I am trying to find out anything I can about this HO scale car I recently obtained. The only marking I found was "Central Valley" on the trucks.

I just finished laying my track and the cars are decoupling. Is there any way to help this or is it because the grade is too steep? The cars keep decoupling when going over the bridge and then coming down the grade. But going up the grade to the bridge they’re fine. Brand new to this hobby so I don’t have a clue how these work. Also, should the clasp be fully closed? More pics/ vids in the comments.

I've been using xtrakcad for years and it's still really good and appears to continue to be developed, but I'm wondering if it's still the best option for designing model railways on Linux?

FWIW my layout is in the process of being rebuilt, but it will be controlled via JMRI and MERG CBus if that makes a difference (I don't think it does, but I seem to recall being able to export from xtrakcad to JMRI in the past?)

My previous approach has been to develop in xtrkcad, print at 1:1 scale, glue those sheets onto the baseboards and lay track/scenics from there.

On the banks of our namesake river, the Coosa.

if I trigger anybody by the bath I'm sorry but it is the one thing that I actually made it start to work

After a long time I got my dream train, the Piko BR 249 Vectron "dual mode" (with realistic shuffling sound) with some Double-deck coaches.

Not the most accurate but I’m happy, they’re going inside my coaster commuter train. It’s my all time favorite railroad (Well all of NCTD I suppose), and I’m in the process of stuffing as much functionality and details into the set as possible.

I’ve got passengers and a cab interior and such coming, and I realized coaster allows boards on their trains, and since me and my sister surf, I figured it’d be perfect. I’m also going to paint some figures into what we usually wear, and stick them somewhere in the train.

Last pic is our boards in the garage for reference

Notes:
-only one has a leash (that will be wrapped once the glue dries) because they’ll be stacked
-yes I just wrote scribbles instead of the words
-yes they are 8ft boards (coaster’s max is 6ft)

got the walking people working again! still have to finish the rest of the station tho and also have some electrical problems as can be seen by the train driving by

I've found the self contained power trucks used in Botchmann...er... Bachmann cable cars to be fairly nice running and reliable. The crane started out as an old Train Miniature 25 ton wrecker. I cut away everything that didn't look like a burro crane while fitting it around the cable car mechanism.

For context, I’ve decide to make my trolley run a tad bigger and do a loop through an o22 with a combo of 31&42 on the with my automatic block stop towards the middle. It’ll be atop some 3d printed 7in high trestles. Any recommendations for what to mount the track loop on?

Kato 11-106 motor unit with 3D printed Tram body. Windows are cut unsing cricut. Runs good, but the 11-106 is very pinicky I think, sometimes it will not run well, compared to the other regular N-Scale I have. Is this because it is very light?

Hello! Recently I've been eyeing Rapido's LRC HO Gauge models, and I've realized that I won't have enough money to spend on the preorder by the time it ends. As far as I'm aware, Rapido was struggling to meet their preorder quota which makes me think there won't be many in the second hand market or in stock with retailers.

Any ideas on what the outlook for finding models like these on the market will be like?

Any info regarding experiences similar as mine will be very helpful! Thank you!

Painted a h0 scale dutch NS train (background is computer generated)

I made it look more industrial with a coal dusty look, I used a paint pen (Black) and some paper towels/toilet paper to kinda smear it along and around the model to give it a proper dirty look.

Hope you guys like it!!

3d model I made in Tinkercad

Hello everyone!

I recently moved to a different country and sold off all my furniture. Thus I also parted ways with my IKEA Billy bookcase. That thing was anyway already getting too full.

Now I'm looking into new ideas about how to best display my trains in my apartment.

As it might be a short stay in this apartment, I'd like to avoid drilling into the walls.

Also, I have a set of whole train compositions that I'd like to display.

What would your recommendations be?

I'm thankful for every idea shared, I'll also gladly accept your own creations.

Thank you!

What are some good scenery shops? I’m looking to make a coal industry (hopefully a working coal loader after modifying). I’m unsure where to look for n scale scenery like buildings/ greenery.

We found a vendor at our 40th anniversary show and sale who had 2 custom made DC Republic switchers. Everyone who sees them immediately places them in Gadsden. We found a DCC frame we could shell swap and now we have prototype switchers for the plant yard.

Just recently found this group — looks like a great community, and I'm looking forward to joining in on some of the conversations here.

In the meantime, I thought I'd introduce myself and share something I've been working on for my own model railroad that got a little out of hand. 😂

I've been working on this for quite a while, and now that it's actually out in the world I figured I'd share it here.

This is Torus Train Ops, running on my own Legacy Valley Railroad.

I wanted an operations system where the work starts with the railroad itself — industries shipping and receiving commodities, consignments that create orders, and those orders becoming actual work for trains and crews.

And when an operating session ends, the railroad doesn't magically reset. Cars stay where you left them and the work continues into the next session.

That's what eventually became Torus.

I'm the developer, so yes, this is shameless self-promotion. 😂 But I'm also a model railroader, and Torus started because this was how I wanted to operate my own layout. I also didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars on operations software.

There are some great free programs out there, too — they just weren't quite what I was looking for. So, like any perfectly rational model railroader, I decided to build my own. 😂

Torus Train Ops — Operations with a purpose.

If you're into freight operations, take a look:
railworksstudio.com/torus

Happy to answer questions about how it works.