. Our next question is from Orville working in HO scale a lot of HO scale today "What should I use to cover my foam board on my layout?" Whoa. Well, I mean you don't necessarily have to cover it with anything. We, the, the lady earlier was talking about using a grass mat, but there's there's a lot of other kinds of mats out there too. There's there are actually mats or like weed mats look like weeds rather than just plain grass or, you know different types of grass. Brown grass, green grass yellow grass. Yeah. That are available through these various people that we mentioned earlier. And, you know, you can glue them down, you can pin them down. Or if you want to just paint your foam you can certainly do that. Paint it an earth color and then use your Matte medium As a glue and then glue down, you know, sprinkled down whatever kind of a grass you want to use on top of, right on top of the foam. The neat thing about the foam is you can carve it. If you want to have a, carve ditch or something into it. It's real easy to carve. Easy to manipulate. Our next question is from just a guest in the chat, it doesn't have a name. "Is there a way to make an object like a plane look like it is flying over a layout? Even better if I can make it land." Wow, that's a complex question. Oh gads, what's the name of that German layout that's so well-known on the internet. Why can't I think of it right now? I don't know There's a layout over in Germany that actually has planes that fly. Wow I mean, they have an airport. I mean, it's just crazy. Wow I mean, and they have the vehicles that drive around on the roads and service vehicles that drive around in the airport and the, you know A lot going on Just super high technology. I mean, you can do anything you want Yeah In the old days people used to take model airplanes and then put a piece of like clear plastic in the front for the propeller. So it looked like a blur blur, the propeller going around you know, but yeah, you're limited only by your imagination and your technical ability there. You can do anything you want. Our next question is from Grey who asks, "When starting a realistic layout with a Pennsylvania mountain layout, is there any special details I need to pay attention to replicate like spurs yard, scenery track layout, rolling stock?" Do you have any specific Pennsylvania mountain layout knowledge? Well, that's a big question. I mean, you know, I mentioned the Pennsylvania railroad which they called the standard railroad of the world back when it was, you know back in the twenties when it was at its peak. And I mean, they had the highest technology of anybody in the whole country. Yeah I mean, they could do anything, you know this was all before computer stuff. I mean, this was, he just figured it out. Yeah This is just hard work and break your back kind of technology, but they did it. And I mean, if you want a model that, I mean there's all kinds of examples of the Pennsylvania railroad out east, or you can go back to that, that that Shapeways Depot that I pointed out in the photograph that was on the Ma and Pa railroad which was just a real, just little short line that went through the woods you know Yeah, scenic Yeah scenic a lot of, a lot of character to it, you know just kind of wobbled down the tracks through the woods. And so there's a, there's a lot of, you know go anywhere in between. Yeah So you have to kind of decide what you want to do. You know, obviously you can't model a whole lot of the Pennsylvania railroad is just huge But sometimes a short line like the Ma and Pa is easier to model just because there isn't much of it. Little less to manage, yeah. First of all, you have to kind of pick your your theme and your era. And then what do you want to model? Do you want to model a little piece of the Pennsylvania railroad? Maybe branch line segment of the Pennsylvania road not the mainline part. Yeah. Yeah. Just put some thought into it Put some thought into it and think about what you want to do. Our next question here. I lost my place in the chat is from Andrew who asks by low, Oh, this is talking It was talking to somebody else. Let me see if this fits into anything answered. "By loading the mix into regular salvage helps keeping spray bottles. You can spray the mix randomly and it'll pool and catch in naturally on the topography." So maybe they're talking about spraying your grass down like in a spray bottle. Yeah. Well, yeah, by all means you can take your, the, matte medium and thin it out so you can spray it through a one of those plant little plants spray bottles. And it works great. Yeah. By all means. But we mentioned, I think on previous shows that the trouble with with using any of these glues, Yeah Like this is that when you're done with spraying Gotta clean it Make sure you run, yeah, just run just plain water through it and clean it out. Cause if that, if that matte medium dries up on that little nozzle it's just going to