highpeak

Not sure how Ethan Allen got down to Arkansas! The baby boats were used very intensively, mostly on the Mountain sub-division over to St. Johnsbury or on the Rigby to Bangor run. They did occasionally show up on some of the branch lines, but not very often. They very quickly became railfan favourites. By the mid to late 70s MEC needed more power, in large part because the Alco switchers were getting very tired, and the GP7s had been around a long time too. The baby boats were part of the solution, but for the rest the MEC went picking through boneyards for bargains. There was a curious precedent for MEC to end up with former RI power: in 1965 two former RI RS-3s were leased by MEC from GE and saw service for about a year. The Rock had traded them in on...the batch of U25s of which 14 ended up being bought by MEC. Some of the engines went into service pretty quickly. The 234 seemed to be the best of the bunch and as you note ran around for quite a while in RI blue. She was a celebrity in the railfan world and predictably was nicknamed Rocky, laying over here at Rigby: Another engine that went into service in RI colors was the 231, seen here in the train that delivered them up to Waterville: The other celebrity in the bunch, but for more or less the opposite reason to Rocky was the Great Pumpkin. This was a bit of a rush job by Waterville and it looked as though the paint had been applied at night with a yard broom, no stripes either: The U25s seemed huge, and in fact were somewhat restricted as to where they were used, mostly between Portland and Bangor or up the Rumford branch, often on the very heavy wood job out of Waterville. The other second hand engines bought during the second hand buying spree were four ex L&N GP7s that were extensively rebuilt with a chop job on the short hood, and a single GP9 from the Algoma Central. None of those went into service until they had been reworked by Waterville.

Since my eyesight isn't good enough to determine whether or not both engines have the crew needed to work in tandem, I am left with the deliberate error being the stack on the 1500. It did eventually get a water-cooled turbocharger but not until around 1970, at which point it also received the blue dip paint job. There's a picture of the 1500 here http://http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=18441 in the original paint scheme in (according to the caption) 1969 still with the lengthwise stack, this picture http://http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2560062 shows it in blue with a crosswise stack and thus presumably a switch to the water-cooled turbocharger. It looks like it never got m.u. equipment. All of which having been said, I really don't care because as Mike and Nick have said, it's a good picture of some fine modeling. There are some interesting notes on B&M diesels at http://http://www.faracresfarm.com/jbvb/rr/bmrr/dieselde.html#RS2 It includes some notes on the minutia of m.u. equipment and what could run with what in multiple.

Wait a minute, you can't just rip up the rails like that! Where were the notices of intent to abandon? What will the STB say? Is the line to be rail-banked? Inquiring minds want to know! http://www.stb.dot.gov/stb/docs/Abandonments%20and%20Alternatives1.pdf

Doc, you seem to be working awfully hard at this railroad thing, maybe you should find a nice hobby where you can relax a bit

It's the only model shop I know that needs to work on the staff and ticket system for its customers.

Have you considered one of these: http://http://gokimco.com/weller-wsa350-esd-safe-benchtop-fume-absorber-filter.html?gclid=CO_fsLWY-MACFQwV7Aod63cACQ? Fumes don't bother me much while soldering, though I doubt they are good for anyone. They had these set up at a clinic I went to a couple of weeks ago, seemed like a good idea.

But it doesn't say on the package that it is beer! It's lime in some sort of liquid and it contains alcohol, but it doesn't actually claim to be beer, it calls itself refreshment with a twist. So, Bud Light = Twisted Refreshment, not beer.

Andy Reichert sells rail in 18" lengths which at least in the US reduces shipping expenses quite a bit http://www.proto87.com/product1900.html

Marty, it looks like it's the ply and rivet method of trackwork. A small brass rivet is secured in a hole drilled in a thin plywood tie, then the rail can be soldered to the rivet. In British trackwork the rivet would be hidden by a cosmetic chair, cast in whitemetal in days gone by, now available in plastic. The rivet, besides providing a means of soldering the rail, elevates it since rail sat in a cast chair on the prototype, not directly on the tie. A good way to build British track, if a bit outdated now, but not very good for US practice. I'd go with Andy Reichert's advice in post 3 in the thread, just before we starting getting into trouble with broads.

Exactly. Try telling a broad she's wide and see where it gets you.

