No trains, back in ‘63 I was already spending quality time and perfecting my skills on the track with this

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1549253695.jpg

It is sitting in the rafters collecting dust. Must have 200’ of track and 20 cars.

Ebay, I love you.
60+ 3 foot sections. THREE scale miles of track. Close the country for all I care. I've got track to lay (gonna need a bigger house!) :)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607038287.JPGhttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607038410.JPG

Holy cow!
How much did that weigh for shipping?
Yikes!

We just setup our track around the Christmas tree today.
The village will come a little later.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607042061.JPG

According to package 5 lbs (who am I to argue?) - I'm thinking more.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607042463.JPG

roughing in river bed (needs a lot of work!)
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607042509.JPG

HO? Nice find! I have my dads Lionel Super O scale train set, My Lionel O scale from the 1970s and my tyco HO scale stuff from the 70s. Dad gave all his HO and N scale stuff to my nephew before he died. Love model Railroad. Don't have the time or space for a proper layout. Usually just set up a small track under the Christmas tree each year.

How cool is that! We did it for a few years with one of the no-scale just for Christmas sets. Then we got dogs and a cat. :rolleyes:

I miss the polar express train around the tree for my daughter. No nonsense. No derailling. Just fun!

T'is the season. Narrow Gauge N scale (Nn3).

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607051170.jpg

Ha, you had me fooled. I thought it was G scale track. That would have weighed about 40lbs I think.

Nope, just ho. kind of wish it was n for less floorspace;)

Something I got a few months ago. Marklin HO Orient Express locomotive (digital control with sound and smoke) and car kit 1 of 2. But no time to play with them. House remodel is first priority.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607083395.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607083431.jpg

Our local hobby store guy is huge Marklin fan. He can't finish a sentence without including word "marklin"

Good stuff!

I have had Marklin since 1960. And yes, they are good stuff. Built to last. I have several locomotives, cars, track, switches, round-house, round-table, buildings, wiring, etc all from the 60's. Lately I have updated to some digital stuff, but still, the analog will run on digital controlled track. Although the analog can be converted to digital and run even better. And old school parts are still available if you do some searching.

And some of the old analog can be worth lots of money. I have a 3-car commuter that is worth around $3K from what I see them selling for on ebay.

What is your local hobby store? Maybe I buy from them already. And tell your store guy to visit marklin-users.net, unless he already does.

Here is a link to a locomotive I restored and posted on marklin-user.net.

https://www.marklin-users.net/forum/posts/t25191-3048-Drive-Wheel-Axle-Repairs-and----FINISHED

I had an HO scale back in the 70's, and it was pretty cool. I wanted a N scale, much smaller, but never got round to it, cool hobby..

Same here. Started when I was a kid, getting a new car or section of track at Christmas. Now there's over 100ft of track and multiple engines.

The most impressive LGB display I've ever seen is at The Living Desert in Palm Springs.

Had some success this morning with getting sound out of the Christmas car that is pictured above. We bought that car along with some others plus track off the Goodwill auction site this past summer. It was in pretty rough shape as someone had spilled I don't know what all over the inside of it. I took it apart and cleaned it all up, but couldn't get the sound to work with just the 9v battery installed.
Google is my friend and this morning I found out you have to supply track power to the unit as well. So I got a spare transformer out and some leads and gave it a try. What do you know, it WORKS!

I'll have to check out that Living Desert setup next time we're out in PS.
So far the best setups I've seen have been at Roger's Garden in Newport Beach (I think that's where they're located).
We've had our set outside once or twice but it's used mainly indoors.
Everything in the picture I posted above was bought off the GW site except for the switches. Haven't had to get our 'good' stuff out yet as this has gotten us around the tree this year.

This may have been posted somewhere before but Rod Stewart is a big model RR enthusiast. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607122638.jpg

Yeah, he has an amazing layout and the money to pay for it too.

The local guy owns a store in Charlottesville, Va. Rail Tails. Interesting character. They build a lot of custom layouts for clients. Every time I go in there, they have about 3-4 employees working on a major customer layout. Once they were building Charleston SC. Lately, they are doing a civil war era build. One guy is making a mega size death star bombing run trench scene. This place is a speak-easy for geeks such as myself!