ruin it. Yeah So clean it out real good when you're done. Make sure you clean it. Our next question is from Frank, who asks "Can you tell if the track cleaning cars with the vac and grinder are worth the money? Thank you." Do you know what he's talking about? I wonder if he's talking about the, the LGB car? I think that's the only one I know of that actually has the grinder and a vacuum on it. They seem to work good. I mean, I don't really use them. They're pretty expensive if he's talking the LGB. But generally if you keep your track clean and just make a habit of keeping it clean on a regular basis. And well, first of all, try to keep your room clean Yeah Too, but generally a track doesn't get that bad. So you don't need that fancy a cleaner enough Now for G scale for the commercial G scale I work with. In fact, I should bring that in sometime I have a box car that I modified and I took one of those 3m sanding foams sanding sponges. Yeah. And I cut it down with a bread knife to the right size. Then I hung it on a couple of bolts under the car. So it kind of floats down the track and I put weights on the inside of the box car. So it kind of weights the thing down Holds it down, yeah And it works fine. And I do my I maintain my commercial trains every once every two months. And that's an environment where they're running like every day, all day long. And they're, they're fine. We had a comment in the chat was the German railroad layout you were talking about miniature Wonderland. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. That look it up. I think it's, I think it's on YouTube. I mean, it blows your mind. It's so incredible. I mean, these people are all a bunch of techies Yeah Obviously that figured this all out. Well there you go This is an amazing, amazing thing to see. Okay. Our next question is from Dwight of the Northern Star Railroad Lines from YouTube who asks "Were you at the Century College swap meet? I was hoping to meet you from a model railroad live viewer." Well, no, I'm sorry. I wasn't. No, I think I might've been out of town. I, that might've happened when I was out of town. I know there's a flea market coming up in Woodbury toward the end of this month, but there again, see I'm Oh, I didn't mention it. I'm leaving on May 2nd for the Golden Spikes ceremonies in Utah, I'll be gone the second through the 14th. And so if anybody is going to be down in Ogden, I'd love to meet up with them out there. Yeah, come say hi to Doug. The, yeah, there's, you know, this was put together by the Southern Pacific Historical Society and the the Union Pacific Historical Society, the Union Pacific Railroad, the Utah State Railroad Museum at the Ogden Depot. And it's going to be a big wing ding. I met a lot of people. I made my registration early on. I'm going to be there with some friends and I'll be staying right at the headquarters hotel which was a Marriott Courtyard in downtown Ogden. So by all means, look me up, see Look for his face My face on, yeah, walking around the hotel there somewhere. Come say hi I'd love to say hi to you. We have another question from dite who asks, Dwight, who asks "Overall Doug do you prefer a hand brush painting or airbrush painting? Well, it depends on what I'm doing. I mean, if you're doing something like scenery it doesn't have to be perfect, you know, and especially or even weathering, you know, sometimes you're dabbing the paint on you don't want that smooth perfect fashion. Yeah You can use a brush or a stippled brush or a scrape it on dry brush. I mean, there's so many things you can do with a brush, but if I was doing like a beautiful model, something where I really wanted a good paint job then obviously I'd use a inner brush To get a real smooth. And I do airbrush weathering too. I mean, I like to have the mixture of the textures and the weathering. You know, you can do a streaky things with a paint brush Yeah But then sometimes you want just like that kind of a dirt film. Misty, kind of, yeah I been doing the underside of my freight cars with just and, up on the ends with this dirt film that blows up from the underside of cars. And I do that with my air brush. All right. Our next question is from Timothy, who asks "I'm using Atlas DC, common, common wiring on my layout. I'm running the track in blocks. How do I wire the layout?" Oh, that's a broad one. But do you have any tips for wiring that? That's pretty broad. I would, if you're using the Atlas components to hook it up I would know there is an Atlas publication called you know "How to wire your model railroad" I think something like that. And, and that'll walk you through it. Step-by-step yeah, it's hard. That's not knowing exactly what you're doing, but you know there's all the Atlas, there's all the components. If you have a reversing loop, you have sections of track where you just want to shut them off Shut them off, you're going to have a two cap block control all of that. But