Scale Model Railroading

Local man builds scale railroad inside the Amesbury Senior Center
Amesbury News
For the first time in a long time, there’s a working railroad system within Amesbury. Albeit, the newest one fits inside a single room at the Amesbury Council on Aging. That’s where you can find an expansive model railroad created by Alec Flickinger.

HobbyLinc is having an inventory clearance sale this week only on over 500 items.  The sale is valid through this Thursday.

Went with the family a few weeks back to the Dallas Train Show at the Plano Center.  It was a great show with a large number of vendors, and many club layouts on display, from N scale through HO, O, S, and large scale.  My daughter really enjoyed it  Here are a few pics.

Wm K Walthers has sold its Darda line of pull-back toys, tops and jack-in-the-boxes to Simm Marketing.  Simm is based in Germany and has been a long time licensee of Darda in Europe.  Walthers originally acquired the Darda line from Life-Like.  While the details of the arrangements, including the US distribution of Darda products, are still being finalized Walthers says the transitions should be seamless.  The sale price was not disclosed.

InternetTrains.com is having a weekend sale this weekend.  Selected items are 25-70% off.

If you need some heavy lifting done on your layout, Model Tech Studios has announced a new HO Scale rail crane as both a kit and a RTR model.  If you opt for the kit, the pre-cast and pre-cut sections go together easily with the instructions in the illustrated assembly manual. The kit is $34.99 and the ready to run model is $79.99.

Bar Mills Scale Models, the Maine based structure kit developer, has introduced a new HO Scale kit, The Barn On Rt.20.  The completed structure will be 9″ w by 3.5″ deep.  It is available at $89.95 each

“Here again… if you want the “same stuff” we don’t have it.  While we can’t always re-invnet the wheel we try to add a little “twist” of something different in each kit.  This time around ?… full interior laser-cut framing…  board-on-board construction… BUT NOT JUST ANY board-on-board… we had these specially milled with one side of the boards unsanded so we’d be able to get a “rough-cut” look when assembling the building.  Never been done before ?… we don’t think so either !
The windows & doors are laser-cut this time around… and the laser-cut shingle strips (and there are a lot of them) will keep you busy for hours !  Here again, this kit will be available on directly from Bar Mills.  We know this is a “special” one and won’t fit everybodys layouts… but we though it was cool.
The model pictured was built by Martin Collard of Borodino Scale Lines in upstate NY.
Aside from being a great modeler Martins’ store is the most unique craftsman-oriented store we’ve ever been to.
If it’s unique, hard-to-get, or just super cool or just the kind of “detail” you just can’t find anywhere else you’ll probably find it at his shop.
Here is the weblink… Martin runs the best “go-to” shop when it comes to detailed structure building that we know of… borodinoscaleline.com

This board-on-board construction technique will let you leave-off as many boards as you want (or don’t want) to.  Make this building really decrepit… or keep it more in the period you’re modeling.  Don’t want to add a window or door ?… just cover-up its’ opening.  Pretty straight-ahead…. and very creative !
Don’t let this visual simplicity of this kit fool you… it takes as much laser-time to make one of these kits as it would take to produce 2-3 average kits in the same price range !”

Bar Mills Scale Models, the Maine based structure kit developer, has introduced a new kit, “Pop” Gracin’s Garage.  There will be 500 kits available at $99.95 each

“The concept here was simple… a “period-sensitive” auto car facility that would have graced any number of places before the big “chain” stores took over.  This guy (”Pop” Gracin) would have provided only the essential & most basic of services & products.  You want air freshener & stuff to shine you car with… “FORGETTABOUTIT” !
Typical of many shops from the late 20’s to the mid-fifties (and even some that are still in smaller towns) this kit is “loaded” with detail.  In an effort to keep Bar Mills kits different than the rest this is what you’ll find in this offering:
1. Printed interior detail walls for the “shop” part of the kit.  The doors can be posed “open” because they feature detils on both sides of them… a great way to feature the wooden floors and new white metal detail interior casting that come with every kit.
2.  Check out the roof on the garage, not only does it feature some great new looking skylights… the interior framing has the look of a “lattice” steel truss to it.  With a little effort this part of the kit could be displayed sans roof !
3.  The kit features several new white metal castings… and some “not-so-white-metal” castings !  Before casting them into “tire piles” we had to cast & create several stacks of “tires” using about “160″ individual tires to create the stacks of the things included with every kit !  Really… what’s a “tire” store without tires ?
4.  The usual Bar Mills E-Z roof rafter-tail  system helps things to assembly quickly (considering)… Jim Mooney (our engineer) over-did himself on this one.”

Walthers has released a new N Scale Pullman Standard Coach in the Chicago & North Western road name.  From Walthers:

* All-New Tooling * Corrugated or Smooth Sides as Appropriate * Skirted or Non-Skirted Per Roadname * Car Name & Number Decals * Plastic Storage Box * Metal Wheelsets * Accumate(R) Knuckle Couplers * Superb Paint & Lettering
 
When lightweight cars came to the Pullman fleet in the early 1940s, their smooth sides lent themselves to classy, colorful paint schemes. Corrugated stainless-steel sides, later added to match the look (and acknowledge the competition) of Budd’s stainless-steel designs, created a variety of cars that ran on premier passenger trains.
 
Based on Plan #7484, the Walthers Pullman-Standard 64-Seat Coaches feature roadname-appropriate body styles with corrugated or smooth sides, with or without skirting. The cars ride on GSC 41-N trucks with blackened metal wheels. Other features include flush-fitting windows, full interiors, working diaphragms, Accumate(R) knuckle couplers, car number and name decals and factory-installed electrical pickups for drop-in interior lighting kit #933-1099 (sold separately).

Retail pricing is $39.98, but they can be found at Amazon.com for $37.52.

MacRailSoft, a German company, has released a new version of RailModeller, a layout creation tool for both model railroad and slot car layouts. 

From their press release:

Herten, Germany – MacRailSoft today is proud to announce the release of RailModeller 4.0, their solution for creating layouts for model railroads and slot cars on Macs. Version 4.0 is the biggest release of RailModeller in years and delivers long anticipated features like full three-dimensional planning and support for layers, among countless other enhancements.

Support for working with tracks at different heights and grades allows users to create complex model railroad layouts in three dimensions. Dedicated new features like assistants for grades or even track helixes and specialized views to visualize the grade profile of layouts take the hassle out of designing complex track plans at different height levels. An automated terrain rendering function was integrated in the 3D view to ‘automagically’ generate a landscape based on the heights defined in the layout.

A new layer system allowing up to 99 layers per layout introduces common functionality like hiding or locking layers to support users when working with complex track plans. Other changes in 4.0 include a new printing architecture for improved 1:1 printouts and a new export function for importing layouts into third party applications.

System Requirements:
* Apple Macintosh (PowerPC or Intel)
* Mac OS X 10.4 or newer
* 25 MB available disk space

RailModeller 4.0 is a free upgrade for all registered users. Close to 200 libraries are included, providing tracks and accessories from virtually any manufacturer of model railroad tracks, allowing the user to start planning their railroad empire right away.