@ KNS- Rod Stewart's layout is amazing. Another celebrity is Michael Gross from Family Ties/Tremors. Real humble guy with a family background in railroads. He sits in his hotel rooms while travelling and pulls the little brake boxes and stuff off the bottoms of railroad cars and rearranges them so they are in the right place (because the stock layout of the underside of boxcars evidently isn't accurate enough :) ). He's into trains the same way Leno is into cars.

A down to earth guy I'd like to meet someday.

How cool! I don't remember what my family had, probably run of the mill stuff. We built bridges, x overs and towns to run around the Christmas tree.

The neighbor started it. He had, and still does, a Lionel lines set up where you can toot the horn! Great memories. Thank you for sharing.

Huge layout at Marklin trains in Germany.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dVwoZvu2GJk" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So I've been working on the setup of the village along side my wife.
My knees are killing me to say nothing about my thighs and gluts.
I got the switches all wired and working and swapped in a set of metal wheels/pickups on the sound car so it works well now too.

Did I tell you my knees hurt?:(

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607212127.jpg

I used to know if that was a gp17 or 19, but now I don't.
I do really want to see your layout. Had a bunch of Reading rr stuff I gave away when I left Pa...

It is a GP7.

I found the following 2 videos a couple years ago regarding repair of a steam locomotive in Germany. Not model trains, but an actual steam locomotive getting new drive wheels, tires and bearings/bushings, etc. The narration is in German but you can see from the video what is going on. Heavy duty stuff.

In the start of the first video, the center drive wheel jumps track and that is what started the process. There are other videos besides the two below on the reconditioning of 01 202 locomotive.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1gKpI8Y2v9c?start=3" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OsMfRSzv1sY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

When my boys were little, I tried to get them involved in building or playing with model trains like I did as a kid. We found out there are these model RR clubs throughout Socal. Pasadena, Socal model RR society, Glendale has one. These places are no joke, they are definitely adult toys. Elaborate set up with all kind of electronic controls for various trains that run through out the building. These places are in commercial buildings. Serious work had gone into these places.

Part of my N Scale empire. I like to "scratch build" large structures. In larger scales, they would be huge.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607264678.jpg

^ Nice. The scratch built stuff if amazing. Way above my current talent level. When I'm at shows, I try to snatch up scratch built items. The laser cut builds are nice, but $$$$.

Greg- stop by sometime. Yesterday I was spray painting track inside. Ended up fumigating whole house. Nothing like opening up all the doors in the wintertime and letting all the heat out.

Stumbled on this site last night:


https://appalachianrailroadmodeling.com/models/co-models/

The site is super slow, but some good scratch built stuff. This one model has a shay hno3 scale running right up the inside of a high pitch ceiling. Amazing.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607266065.jpghttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607266065.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607266065.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607266065.jpg

I've made progress in the past couple years. Track work is mostly done, backdrop up. Next step for me is to add some terrain.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607272696.jpg

I made a little video, unedited, of what it's like to ride on our train. Got brave and used my Sony A7ii to make the video so it's a little better than the one with the Canon SD1000.

https://youtu.be/n6Ver3RsJFs

Hope you enjoy it. Lock down doesn't leave much room for anything but having fun with the train.

Some amazing work, guys.

Thanks so much for bumping this thread and the Ebay tip. I dug my childhood stuff out of the attic. Dropped a few hundred bucks at Ebay and was able to throw this little layout together for my grandkids to enjoy for Christmas!


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1608910660.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1608910660.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1608910660.jpg

A work in progress on my n scale.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1608912086.jpg[img]httphttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1608912205.jpg

So is Neil Young. He got into model railroading to help connect with his son, Ben, who has cerebral palsy.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1608942264.jpg


Hamburg Germany's Miniatur Wunderland, the world's largest model railroad...it even has it's own airport!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1608942107.jpg

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2mNhxi_D5kE" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

^^^^ that is amazing.