yeah, maybe, maybe just see if you can find a copy of that publication. Our next question is from Sid who asks "I find that clump foliage falls off when I try to glue it to a tree trunk. Do you have any tips for this?" When you're trying to put foliage on a tree? Well, you know, I'll tell you what I don't use the, the clump foliage. Maybe, I do maybe very sparingly, but the clump almost looks too thick to me. Yeah I like to use the, foliage that's in the knitting that you can buy that actually is made to, you can just kind of stretch it over a tree, like a kind of, almost like a spiderweb. Yeah And then once you have that, the netting on there then you can come back and use a little hairspray. Oh, the hairspray of the non-scented hairspray and just, you know just a spot, you can squirt it and then sprinkle stuff on there. A little stick to it But to me, there's maybe a few little clumps, but generally I think of trees as being more airy and I've used those dried leaves, by the way, those ground up leaves on a tree the same way, spray the tree Yep and then put some clumps on there Then sprinkle those dried leaves on and that texture of those little flakes looks so good on a tree Blend up some more little leaves in not your blender. Yeah, use somebody else's blender. Yeah. Our next question is from Carl who asked this as an interesting one. "In all of your years of seeing and filming model railroad layouts which one has surprised you the most?" Well, somebody asked me that a long time ago and I got to admit that when I was a kid I became a pen pal of John Allen. And you have to be in the in the model railroading a long time to remember John Allen probably, but he was the he became the master of scenery and weathering and detailing. Wow. He had a layout in Monterey California called the Gorian Defeated. And so I became, I was, well, I think I had on my paper route back then, and I was buying model trains with my paper route money. And I became a pen pal of his. I was just so enthused about his modeling work. And so I had an uncle out in Oakland, California and so my parents were going to drive out there. Oh, wow. It was back in those days, you know drive out to Oakland to see my uncle. And so I convinced my dad the nice guy that he was to drive me over to John Allen's house in Monterey to see his layout. And boy, I saw that layout and, you know John Allen was a professional photographer and his layout really look good in print but I'll tell you when you saw it in person it just was a mindblower and I Wow. And he was such a nice guy too, but you know, to this day I'll never forget seeing John Allen's layout and what an influence was on me as a modeler. Oh, it was just in burned in your memory. Yep, yep, John Allen. We have going back to talking about the clump foliage that we were talking about and also hairspray Andrew in the chat says, "How do you feel about the look after the application of the foliage foam? If so, hit it with cheap, woman's hairspray to hold it in place." Is he talking about foliage foam? Is there a different one they're using foam foliage, just spray on So many different, you know the same Scenic Express, Woodland Scenics, Walthers, they all have a lot of different kinds of products, but the the foliage material that, actually that you can buy, even from Woodland Scenics comes with a kind of, it's almost like a netting. I don't know how to explain it, but it has it has color in it obviously but it's almost sort of a netting that you can pull apart and stretch over a tree, a tree form and then it gives it a much more airy look rather Yeah Than just being solid clumps, I suppose, you know maybe there'd be a case where I'm just really super thickly foliated trees Yeah You know, to me they almost look like, you know, something that, you know buy in a hobby store, something that, you know mass produced and you can get some really beautiful trees. I think if you do that, that more airy method and then you can keep, you know, once you have that netting on there, you can keep adding to that. Yeah I mean, you can get a pretty heavily foliated tree but it still doesn't look like those big gobs. Yeah I mean, it always looks like gobs. And so That's what I do That's what I like to do. You can certainly try the clumps. Yeah. Our next question is from Tim who says "I'm just starting small layout in HO and I'm totally lost on where to start. Do you have any beginner tips?" Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what the, you know the I've mentioned this on the when I've answered questions online too. And the best thing is to find a model railroad club in your area that you can go visit. And it was, and kind of study it in person or go to these railroad meets, like, you know like I've been going to I've been goin around the country to these meets but there are a lot of local meets put on by local groups and the things, you know and learn as much as you can before you start building just so you know what you're going to do. And then, you know basically when you build a model railroad you can't do everything. Some guys want to do everything, but it's impossible. Yeah, narrow it down. 60 feet in HO is a mile in scale. And most people don't even have a mile of track. Yeah, no Railroad is 60 feet. So, you know, you have to compress. And so you have to decide, first of all, you know look at your room, your what, you know what size room you have to work with. What space you have And then, you know, what scale do you want to use? What will work do you want to use HO scale? You want to use S scale like I do, or, you know, N scale. And then what railroad do you want to model? What, you know, what kind of theme are you talking about? You know, heavy model railroading, a short line an industrial railroad, you know what kind of scenery you're going to go through? Yeah What kind of scenery do you want to build? Is it the, you know, the mountains, the desert Yeah All that kind of stuff. And so you have to kind of just think about all these things. Just figure out just what you want to do. And then a lot of people too will just build a little diorama just as a kind of a practice thing. Just to see what it Just try it out, build a little thing. And it's something you can just junk if you don't like it, Yeah Then it just, it's a practice thing. So in your case, I'd say, get back to us, you know think about it and get back to us. And I'd love to answer more specific questions. All right. Our next question is from Don, who asks "Doug have you added any new train stuff to your collection slash layout?" Well, I'll tell you what it's been. I've been kind of busy, but I did the my latest purchase of course, S scale, which is impossible to get, but I've been a big fan of the Northern California Railroads was in fact that's what my HO was Redwood country. And I've been a member of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Historical Society for many decades. I have a cousin that lived out in that country and a high school friend before that. So the Northwestern Pacific had these express boxcars that they would use for actually as part of passenger trains. They had the 36 inch wheels because they were on passenger trains. And so one of them popped up on on eBay a week or so ago painted in this, they had it was called Northwestern Pacific. It was a black car with it's kind of an orange or yellow wing on it with red and orange lettering, a really nice Northwest or Pacific overnight freight service, really cool cars. And I never thought I'd ever see one. I mean, it would be a job to try to custom paint something Yeah Like that and do decals for it. Anyway, I saw it on eBay and I just immediately bought it Had to snatch it up So that was my latest big purchase. And I'm excited about it. And today we're talking about Northwest Shortline with all of these parts. Well, I use proto 64 in Northwest Shortline sells the protos 64, which the real scale looking wheels. And so Northwest Shortline is, is going out of business. Their people are retiring at the end of July and there's a possibility of a new owner, but if anybody wants anything from Northwest Shortline I would say order it they're wonderful people and they have all these parts. And so I ordered some proto, 64 wheels and both the 33 inch and 36 inch passenger size, just so I would have them just in case I can't get them Just in case, get stocked up. Our next question is from Lone Wolf 777 who asks, "Hey, Doug what do you think about the great model railroad challenge TV show in England? Have you seen it? Do you think that would be a good way to get more people in the hobby?" Oh, no, I haven't seen it, but I'd like to, I'm fascinated with British railroading having these British friends but actually on YouTube the other night I watched the documentary it's about an hour long about the building of the brand new steam locomotive about, well I think it was about five years ago. They got it running called a Tornado the a hundred mile an hour Tornado, you know over in England, you know they invented trains and they love trains. And they get away with doing a lot more things then they let us do over here. But they actually built a whole brand new steam locomotive Yeah Completely brand new from the original plans. And they were, this was I think maybe a year ago when they did this video but they actually ran it at a hundred miles an hour to prove that it would go a hundred miles. Wow. Can you imagine letting people run a steam locomotive a hundred miles an hour in the US but anyway so I mean, I love, I love Britt stuff and but I'll have to check out that, that show. I'm not familiar with it. Yeah. We'll look at it and get back to you. Our next question is from Sergeant Luke who asks "I live in an apartment and I would like to get back into model railroading and have limited space. Do you have any recommendations for a small layout?" Well, you