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Imagens Ferroviárias Fabulosas (Fabulous Railway Images)

December 3, 2010 By 1 Comment
Fabulous Railway Pictures

OK, what's up with the goofy title? Well, subscriber Joao in Portugal sent something I thought I should share with everyone. Joao's email subject line read Imagens Ferroviárias Fabulosas, which translates to Fabulous Railway Images, which they are! Entitled Imagens do Possado in portuguese, which Google Translate translates to read Pictures Can, is a PowerPoint presentation of pictures of model railroading from the 1920's as well as protype railroad pictures from a time spanning 1864 to 1943! If you love history as much as I do, you'll enjoy this! All of the text is in … [Read more...]

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Joao Rocha’s “River Beach” at ModelScala 2010 in Montijo, Portugal

December 2, 2010 By 1 Comment
River Beach module

Joao Rocha, a Model Train Tips subscriber and model railroading hobbyist in Portugal recently attended the annual model railroading show ModelScala 2010 in the city of Montijo near Lisbon, Portugal. “The train association APAC was invited to show Maquetren Moduls (brand name?). Near military airplanes and tank models the train layout represents small models of some Portuguese rail stations and some fictitious landscape like my small beach / river / sail boat module.” “You can see the emblematic 1400 orange diesel locomotive C.P. (Caminhos de ferro Porutugueses / portuguese rails) and … [Read more...]

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The History Of Electric Toy Trains

November 26, 2010 By 1 Comment
LGB Garden Train

Not only do electric toy trains provide a lot of fun for the entire family, they have a history that is almost as rich as the one shared by the real railroads. The very first toy trains appeared on the market in the 1860's. These were simple designs that were made out of wood and metal. It is doubtful that the designers had any inkling of what their simple floor toys would evolve into. The Marklin Company saw a need for a set of standard gauges for toy trains in 1891. When they first implemented these standard gauges it was for the wind-up (also called clockwork) trains the Marklin … [Read more...]

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Thomas The Tank Engine – Bringing Joy To Children Everywhere!

November 22, 2010 By 1 Comment
Thomas The Tank Engine

Whatever happened to children playing with little toy trains? In today's society, it seems that wooden toy trains have become a thing of the past. Kids these days now ask for iPods, video games, and even cell phones before they're 10 years old. But Thomas the Tank Engine continuously brings smiles and happiness to children all over the world, even in a time where toy trains seem to have been long forgotten. Thomas the Tank Engine started as a children's show and has since grown into a variety of toys and merchandise for children. The show focuses on teaching children as young as toddlers to … [Read more...]

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Why are there Twitter Weekly Updates in the Newsletter?

November 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Twitter

In case you were wondering why the newsletter titles usually say Model Train Tips Twitter Weekly Updates, I’d like to explain what that’s all about. One of the tools I use to automate some functions at Model-Train-Tips.com tracks all of the tweets I post on Twitter and consolidates them into a blog post once each week. This article would then be included in the weekly newsletter. I enabled this feature because I sometimes re-tweet other model railroader’s tweets; re-tweet is Twitter-speak for echoing someone else’s Twitter messages. The idea is that my blog readers and Twitter … [Read more...]

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S Scale Model Trains – A Bit of History

October 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment
tcmrm064-115x115

By Caroline Michaels The S scale is a term that is interchangeable with the American Flyer brand name of models and railroads. S scale model trains are a sixty fourth of the size of a real train, putting them between the HO and O sizes of train and track and are available in both AC and DC power types. The S scale uses a two rail track instead of the classic three rail track which uses the middle rail to provide electricity. There has been an S scale train renaissance in the past twenty years or so, and even people who are not normally interested in model trains are impressed by these … [Read more...]

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How’s This for a Tight Track Radius?

October 4, 2010 By 1 Comment
Now that's a tight radius

There have been some questions and comments recently regarding track radius. You really do need to make sure you know the minimum radius for your model railroad scale and the rolling stock you'll be running on it. Today, I ran across the article "Now That's a Tight Radius!" which features a real-life tight radius for a spur line at a shipping port in Portland, Oregon. The picture at right shows an arial view from Google Maps. Notice the swing-out trestle that had to be added to make this work. The article I linked to above has a street-level picture showing this tight radius. How'd … [Read more...]

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Summer is Over, Fall is Here; Back to Model Railroading

October 2, 2010 By 1 Comment
Walking my daughter down the aisle

I don’t know about you but my summer turned out to be far more hectic then I thought it would be. If you’ve been a visitor to Model Train Tips for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed that my blogging here has fallen off over the summer. Summer is always a time to get outdoors and enjoy the weather, especially here in Minnesota where we get four to five months of winter. And, as I get older, I find that I appreciate good weather more than I used to. Although I didn’t get to play golf nearly as much as I would have liked to, I did get out a few times. Being busy this past … [Read more...]

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Would You Find a User’s Forum at Model Train Tips Useful?

October 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Forum

For some time now I’ve been thinking about adding a user’s forum here at Model-Train-Tips.com similar to the forum at N Scale Limited. By the way, if you haven’t been there already, N Scale Limited is a great website devoted to N scale model railroading. It’s a lot of work to set up a user’s forum, so I want to make sure it would be something the community that visits this site would find useful. You could use the forum to swap ideas, post messages to the community about problems you are having, look for deals or offer your stuff for sale to the community like Chuck Shutz did in a … [Read more...]

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More Model Train Tips Reader Feedback

September 30, 2010 By 4 Comments
Comment

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article with some of the comments and feedback I’ve received from readers and subscribers. Here is more of the feedback and comments I’ve received. Alan from Little Rock, Arkansas wrote and shared this: Building a model railroad is something that I have wanted to do since I was a kid with my first toy train set.  Now that I'm 55 years of age, all four of the kids are out of the house and my wife said that I needed a hobby.  I live in Little Rock, Arkansas and sought out a model railroad club in the area to get me started. My frustration at this … [Read more...]

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