Table Extension
We are still fairly tight on space – but you wouldn’t believe how much a simple rearrangement of a room can change. To recap, currently we have a room set aside for the model train building. It’s a fairly small …
Point Motor Shoot-out, Pt II.5
Did I say I got lucky? Well, no. Just as I was setting up a new, more potent laptop with DCC control software, working out some of the kinks and nearly concluding the planning for the layout I want to …
Software Contemplations
Being a computer and gadget nerd, what drew me towards DCC when I started this foray was the possibility of controlling my trains and layout via a computer. I have a somewhat aged, but still capable laptop sitting around that’s …
Point motor Shoot-out, Pt. II
When I first played around with point motors not too long ago, I came across some differences between the Peco and Hornby motors I used, and at the time I thought that I wouldn’t mind using the Peco motors (and …
Geography Matters (Or: The Difficulties Of Procurement)
As pointed out in a previous post, I needed one more point motor to motorise all my existing points. And that presented a bit of an issue. Because for some odd reason, I had a really hard time finding another …
Point motor Shoot-out
When, as a kid, I was mucking around with my TT-scale setup, there were precisely two kinds of points (or turnouts) you could buy: manual, and motorised. The motorised points were strictly surface-mounted, there was nothing else, at least not …
The First Table(top)
At the moment, we are living with some space constraints. The rooms in our house have fairly small footprints. So there isn’t much space to build a sprawling model railway table at this time. When we bought the first batch …
Track Mix
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in a rather short time when it comes to model railways, it’s that it is probably not the best idea to buy mixed track. In our first haul, we bought a starter train set …
Taking Stock
So, what did we get from the first haul? We spent a good hour in the store, evaluating options and asking questions. Not a lot of details had been determined upfront. We knew it would be H0 scale or equivalent, …
The Beginnings
When I was in my early teens, I used some saved money to buy myself a model railroad. The scale was TT (1:120), a scale that was popular in East Germany and still is in Eastern Europe, but has niche …