John’s been back in touch with his HO scale scale coal mining vehicles:

“Hi Alistair,

The next module for my coal mining and transport railroad is just about ready to install in the layout. I took some shots as the module grew.

I really didn’t have much of an idea what the result would be, but I wanted something that would give space for the mine employees to park and where the mine dump trucks, as well as other mine equipment could be fueled up and maintained.

I started with a couple old kits laying around, the main shop shed is (I think) a Life-Like sports stadium that was in the bottom of a box of stuff I got at an auction, I added sides and bracing across the front and back, and behind that to add depth is a lumberyard building from some 40 years ago.

I cleaned out all the supports and made some stuff for the inside. The structures on the sides are – right side 2 combined Walthers sand towers that I’m using for the gasoline fuel tanks. I added some ladders and a radio antenna, Left side is an overhead crane which I had to scratch-build.

The diesel tank is on the cliff-side and piping comes into the manifold area of the fuel towers. I also scratch built the big forklift.

The scene is sometime mid-day with a few trucks in for maintenance, one with the dump body in the up position and the safety bar in place while workers are underneath. The surplus army water truck is idle and the junk side of the shed is being examined by the foreman trying to determine what stays, and what goes. A mine truck has had a rear wheel bearing replaced and the crew has the old big forklift assisting in putting the wheel back on.

I’ll be adding more worker cars and more junk when the module is set into the layout.

Regards and thanks for all you do,

John From Baltimore”

A huge thanks to John (again!). Just love what he’s doing – and I’m thankful of the running narrative. Hope you are enjoying it as much as me.

If you missed his last post, and what to get the story so far, it’s here.

Now on to Peter. Who asked a question that got me thinking. Who can help?

“Al, hope all is well, just want to run something by you and hopefully you can get it out to all your hobbyist for some feedback .

I have been noticing for sometime now that remote control vehicles are taking on more and more of a roll in train layouts and with hobbyist. Much to my surprise there has been very little said or talked about in layouts.

I have been browsing the web and much has been put on youtube and the applications are endless.

1/87 scale in remote control is outstanding, but info where to purchase them, get parts or even how to instructions on how to build is hard to come by.

I’ve done some contacting on my of manufactures but most put up info on large scale remote control items. You will also notice the same could be said for LED lighting in 1/87 scale models as well.

Very little being out out there for the hobbyist especially for some of us old timers who would rather see these products a little more accessible. Not only that think of how much it opens
the layouts to other activities that the hobbyist can enjoy whlie his or her trains are running around in a circle .

Please i hope this draws some interest and great feedback, I very much want to get some of these items for my layout , most hobbyists have construction sites where these vehicles would fit in nicely , oh let me say that my sites have many of these types of vehicles already in 1/87 scale but WOW what a feature to have a back hoe work , load a dump truck , bulldozer doze
and so on, if you haven’t seen them…

Regards, hope to here from you soon

Peter”

That’s all for today folks.

A big thanks to John for sharing his HO scale scale coal mining vehicles.

If anyone can help Peter, please leave a comment below – and the goes if you want to comment on Peter’s latest update.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide if you want to get going on your very own layout.

Best

Al

PS Seen the latest ebay cheat sheet yet?