I wrote this post to break down exactly how I built the last section of benchwork for phase 1 of my model railroad. Many of the visitors to this blog are often searching for “how to” do various things so I purposely broke this down into extreme detail in hopes of helping answer whatever [...]

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Do you have a compelling story to share about your experiences with building model trains and want to share with others?
Looking at the site analytics over the last few weeks has demonstrated that many people come here to find examples of how to do various things like wiring, bench work, and scenery.
If you already have [...]

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During the Holiday slowdown I thought it would be interesting to show you some of the tools that I use to build bench work. Since I also spend quite a bit of time during the warmer months wood working, I tend to have more and better tools then the average home owner. Things [...]

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Since my recent Lasik surgery, I have had to avoid dust which means that bench work construction went on hold. I recently picked up some foam core board from Michael’s and the holiday break gave me some time to mock-up some up the buildings in my town area including the sawmill [...]

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I did a quick little inventory this evening to see count how many I have collected over the years. I have been collecting various Model Railroad magazines since 1986 but I do not have a complete set. The most prevalent magazine is Model Railroader:

1980’s – Various for a total of 19
1988 – Complete
1989 [...]

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This weekend I was able to make some progress on the backdrops. I use 1/8″ hardboard. I have found that the product carried at my local Lowes is no where near as flexible as the product carried at Home Depot. The Lowe’s product is tempered on both sides and the HD product [...]

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This article will describe how I install Tortoise machines and the Switch-It decoder so that I can control turnouts from the same DCC hand held controller that I use to control the engines.
The switch machine moves the switch turnout by level action through the roadbed with piano wire. The first step is to mark [...]

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I typically use something like a 14 AWG wire to carry the electrical current from the Digital Command Control (DCC) system throughout the train layout. The DCC systems frequently output 2-5 amps of 18 volt or so AC and the heavy wire is necessary to prevent the power from dropping after a few feet [...]

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