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My last post detailed the start of construction of US Highway 6, a major arterial road in Iowa City and over The Hills Line. As with any scenic element that covers or crowds the rails, I spent time testing numerous trains over the crossing to make sure I wouldn't have electrical or mechanical issues when … Continue reading Curb Appeal, Part Two
Roads and grade crossings on a model railroad are two things that every visitor to our layouts can quickly identify and relate with. That comes from the simple fact that we interact with roads on a regular and ongoing basis. On The Hills Line I've begun construction of US Highway 6, a major arterial road … Continue reading Curb Appeal, Part One
I'll let you in on a secret. The best hobby shop on the planet is Home Depot. The Atlanta-based home improvement warehouse has just about everything you need to completely build a model railroad... minus track, locomotives, and freight cars. That limitation nonwithstanding, I've found that if you wander the aisles with a prototype-modeler mindset … Continue reading Tanks Fer Nuttin’
All model railroads involve tradeoffs. The supposed logic for smaller setups is that we trade size for detail. So while I'm running five cars trains instead of 50 car lineups, I can take the time to detail the scene to the Nth degree. But as I've mentioned numerous times before, I'm lazy. For me the … Continue reading Watching Paint Dry
The Hills Line 