know, that's what I did when I was apartment living in my younger days. And I like switching. I grew up near the Minneapolis Northfield and Southern railroad as a kid and I got to ride in the coolest I'm sure I mentioned that too. I rode in the caboose with the conductor and learned all about how real railroads do switching and spot cars and industrials sightings and all that. And so when I was in an apartment I started out with a module, but that was a foot and a half by eight foot just fit in my bedroom, this apartment. And I worked on that with the idea, would was that when I got my own home I would build it in, you know, Yeah Take that module and build it into a bigger layout, which I ultimately did but I had a lot of fun just working on this module. So, and being as how I like switching the module was designed so that you could actually operate it and just as eight foot. Yeah. So yeah, that's what I'd recommend. Well, we have another question from Sergeant, Sergeant Luke who asks, "Do they still make Z scale? I'm older and haven't done model railroading for 40 years." Do they still make Z Scale stuff? I think there might be some around, but boy if you're getting older you need a minor magnifying glass to see them See that's why I went to S scale Yeah because I liked the size and the heft of it. Yeah There's probably some Z scale floating around there probably some European Z scale, but that, you know you have to be a watchmaker really to work. I mean, I Need like a monocle to Give you a lot of credit. If you, in fact, send me pictures if you build a Z scale layout. All right. Our next question is from Jason, who asks "Can you run a model HO railroad outside with rain and snow?" So we're talking about weather conditions. If you have an outdoor railway. The equipment isn't really designed to be outside, it's not UV protected. And you know, I mean, besides you get dirt in them and all the mechanisms I mean, you could do it. I mean, maybe kind of short-term but I wouldn't really, it's just, there's not enough heft. I mean, this, this G scale stuff. Like we have a sample of here and the the table in the front, I mean, that's made to be outside. That's what people use for outdoor Garden railway Outdoor railroads. It's the plastic is, is UV protected. The rail. They tell you, you can run it across your driveway and drive over it with your car and it'll be fine. Oh wow So yeah, I would stay with the bigger stuff if you're going outside. All right. Our next question is from Wayne, who asks "Is there a correct method to apply gravel at switches?" Carefully Very carefully. I mean, normally I use the Matte medium Matte medium for, for the, you know and I do it. I kind of the quick and dirty method and I just kind of bypass the switches. So I do it. I'll tell you what I like to do. I like to do the, if you're doing a actually a banked road bed I do the banking on the sides first, I glue that down. Yeah And so that's in place and I leave the, the center of the track open. And then once the bank is glued down dry then I come back and do the center. That way, when you, use your water over-spray to to blend the matte medium into the ballast it doesn't wash the Wash it away The ballast down that bank spot. So I do the sides and then the top. And then at the very end I come back very carefully in work around the switches. And I've even used eyedropper, oh, you know put the ballast in, wet it down, and then very careful go around with an eyedropper to make sure you don't get you know, glue the wooden parts together. Ah, there you go. Our next question is from Ralph who asks "I have two brass, HO engines Ma and Pa 10 Wheeler by Jim. And I think a Wabash 260 can they be easily converted to DCC control?" Well, generally, first of all I'd say they probably have old fashioned motors Yeah So the motors probably would have to be replaced. And so we talked about Northwest Shortline they have the fabulous selection of, of these canned motors that you can just silicone down into the locomotive frames. So I would suggest checking your locomotive get your dimensions. And inside of the boiler, find a can motor flywheel and universal joint that will work in that locomotive. And then, I mean the Dakota is nowadays are getting so doggone small. Yeah You can, you can fit them worst case. You might have to take away some of the weight from the locomotive, but you can generally fit a Dakota and a steam locomotive boiler, or in the worst case you can always put it in the tender You know, if you can't fit it in the locomotive. So there's a lot of options there. Small speakers, if you're, you can use sound. So first I think you have to upgrade the mechanism Yep Because it's not gonna, if it runs poorly on DC it's gonna run poorly on DCC. So you got to get it running good first. And I it's easier to do a DC. So get it running smooth. I would change out the motor and run it on DC and then convert it to DCC. All right. Our