The crash of AA flight 191 was in many ways as much a failure of the regulatory body (the FAA) as the fault of AA maintenance procedures. In its report on the accident the NTSB stated: "Contributing to the cause of the accident were the vulnerability of the design of the pylon attach points to maintenance damage; the vulnerability of the design of the leading edge slat system to the damage which produced asymmetry; deficiencies in Federal Aviation Administration surveillance.and reporting systems which failed to detect and prevent the use of improper maintenance procedures; deficiencies in the practices and communications among the operators, the manufacturer, and the FAA which failed to determine and disseminele the particulars regarding previous maintenance damage incidents; and the intolerance of prescribed operational procedures to this unique emergency." http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/ntsb/aircraft-accident-reports/AAR79-17.pdf The change in maintenance procedures made by AA (and subsequently adopted by other DC-10 operators such as Continental) saved about 200 man-hours of labor but also reduced the number of electrical, hydraulic and fuel disconnects from 79 to 27, which could be viewed as a safety benefit. AA consulted with the manufacturer about the procedure and requested information from Douglas to help design their revised procedure. Douglas told AA that they could not either approve or disapprove the change. Douglas did not notify the FAA of what AA was proposing, nor were they required to. Continental noticed a mounting flange fracture during an engine/pylon removal using the AA procedure in late 1978 and early 1979, but were unsure as to the requirement to notify the FAA or other operators of their findings, and in the event considered it simply a failure of their maintenance staff to correctly follow the procedure and did neither. There are some interesting parallels between the Megantic disaster and the AA191 wreck. I don't know what Transport Canada's mandate is, but the FAA is and has been for a long time a conflicted regulatory body due to its dual mandate to regulate and promote the air industry; if you read enough NTSB reports you come to the conclusion that the latter too often overrides the former.

EKO did a Ford Falcon which would go quite well with your period and if you get lucky on eBay wouldn't cost a fortune. This sale is finished but gives you an idea of what you could find http://www.ebay.ca/itm/FORD-FALCON-BEIGE-1-87-EKO-/360846899029

Andy, I'm not sure we should be hi-jacking the Doctor's thread here, nor do I really see why there should be a divide between, for want of better terms, operators and modelers. The beauty of the hobby is that we can follow any number of paths as suits our tastes. Magazines cater to a wide range of those tastes, I think everybody ends up picking the ones that they feel comfortable with. Joe Fugate has published (no idea if it was in MRH or just a predecessor blog) a pretty reasonable compromise approach to trackwork using CV components as a turnout jig. They may not be the ultimate in detail but can end up looking pretty decent without taking forever to build. I'm not sure why you are being so harsh here. You offer a good product and web site for those who want the ultimate in trackwork, no doubt Joe has decided his target audience doesn't skew that way. I'm sure advertising revenue from the makers of those freight cars he was talking about is pretty significant for him, so he was being fairly candid in his remarks. Meanwhile back to the good Doctor's endeavours: in post 143 you mentioned making up some placeholder buildings. I spent the last few days making some cardboard mockups of a group of buildings for my small layout (a U-shaped affair about 13 x 10). All of a sudden that end of the yard started to look like a railroad for all that the buildings were just white card. For a small investment of time your plan suddenly becomes much more real, and of course you can easily tweak heights/lengths etc till you are happy with the way it looks. Of course, be aware of the way the temporary can linger longer than you think!

Interestingly in a recent issue of MRH publisher Joe Fugate was bemoaning the rise of the expensive RTR freight car as being the antithesis of what operators need, at least those who operate medium to large layouts. His theory was that expensive detail is a waste when the car is rolling along in a train or hidden on an inside track in a yard.

A useful and often amusing source for information about (mostly) cars of various eras is http://www.curbsideclassic.com/welcome-to-curbside-classics/ This link appeared in a thread on cars on here in early 2013, I thought I'd add it here too http://www.lov2xlr8.no/broch1.html We also kicked the tires of a few models on this thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/78335-north-american-automobile-models/

I think he meant only registered users can see the message. I am a registered user, can't get the site to display content. A real shame because there is a lot of valuable articles in that archive. I hope they can resolve the issue and wish I had the expertise to help.

I was doing some research into electricity meters to try to determine what kind of hardware might be seen on the outside of a building in the early 1950s and came across this site which has some interesting pictures of utility crews, poles, transformers and so on: http://waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Power_Distribution.html If you click on the Museum link, the page has a lot of topics to do with power and water utilities in LA.

