Trains

Applying Ballast by Chuck Thiedel: "So your just ballasted road bed has clumps in it that makes it look like the surface of the moon. What happened? You sprayed diluted white glue onto dry ballast."

Building a Passenger Station by Jeff Junker: "How can you make a standard out-of-the box model railroad kit look a little bit different than everyone else's? And without doing any scratch building? And without taking too much time? Custom paint it and then weather it."

Building a Refinery by John Burns: Here's part of a 12 foot by 6 foot layout I'm building, which is loosely based on an oil refinery."

Catch a Falling Flag by Patrick Harris (a photo-essay on rail photography.) "The primary philosophy behind what I choose to shoot comes down to two prongs of the fork: I shoot what interests me, and I shoot what is rare or unusual. I would suggest to any rail photographer that the first trick to successfully recording rail history, is to shoot as much as you can reasonably afford, and shoot as often as possible."

Converting Doug's Drugs by Tom Bishop: "Using a really impressive computer program by Evans called "Brickyard", I created the stone and brick surfaces for the addition."

Empire Builder Series:

• A Road of Your Own by Jeff Junker: "Philip Alberado grew up in the rolling hill country outside of Nacodoches, Lousiana. Like a lot of youngsters he had a model railroad in the house. After junior high, the railroad was stored in the attic, replaced with other interests. Twenty- five years later, his father stumbled across the relic and asked him what to do with it."

• Creating Reality From Fiction by Patrick Harris: "If all of your equipment is time/setting appropriate, operations realistic and properly executed, then you are very definitely a protolancer---and just a whisker away from being a prototype modeler."
• Designing a Rail Empire by Jeff Junker: "Creating a conceptual plan for designing your own rail empire requires a lot of thought. You wind up constantly talking to yourself, saying things like "would my imaginary road could exist in the real world. What is the catalyst that sparks your fiction to the realm of reality?"
• Painting the Pine Valley by Ryan Harris: "The colors needed to reflect the region my railroad serves. The Northeastern extent of the railroad traverses the San Juan Mountains in Colorado and climbs to within an arm's reach of the Continental Divide, while the Southwestern end of the railroad crosses the brilliant desert of Western New Mexico."
• Ride the Crescent Lines by Mike Mule and Jeff Junker: "The Crescent Lines Railroad views itself as part of a larger transportation system; its goal is to transport goods across the country, in a mostly north to south direction. This is reflected in how an operating session is run."

Introduction to Model Railroading by Kalmbach Publishing: "Often folks look at photos of beautiful model railroads and assume right away that it's just too hard, they could never do it. Well, that just isn't so."

The Penn Gulf Story: Creating a Home Pike from the Ground Up

• Roster Construction by Patrick Harris: "Since believability and realism depend on consistency, it is vital that a numbering system for a Proto Lanced railroad be developed for the roster. There are a number of options available for deriving numbering systems to organize a roster."

Mixing Covered Hoppers by Patrick Harris: "Much like a recipe, recreating a realistic train depends on the right mix. I have shot thousands of photos of rolling stock, and after a while one gets a feel for when a train looks "right"---that rightness being dependent on the time, place and road being observed, of course."

Quick Tips: Coupler Problems - - Number Boards - - and more

Railfan Terminolgy by Patrick Harris: "A friend of mine asked me the difference between a "mainline and a short line". I could see the confusion, and sought to clarify, so I sat down and jotted some observations from years of railfanning. The crux of the point is that terms for describing "who" a railroad is sometimes sound like a description of what its various parts are."

Tyco Miracle Furniture Build-Out by Tom Bishop: "The Evans software program for designing wall and window facing is outstanding. I took the ho-hum Tyco Miracle Furniture kit and transformed it into a 7 story building."

Weathering Freight Cars with an Airbrush by Vincent Peri: "Crevices around the doors and along both sides of the boxcar's support ribs usually need more attention, as well as roof overhang areas. I used a fine spray in those trouble spots and gradually build up the weathering until it looked right."

Weathering Trains Source Material by Sal Provensano: "Here's a nice way to go about weathering all your model trains."