Hello everyone, just joined today. I'm Bob Stinson, and I live in San Diego. I'm retired, and like to play with stuff!In the RR arena, I've been in many niches. My latest efforts have been in n-scale Japanese trains. Now there's a huge field! My earliest train, that I can remember, was a pressed metal HO scale set bought in Spain while my family was there......in 1960!

Anyway, my most recent direction is DCC and On30. Up to now, its all been DC and blocks. Time to go back to school, I guess. I've never had a sound equipped loco, but that'll change soon. My "learner" will be a 0-4-2 Porter. I know myself well enough to say it won't be my last.

Since DCC is all new to me, I'll,undoubtedly be asking newbie questions. Thanks in advance for your patience with me!

Welcome to the Forum, Bob. Have fun on your excursion into DCC and On30!

Greetings,

My name is Curtis and I live just north of Seattle with my wife of fifty years, Vickie. My very understanding wife of fifty years considering how much time and money I devote to my hobbies.

The primary hobby has always been model railroading which got its grip on me as a teenager in Sag Harbor, NY. Mr Dorshel's hobby shop was a magnet.

I've built models of almost all scales throughout the years but now I've been condensed to just a 2x8 foot shelf on which I'm building an On2 diorama. Years ago as the Long Island Railroad headed east, Montauk was still too unpopulated to warrant a line and so the track headed a bit north to Sag Harbor which became its Eastern Terminus. My line, The East Harbor Ry, assumes the LIRR did, indeed, go to Montauk instead of SH. A

nd so the village fathers raised enough money to build their 2 foot line the 10 miles from Bridgehampton.

On a different note, if any of you attended the NMRA convention in Seattle about 10 years ago and visited the Ballard Terminal Railroad, you would have seen me piloting the SW1 "Little Beaver. I had the pleasure of becoming an engineer and working for the company that owns not only the Ballard Terminal but also the Puyallup Southern. So, Hi to all of you!

Welcome aboard, Curtis. It's nice to have a wife that puts up with our craziness.

We have a large group of narrow gauge modelers of various scales and gauges here, so I'm sure you're going to fit right in.

George

Welcome to the Forum, Curtis. Our youngest son and his family live out in Puyallup.

Curtis, Welcome to the forum. Enjoy your time here. Nice to learn more about you.

For the past 33 years I have attended the Bumbershoot Festival.

This year the temperature change I usually enjoy was not there. I live in Florida.

ed

Hi All,

I’ve had a little time to explore these Forums and have found the expertise and friendliness to be amazing! So, I’m looking forward to many enlightening discussions, and just maybe I can contribute on such complex matters as… on how not to do things!

Ok, to introduce myself, I model an HO freelanced anthracite road c.1910, hauling the hard coal from NE PA to the west bank of the Hudson River. Just imagine two or three Camelback Consolidations struggling to pull a too-long string of wooden, truss rod, coal gondolas up 2% grades; and you’ll have a good idea of my vision for the main-stay traffic.

My current layout is in a 21’ x 18’ room, certainly a generous-enough space to model most of my “gotta-have” list, while hopefully keeping my ambitions down to a do-able level. I’m working on the third-of-four phases that will complete the plywood-pacific stage. From there, I hope to begin testing the operations plan, starting the basic scenery and putting a dent in that unbuilt kit repository and the long list of to-be-scratch-built projects. I‘m using NCE Power Cab at it’s basic level now, but will be seeking a lot of technical assistance as things progress to multi-cab wireless. Along the way, I’ll be looking for help on resin casting techniques – I’ll have a lot of wooden gondolas to make!

Jim, aka hardcoalcase

Jim,

Welcome aboard! You'll find a lot of expertise here on all of the stuff that you've mentioned, and more! So settle back, enjoy the ride, and feel free to chime in with questions or comments. We all learn from each other!

Enjoy!

Pete

in Michigan

Welcome aboard, Jim. I'm interested in hearing your way of "how not to do things". I'm tired of making mistakes on my own.

George

Again, welcome to the forum Jim and Curtis. Jim, you'll find that you can learn something new every day on this forum, and not juts about model railroading. Jump right in with questions. you will receive many authentic, realistic, answers from more than knowledgeable experienced, craftsmen'. As you have noticed, the comradeship and friendships are genuine. Have fun building that coal run'..

Welcome Curtis and Jim. Thanks for your great introductions and I look forward to seeing more of you around the forum.

Hi everyone, new member here from St. Louis, MO. I’ve been lurking for a while, and I’ve visited this forum off and on over the years. I’m getting back into the hobby after a 20+ year absence, and I find myself interested in doing craftsman types kits and scratchbuilding. I’ve never done either of those, but this seems like the best place to be for some support and knowledge. I don’t currently have a layout, and I’m unlikely to have one for a while, but I’d like to build HO scale dioramas with an eye toward incorporating them into a layout sometime in the (probably far) future. I grew up in southern WV with some N&W tracks literally in my front yard so have a soft spot for that railroad since I saw those trains multiple times a day from age 0 to 11. I also had a great grandfather and grandfather that worked for the Virginian so I have some interest in that railroad for family history reasons. Once I have a little more confidence I'd like to try to build the VGN station that was in Page, WV. I've already bought the plan sheets from the N&W historical society.

For now, I’ve picked up the Oakwood Station kit from FOS Scale Models and plan on building this as my first non-plastic kit. I thought I should start small, and then if successful I’ll work my way up to more complicated kits. I should probably mention as well that I'm an architect by trade, so I know how a 1:1 building goes together. How that translates into building 1:87 buildings remains to be seen

I look forward to participating on the forum.

Adam

Welcome aboard, Adam. "this seems like the best place to be for some support and knowledge." You're absolutely right!

Thanks for taking time to introduce yourself.

George

My Name is Tom,and I enjoy building stuff. I live in Lindsay, Ontario, Canada and have the good fortune of having some excellent modelers in my area.

I have been playing with trains for two or three days now ( last time was nearly 65 years ag0) and things have changed a lot.

I am interested in On30 simply because of the freedom of it.

I have no idea what I will build yet ... likely something in the logging/mining line. It won't be large either (he says).

For now, I am reading and absorbing, and trying to build me a flat car at the moment.

Cheers

Tom

Welcome aboard, Tom. I'm sure you're almost overwhelmed by the changes that have occurred since the 50's. There are a few of us around here that remember model railroading back then.

George