next question is from Russ who asks "Do the Walter's DCC friendly turnouts require a frog juicer for the locomotives to roll over the frogs without stopping. Yeah. Yeah, they do. I mean, some people don't hook them up because it's kind of a short span. Yeah And if you have a locomotive with enough pickup wheels you can just, it'll kind of go through it. But I, I definitely like to power my frogs and I'm I think I mentioned before on my S scale layout I'm using hand-laid switches but I'm using my tortoises leftover from my HO layout and and I don't electrify the tortoises. I'm actually operating on the choke control because I'm doing a switching layout and I want to keep it as manual as possible. So, but I do use the contacts on the tortoise then to feed my frog. So rather than a frog juicer, I'm using the tortoises but yes, I would power the frogs With a juicer Yeah, with a juicer or something, you know, contacts. Our next question is from CJ, who asks "How do I incorporate lower staging areas to the main line and go to a higher elevation in the back? I've always built flat layouts." Well, there, I mean, if your room is big enough you can work your way around the room and actually on a grade and get up above it. You know, if you do a 3% grade that's a one inch about one inch and three feet. So, you know, it takes quite a bit of a linear track to get up and above high enough to get above another level of track to make it, if you want me to have a scenic level you don't want it, the other layer right on top of it. So another thing of course is helices people use helices all the time and they're getting more kind of more technical about helices, but of course helix, takes up a lot of room to it, depending on your minimum radius. You know, if you have a, you know, pick a number so you have a 24 inch minimum radius and that means your helix is going to have to be for the for the track, it'll have to be four feet in diameter plus even probably a little bit bigger to, you know count for the support of the helix. Yeah So, you know, call it five feet in diameter So that can take up a lot of room. Some guys will put the helix in a different room, like in a closet or something, the next room over, but through the wall. So you don't cause you can't really scenic a helix anyway. So just put it somewhere where it's kind of hidden and it does it's job and gets you up to the upper level. And so that's probably the best thing going The best option. Our next question is from Richard, who asks, "What can I use to refreshen my trees after they have been dried out?" Well, some people, you know, the, I think the floral thing is they dip them in as it silicone Or glycerin Glycerin, that's what it is. You can get over at a place like Michael's dip them in there, but, you know, I, because I use the the non-scented hairspray, you know, once you just spray some hairspray, I mean, that's basically spray glue. So, you know, you're going to, once you get the hairspray on the branches of the tree, it's going to act like a little, you know, it's going to just in case the the tree will kind of do the same thing. So there there's an option With dipping a tree into glycerin. Then, you know, you have a possibility of breaking the little branches off Yeah, the piece, because it's kinda heavy. Our next question is from Bill working in N scale, who says, "I find that I may have to find a way to join Piko code 55 rail on my layout with code 80 rail on a Walthers turntable I have on order. Any suggestions? Well, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier. I mean, basically, you know you're gonna have to adjust the levels of the track and make everything work, but as long as the inside corners match, if you have the correct gauge they will, that's all you're concerned about. So just make sure, you know, and I always put the turntable in first and then, cause the turntable is going to be a lot trickier to adjust. So I get the turntable in. And then as you, as you bring your lead tracks into the turntable, then adjust those on the spot. And I like to use those ribbon rail metal track gages where you can lay it actually it's the metal piece that goes right in between the rails and holds the rails true. And then lay that right across the, the joint, you know so it holds the rails from both the sections in alignment and then, you know, glue or however you're attaching your track down from there. Our next question is from Michael working in O gage, who says, "I don't understand the use of more than one track power source. How do you know when you need to use more than one?" I wonder what he was referring to. You mean as far as multiple train operation maybe, or The use of more than one track power source You know, generally speaking, if you're not using DCC if you're using an analog, either DC or AC, I mean you can only generally in the old age you can only run one train with one power source. And then it was one of the