Bob’s not a man of many words, but he’s been in touch with his decal for Amtrak model train:

“Hi Al,

I made this

Bob”

Bob’s post reminded me of Larry’s: HO scale Amtrak.

And Peter’s: Peter’s post on adding liveries to your locos.

Now on to Dan:

“Hi Al;

There have been several money saving tips passed along recently, as well as some wonderfully crafted layouts. I thought I would pass along a tip that can save some of our hard earned cash.

In Minnesota we sometimes “joke” that we have two seasons, winter and road construction. While spring has had a sluggish start I am sure the road crews are making plans for repairs.

A typical road maintenance regime here is the laydown of a heavy oil like material followed up by an aggregate of some sort. While sometimes heavy compaction is the next step, often the compaction is left to the normal traffic of the area.

The aggregate can vary in color and size depending on the municipality and the availability of material.

In the picture you can see two samples of road material I was able to pick up after the laydown of the stone. The coin in the can is a US dime, about ¾ of an inch in diameter, or about 17 mm.

The grey rock is the smaller material, and while too big for ballast, both could do nicely as part of a boulder field, or scree (talus) as part of a slope. Nothing looks more like rock then… well rock! I made a slide shed for my valley, and the grey material worked well to depict the scene.

The best spot to pick up the materials is often at corners where the stones get thrown into piles by the action of the tires, so one must exercise due caution in your gathering. Maybe take a lad with you as a look out.

Thanks for the great site, Al.

Minnesota Dan”

And lastly, another vid from Dangerous Dave.

“Hi Al,

Sorry not loaded anything this last few weeks with the model railway, been busy gardening etc, and this time of year can be a bit warm in the loft, but this last weekend I went out up to North Yorkshire Moors Railway and captured a few clips of steam running.

On my return I just had to go up in the loft and get a few of my trains running, have just loaded this video on to Youtube , and thought it may be of some interest especially with the real steam trains

Regards

Dave”

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here

A big thanks to Bob for sharing his decal for Amtrak model train, Dan and Dave.

You know, I still get mails asking why Dave is called Dangerous Dave. You can see why half way down on this post.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you get started on your layout, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

PPS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.