Every single time I scroll past these pictures, it's all I can do to not immediately log into Plaza Japan and order one.
Not yet-had to tear down my layout when I moved back to the US from Japan. I’ve got 95% of my benchwork up, but no track down yet. For what it’s worth, it seemed to glide smoothly when pushed/pulled gently by hand on a piece of unitrack. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Bought two LifeLike PRR GP30's with decoders. They are HO. The other club I belong to is a DARE effort by the local police. Their signature RR is the HO scale Montour RR. The prototype Montour was abandoned in the early 1980's when the coal mines it served played out and the ROW is now a rails to trails. I am the sole N scaler in the club and I donated a replica of the Clinchfield RR that was a feature project in Model Railroader magazine back in, I believe, 1978. Well long story short, the young kids went ape over the N scale layout which freed up time on the HO. So now, when I am not fixing N scale locomotives and cars, I can run on the HO layout. By the way, in the process, I learned that The LifeLike HO GP's suffer the same problem as the N scale Bachman early stuff with the splitting gears. Fortunately, the fix is easy as the Athearn axle gears are identical.
The cheapest visit for me at the local hobby shop New N Scale Atlas Code 80 Switch machines to convert my manual switches!
@MK - so what's the charge to acquire one of those since I won't be at Altoona to steal that one off you?
LOL @Philip H I think I will eventually offer it for sale to those who are interested at ZERO profit for me. A few have asked ahead of time when I was asking a few weeks back on how to print the entire thread in a readable format. Heck, a few at the NSE National Convention in Bethlehem even asked me to make a book out of it. I just didn't know that many people read and follow the thread!!!! Elsewhere on TB, I was asking if it was doable in getting a print version of the thread after it was finished. I had NO(!) idea that it would end up at 8 pages, a ton of pictures, and eventually turned into a diary of my trip. I wanted to do it for myself as a keepsake. After all that work it would be nice to have a "hard copy" as we all know things are not permanent on the internet and can disappear overnight. Alas, there wasn't such a tool or easy way to do it. At best I print to PDF each page but it was not what I was after. Basically I just shelved the idea and tried to eventually find a tool on the web that can maybe do it. Then one day a week or two ago @BNSF FAN sends me a PM and said he has the entire thread in Word/PDF. WHUUUUAAAATTT??? When I got the file it was AMAZING! He cut and paste each and every post, each and every attached picture. My goodness, was he in jail and plenty of time on this hands? I just can't imagine the amount of time it took!!!! This started the wheel spinning again. A quick edit and investigation with a publishing company I had used for all my photo books. I didn't want something super fancy, hard cover, ultra high resolution (I did that for my overall Japan trip and that was 300+ pages, $75 after coupon, normally $150!) as that would be prohibitively expensive. I wanted a daily use softcover book that's meant to be read over and over again and to remember the thread by. The results was what you see above. 1/2" thick, 200+ pages, softcover (good quality), bound professionally, regular paper (resolution suffers a little because of this but usable) under $20 with the proper coupon (you may have to be patient) delivered to your house by the company, not me. If anyone is remotely interested I will look into setting something up where you can place your own order and get a copy. (BTW, I noticed that I left out page numbers and the year 2023 in the spline. They will be added in the purchasable copy. This is important as there will be a v2.0 in the very near future. )
@MK I'll be on your order list. Seriously. Its way cool. Maybe in 2025 I'll bring it to Altoona and get it autographed!
Autograph???? You got it! We have other events that we may cross paths, Amherst and Atlantic City. Maybe by then I will have to autograph 2 books. Plane tickets in hand! Worst case scenario is Black Friday to order as they have the best coupon then. I'll alert everyone here at the best time to order for the lowest price.
Hey hey, let's not start spreading rumors like that. I have to admit, that book did turn out super kool!
Foam board, 2 black and one white, and that 2mm Silly Winks stuff 3 each color, white, grey, and black. Now to figure out why I bought it all I have ideas, it's a secret at the moment
