Railway Post Office - Look what was delivered today

Ah Fred, there’s no such thing as “need” in our purchases! That barn looks fun and I certainly wouldn’t have resisted…

Where you moving to? Far away or just across town? Hopefully somewhere with a big model/train room!

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Tom, I went back again yesterday. I’ll soon post what I brought home. :smiley:

Moving to in-law’s house that now is ours. 15 minutes each way: 5 minutes out of our neighborhood; 5 minutes on interstate; 5 minutes interstate to ‘new’ house. Loosing about 1/3 of our space and a full basement, though. Hoping to sell our place while housing market is insane, and planning to build an extension to “The Homeplace.” Upstairs for SWMBO and downstairs for hobby area. I think she has finally grasped what a ‘train room’ requires - 7 years ago when we were looking for a house, her idea of a train room for me was probably 28 sq.ft. max!

Downsizing is bad, but being able to add extensions sounds great! Here in the UK houses are too small, and basements almost nonexistent, so my trains are sat in boxes waiting for the day a spare room opens up…

(Kinda wish I got into Z-gauge rather than HO as a kid…)

Nice! Another candidate for the “Railway Structures” campaign?

Although designed for their own little “Village Forge”, these might be useful (ignore the title of the link, it works fine if you click it):
https://peco-uk.com/collections/wills/products/village-blacksmiths-set

Regards,

M

That’s a good-looking set. Lots of goodies to scatter around shop.

Being a 00 scale is not a problem, after all blacksmiths need to be bigger and be beefier than regular people, right?

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Something that just arrived at the local hobbyshop. New from Atlantis Hobbies. (New to me anyway.)
1/24th Scale Mack Bulldog flatbed.

Should be of some interest to the G and F Scale modelers out there

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Ex - Monogram kit - They also offered an oil tank truck and stake body IIRC .

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And a dump truck
image

(Photo courtesy of Old Model Kits, used with permission.)

Hi Mike, Good news. These are cool kits.

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Pre-built, all wood. trestle bents from “Grand Central Gems” ~ All Scales:

Seen just yesterday at the locale hobbyshop! ~ these would have uses for modeling military subjects as well. Small walking bridges, the large O scale items might make for small, one lane vehicle bridges as well.

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This just arrived from 3000TOYS.com

‘HO 1:87 Diecast Masters 85656 Cat M323F Railroad Wheeled Excavator’

—mike …:railway_track:

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Very nice

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I used to look down my nose at diecast models in HO, but then I actually acquired a couple and looked at them ( played with them ). I really like them. And that is a really cool model!

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While recovering from my arm/wrist surgery I have been planning my next major project. To assist in the construction of same I acquired some new tooling that was delivered today. This is gonna be fun.




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How do these work? Are they heat resistant soldering jigs? Have never encountered these before.

Yes they are soldering jigs for constructing switches. They are machined aluminum. The machined areas take PC board ties that the rail is then soldered too. The outfit is called Fast Tracks ( Fast Tracks - Helping the World Build Better Railroads. They are not cheap but at the price of switches today they are worth the investment for me. I’ve built my own for years using paper templates or over center-lines drawn on the roadbed. These speed the process up and since my next project is an industrial branch w/34 switches this makes sense.

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Those look great. They will really do the trick!

In the past I have shortened ready made switches and even curved them slightly but the only custom scratch track work I have ever done is to build a custom 45 degree crossing where an HOn3 track crossed over a standard gauge line.

I envy people who can lay their own custom trackage but my goal has always been to get the trains running as soon as possible so it has always been pre-built Code 83 in HO for me.

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Since the mid-80’s I’ve used Shinohara code 70 and Walthers code 83 switches as well as hand laying some special situations. Retired now and I have time to go along w/the rail in my stash. At $30 -$35 bucks a pop for switches I’ll build. X-ings are another issue in that ready made is limited in its availability. When Shinohara closed up shop it really impacted the track market.

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I agree on Shinohara closing. A sad day!

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Starting to get back on track. Here is what rolled into the yard today.






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