other questions earlier though you know, it you'd have to use a block system. If you want to run more than one train at a time you have to have a block system. So you can select which power sources connected to which section of track. So, and then you have to keep ahead of the train. So as the trains move, you might take, you know take their selector and take the power source away from one and select another one. So you have to kind of just stay ahead of the train and keep advancing as you go. And that's kind of the disadvantage of analog but it's the advantage of DCC because you don't have to mess with all that. Then it's all a radio signal in the rails. Our next question is from Richard, who is in Florida who asks, "What is the normal head end equipment for six to eight car passenger trains?" Ah, well, of course, that could vary all over the map depending on what you're doing. Yeah I mean, you know, obviously they have a baggage car you have to have a baggage car for your suitcases and whatever else you have. And there could be a, could be a railway express, meal, and sometimes the cars are combining them. You could have a one car that would serve all three purposes. You could have a meal railway express baggage on one car with multiple doors in it. So generally that's, I mean in the old days there were like special, you know shipments like say milk when they used to ship milk by rail there'd be express refrigerator cars for, for produce things would spoil fast. So it could be milk or some kind of special produce. There was a one example of trains that they ran a special cars on passenger trains and they ran back in the old days from the from the West coast that were silk cars. Silk was so valuable that they put them in special cars and passenger trains to get them there as quick as possible and they had the armed guards, the silk was so valuable. Wow, that's cool. Our next question is from David working in HO, who says "I'm starting out with my layout. My question is what is the best way to lay Atlas flux track when trying to be sure the layout will work? I'm finding that I can't keep the circumference even using the track ribbons." Well, that is tricky because the Atlas flex track is springy. Yeah. And no, he didn't say what kind of surface is putting it down to. But what I always do is I draw, I use a yard stick with a nail on one end, a big nail in one end clamped and a pencil clamped on the other end and draw the arc out for whatever radius you want. So you can only have a true arc drawn out. And then if you're, if you're using like say cork road bed then the court road bed would follow that center line along the arc. And then what I've actually been doing lately rather than than nailing my track known. I use Matte Medium Matte medium but because that track is so springy, I've found that, you know you have to use a lot of things to kind of help it stay true. And those radios, those middle radius gauges or fast tracks actually sells wooden ones. Now you can, you can fit in the track but if you have a joint on a curve you have to be a real critical with it to make sure everything's going to stay true. So I'll, I will take a finishing nail a big finishing nail and nail it on either side of the track to hold everything in place. And that we found out with HO is so funny Use pop cans, pop cans like you're buying like a 24 case of, or eight alcoholic whatever. Anything, yeah Anyway, and you use those for weights. And I just spread them out, you know bing bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing down the track the whole way and use them for weight until that matte medium dries completely. Dries up But use weight, use nails use whatever it takes to hold that track and position and let it set, you know a good 24 hours until it's completely dry. And then you should be fine. But I try to limit limit the track joints on a curve as much as possible. I mean, if you can cut a piece of track and have the joint on the straight and not on the curve, you're better off. Yeah. Especially the tighter the radius is the tighter radius should go. The tougher it is to keep that train. Yeah I'm sure. Our next question is from Ron working in HO scale who says "Before I break something, how do I remove the side frames on a GP 15 one Athearn Genesis diesel?" Very specific. You know, I could be wrong because I haven't, you know, I that's kinda out of my, don't mess with HOs so much lately but it seems to me those side frames that are just pressed on kind of a peg. There's a couple of pegs and I, what I used to least in the older ones, you take a small flat bladed screwdriver and get behind the side frame between, between the gear case and the side frame and just very carefully pry on it. It pops a little Gently. Yeah. I mean, that's just from my experience Have a lot of patience. Yeah. From my experience in the past. Yeah. Our next question is from Kenneth working in HO scale, who says, "I have a