Another way of suggesting a location and era is (if your eyesight is better than mine) with vehicle license plates. These have typically changed considerably over the years. For instance, when I moved to Connecticut in 1980, our plate was white letters on a blue background. And that is singular, from 1980 onwards you only got one plate to be attached to the rear of the vehicle, the front bumper had no plate. The state went back to issuing two plates in 1987. Then in 2000 they changed the colors to navy blue letters on a white/blue background, all the old plates were replaced over a couple of years. One big difference between the US and the UK is that the plate stays with the owner when you sell the vehicle, it doesn't go with the vehicle. You can see quite old permutations of letters and numbers on new vehicles, unlike the UK where the plate was/is a way of telling the age of the vehicle. We also have a fair variety of plates. My 1979 MGB has an antique plate, black letters on a white background. In CT, vehicles over 25 years old are eligible for these plates, so a model MGB with that kind of plate says the year has to be somewhere past 2000 or so. If the MG was representing a newish vehicle, then the plate would be white letters on blue background. There are a lot of differences between the UK and the US when it comes to plates. A trailer has its own registration and does not carry the same plate as the tractor unit, and may not even be registered in the same state given the nature of the trucking business. Vanity plates have been a lot more liberal over here, CT allows any combination of 7 characters (used to be 6) as long as it wasn't obscene and wouldn't be confused with a normal plate. So if you like to have talking points, a fast car with BLUBYU as a plate might work for you. Digging further into the minutia, municipalities in CT have their own plate number sequences, offering another way of subtly establishing fairly precisely where in the US we are (if you can read the damned little plates). A pickup truck with a heap of tarmac in the back, a CT plate saying 73 BR and a couple of guys fixing a big pothole says we're in Branford and it's probably spring time. That's another seasonal clue you could add to the roads: in the snow belt we chuck so much sand and salt on the roads that around about April or whenever it seems like we've seen the last of Old Man Winter you'll see the highway crews out with a street sweeper and a truck behind it for protection cleaning up the reminder of the winter. Town crews deal with local roads, state DOT does the state highways, at least in CT. As expected, Wikipedia has an overview [url[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_the_United_States[/url] with state history available on at least some of the links, but the images appear to be incomplete on some pages. This might strike some as being a kind of rivet counting exercise, but I've seen some excellent efforts on layouts on this site to suggest time and place, and offer these ideas to help those who like this sort of thing.

This Wikipedia page is fairly useful in that it shows sample state highway signs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbered_highways_in_the_United_States There are also links to information about the highway system in each state, some of the pages I checked had historical information.

That's been done to death on many threads in the past, if you are really trying to derail this topic that's an excellent way to do it. And it has nothing to do with the module-end interface standards. You're also quite correct on rail size, but since you insist that most modellers don't understand the implications of the wheel/rail interface, then surely a simply specification of rail size is a good idea to avoid confusing people.

It would depend on what was happening inside the building. The roof of the main manufacturing building where I work has an incredible mixture of vents and pipes required by the manufacturing processes happening underneath that include a sterilizing plant and a structure that houses a big LNG-powered generator. Production lines get rearranged requiring different ducting arrangements, old stuff is often left in place since to remove it means filling in the hole in the roof, so over time you have a forest of fixtures on the roof. Adrian's suggestion is really the only way to go, at least for contemporary structures.

The current Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) states "Where the distance between tracks, measured along the highway between the inside rails, exceeds 100 feet, additional signs or other appropriate traffic control devices should be used to inform approaching road users of the long distance to cross the tracks." Some example signs are at http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009r1r2/part8/fig8b_04_longdesc.htm The 1948 MUTCD contained similar language: "The distance that should be assumed to separate tracks before an additional crossing sign is considered necessary is 100 feet, unless local conditions require otherwise." https://ceprofs.civil.tamu.edu/ghawkins/MUTCD-History_files/1948%20MUTCD/1948-Pt1b_Signs_Warning_Guide.pdf see section 89.

All the best. I recall the operation I had some 15 years ago to have two cervical disks fused, too much pain before the op to model, impossible for months afterwards while I had to wear a neck brace while it all meshed together. But sometimes the project on the bench is your own health and well being, and you have to put yourselves in the hands of those who, like us, wield tools and instruments to do a bit of kit bashing. Go into that room knowing we're all pulling for you.

Excellent choice of period. There were a lot of fascinating operations all over the North country with plenty of pool services and cooperative workings. Those CP E8s were very attractive engines, that paint scheme really suited them. I saw a picture in the book on Northern New England passenger trains book that the B&M wasn't above using the CP engines on a fill-in turn on the Sundays only milk train that picked up milk cars off the Beecher Falls branch at Lancaster, normally that traffic went on the MEC via Portland but the St Johnsbury-Portland train didn't run on Sundays. There probably is a prototype for just about everything in Northern NH/VT. I think you have a winner there.

I'm a bit confused about the cement business. Are you intending to receive loaded hoppers of cement, or ship loads out? For instance, Dragon Cement is a producer of cement, if you want a business that receives cement try googling "concrete batch plant". That may be a more compact model for you, a batch plant is much smaller than a cement plant. Of course, the kiln etc could be "off stage" or on the back scene and just the loading arrangements modelled. The May 1998 Model Railroader had an article on a concrete batch plant, though it ended up being a pretty sizeable model. It looked good though.