Yep. I too have nostalgia for the neighborhood hobbyshop. I also have nostalgia for premium leaded gasoline, 427 cubic inch grocery getters, tube amplifiers, GP30s, 4-8-4s, Pullman cars, manned spacef

I dunno. I've got a couple thousand sunk into their business. I don't have any say in what they do or how they do it, but what they do and how they do it does affect me. Andy

Ah yes, the middle aged re-entry... I think that is the case for many, but I've never been out of the hobby. Not even when I should have been. Yep, I was playing with trains when I should have been pl

I will use Scalecoat every time as long as the color is available. I was an exclusive Floquil guy for many years, but gradually changed over. The problem I have now with Floquil is that they have chan

Last night I supervised my wife painting a resin tank car white - with Scalecoat II. It's only the second thing she has ever airbrushed, model-wise. Didn't have to worry too much about coverage since

When I painted almost exclusively with Floquil, I often would decal right onto the flat surface. Using Solvaset I usually got away with it too. I eventually went with the Microscale system using their

I think Athearn got it right on their first run of Genesis F units. Everything else looks too green. Andy

I found that out the hard way when I painted one side of a passenger car and then did the other side and ends later and grabbed a different bottle. Take a look where the end and side meet: http://www.

I've always thought it slightly odd that no other road built a 4-8-8-4. I suppose had steam ruled for another decade, someone would have built one. Which may have caused it to have another name. Or ma

I do have a few unbuilt Sunshine kits that I probably will never use and that I would like to sell. I guess I should include this caveat in my auction listing..... Andy

Well if he doesn't track sales, and individually serialize the kits, how would he know the person is or is not the original purchaser unless he says so? All of my Sunshine kits were purchased direct a

I never buy anything as a "collector" although sometimes they end up that way. Many Sunshine kits are out of my era, but I like them too much to part with them. As to whether they've been opened or no

The same thing I do when I encounter any incomplete or inaccurate decals... improvise. One thing I'm running into is rebuildings which change capacities and I'm finding NO decals with the correct labe

I coat all my decals with Microscale Decal Film before I start cutting. I've been doing this habitually with MS decals since the 1980s when they made the decal film product available. Any decal that c

Best to reach me andy@... for personal mail. This email I use only for stmfc and bbfcl which I read frequently but it's possible I could miss a personal email. Andy

I've been waiting 7(?) years for a replacement roof for the piece of bacon that came with my NYC/Rutland baggage car. Andy

I have installed them on a few cars, they look great but take some getting used to. The self-centering mounting system is sort of a built-in suspension. It doesn't play nice with other mechanisms like

I ended up with a grand total of two... the Wabash box car and the N&W gondola. I was just thumbing through his ebay (completed) listings... I could have used that P&WV postwar box car but oh well. I

Has anyone installed code 88 wheels in these yet? I was looking at the Reboxx web site and they recommended a 1.115" axle length for the older Kadee trucks. I tried them in a pair of the new A3s and t

I couldn't have said it better... the things were extremely tedious to put together but well worth the effort in the end. This can still be quite effective as Rail Yard Models has done on their kits.