Bowser turntable but I need to set up to add motorization. Has anyone done anything like this and how? You know, things are changing so much with turntables? Now, they, you know, like Walther sells the turntable that's DCC controlled and all that. And, and there are slow speed geared motors that you can buy that are sold for other purposes. Yeah We have a place called Axe Men here in the twin cities which sells. They sell kind of like surplus industrial, who knows where it came from kind of stuff, military surplus stuff. And sometimes you can find geared motors on in there. You might be able to find a geared reduction motor just online somewhere. They'll be for some other purpose. But yeah, I mean the, the diamond scale had a great turntable drive. Bowser had a great turntable drive in the old days but I don't know if you're going to find those. Yeah I mean, there's kind of old technology Hard to find. Our next question is from Billy working in HO scale another HO today, "I have an Erie 0660 Camelback. Before I paint it, I would like to know if any of these mallets ever had a Russian iron boil boiler or a boiler color other than black, do you know?" That was what railroad? An Erie 0660. You know, I, no. But here's what I'd say contact the Erie Railroad Historical Society. Every railroad has its own historical society and contact them and they I'm sure they could tell you in great detail. Yes and they'll have all the information for you. Our next question is from Thomas in Minneapolis, working in HO who says, "What's your favorite method to light a scene for, to photograph or videotape your layout?" Well, I mentioned this maybe many shows ago, but you know my layout is well not completely but almost completely lit with LED strips. Yeah. And I really like that. I mean, generally model railroads are under lit Yeah Or maybe lit too spotty. You know, people use like track lighting but it's too hard to get, you know get even lighting with track lighting. So I have about I think I figured the 900 little LEDs, or no that's not right. 900? 9,000 little LEDs over my layout those little square ones on 15 foot strips. And they light the layout evenly. And then I also have a blue strip about halfway back on my two foot by 18 foot shelf that lights up the sky gives it this cool, cool light on the sky. And then in the foreground, I have the warm lighting. So that accentuates the depth we have cool cool lighting in the back and warm lighting in the front. And I mean, there's, these days I'd recommend LEDs. They're so easy to work with. Yeah. And there's so many, I showed some LEDs on shows past that you can buy. I'd like to say at a Home Depot that are, that are little the replacements for like say a halogen study lamp a couple of little, little pins on the back. And they're already at 12 volt lights. Wow So all you have to do, I would solder. I have in my lab, soldered leads out of those little pins and just hook them up to a 12 volt power supply. There you go And you're not generating heat. You're using a lot less power and all that. And so that's what I recommend. And then we also talked about scenery. I think in shows past too when you're doing scenery or even weathering on your cars you want to do the weathering for the lighting you're going to have on your layout. Yeah So if you have a different kind of a light on your work bench it may look different when you put it on your layout. Yeah that's true. Got to make sure it matches. All right. It's time for our last question. Unless we get any more questions in the chat. This is the last question I have from Ed in Dunbar Pennsylvania working in O, scale who asks "When designing your bench work is there a standard height range that is recommended? Or what do you recommend for your bench height?" Well, you know, they always say that, you know chest height is about the best for visual because you want to be close to eye level. Cause you're going to, you're not, you know if your layout is too low, it's like you're looking down at it from an airplane or something, you know? So the, as close to eye level, as you can get is best but then you have other, you know, other restrictions you know, you need access. I mean, are you going to be able to, if your layout is pretty deep, are you going to be able to reach over it if it's that high? And so there's always a compromise. What kind of access you need. I think the, the general compromise there was around 48 to 50 inches for your kind of your base level. And of course, if you have multiple elevations that can go up and down, but generally speaking about 48 to 50 inches and depending on your particular situation Yep. Whatever works for you. All right. Well, that's all the questions I have. That's all the questions that are in the chat. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Ms. ChooChoo You are Mr. Clickity and stay tuned to see our next month's episode of Track Talk Live, and we'll see you then. Bye.