I recently acquired and assembled an old Eastern Car Works kit of an Osgood-Bradley coach. I was reminded of these coaches when Rapido recently produced them in their line. However, …

I have an idea for creating an AI dispatcher for my model railroad. One I could call on a phone and get a voice response back. It doesn’t seem that …

Here is another vintage painted sign for my model railroad, this time for a winery. It’s a paper decal that I sanded so that it was thin enough to show …

There’s a section of my railroad that will be a big city reminiscent of San Francisco. As I was thinking about what I wanted to include and it dawned on …

Some of us get obsessed with small variations. I’m one of those people. When I was a kid, I noticed things. Two Märklin gondolas, one had a grey interior, the …

When I was a kid, one of my favorite outings with my dad was visiting Franciscan Hobbies. Back in the 1960s and 70s it was tucked into an old 1920s …

I grew up with my dad’s model railroad. It was classic. Tracks on a flat table, loops within loops. Neat but predictable. But when I was ten, I discovered John …

Grew up with trains. Not the real kind, though. Not at first. There’s a photo of me at age one, playing with a push train on the floor. Brio-style. Plastic …

I grew up with toy trains. My dad started his first layout when I was three, and by the time I had memories, trains were in my blood. His early …

When I built the Redwoods and Pacific, I made sure to add plenty of bridges. This deck truss bridge is my favorite. It spans a deep canyon, floor to ceiling. …

In this 4 minute video I show how I built a ferry slip headwork for my Redwoods and Pacific Railroad. Even though the tracks of the ferry slip end at a …

This past year, I tried something new. Making paper ghost signs for buildings on my model railroad. It worked better than I expected. One sign in particular stood out. The …

When I was three, my dad got his first model railroad. Märklin. The legendary German brand. His collection started with an express steam engine, some passenger cars, and a few …

When I built the floor-to-ceiling canyon on the HO-scale Redwoods and Railroad in 1997, I had some friends come over and help apply the plaster. To make the canyon, I …

In the summer I go fishing at Crissy Field at least once a week and I often think about some of the fascinating history of the field. During WWII the …

I had mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to create a balcony for one of my small buildings. I’m happy to report I’m almost all the way there. …

In the late ’80s, I painted a series of large backdrops using Bill Alexander’s wet-on-wet oil painting technique. I’d watched his PBS show in the late ’70s and still had …

Weathering freight cars can be done in many ways. Some folks swear by spray paints. But I prefer pastel chalks in earth tones. Why? Gives more control. You can add …

I’m building an old west town for my model railroad. The inspiration? Virginia City. Unlike the high desert of Nevada, my town will sit in a ravine surrounded by pine …

A couple of years ago I gave live streaming a try. I used Switcher Studio. It’s a solid tool for live streams, but it’s pricey. What I liked: you can …

I’ve got a 10-car train of beet gondolas. The kind Southern Pacific used to haul sugar beets across the system, especially in California. HO scale beet cars are out there, …

During the spring and summer I fish for halibut at Crissy Field beach at least once a week. Over the years I’ve caught some nice fish there up to 12 …

For as long as I can remember, we’ve had a train around the tree. Growing up, it was my dad’s Märklin set. Turnouts. Signals. Fully automated. Now I’ve got my …

Building a mountain railroad means building bridges. A lot of them. I haven’t counted recently, but there are over 20 on my layout. Each one different. The biggest is Summit …

There are so many ways that ChatGPT and LLMs (Large Language Models) can aid creativity, and I found one more way. I’ve been wanting to recreate Southern Pacific’s club lounge …