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I bought my first structure kit about three years ago because I needed something to put next to my intermodal yard. Grabbed a Walthers Cornerstone warehouse, slapped it together in an evening, and thought I was done. Spoiler: I wasn't. The roof was too tall for my overpass, the walls glowed like a h …

I'll admit something up front: I model the Soo Line in HO scale. My benchwork, my trackwork, my rolling stock-all HO. But when a friend asked me to help weather his N scale fleet last winter, I learned a humbling lesson. Everything I knew about weathering needed recalibration. The margin for error a …

I spent 28 years fixing trains for the CTA, and if there's one thing that experience taught me, it's this: you don't need fancy equipment to do good work. You need the right materials, the right technique, and enough sense not to skip the boring steps that actually matter. N scale scenery works the …

I've built four model railroad layouts since retiring from construction in 2018, and if there's one question I hear more than any other at club meetings, it's this: should I stick with HO or switch to N scale for better detail in a smaller space? After 40 years of measuring twice and cutting once, …

I built my first HO scale structure in 1991. It was a Walthers depot, and I managed to glue the roof on crooked, fog every window with superglue fumes, and create a building that looked like it had survived a minor earthquake. The thing sat on my shelf for three months before I finally stripped it a …

I'll be honest with you: when I made the jump into model railroading, I spent way too much time reading forum arguments about whether N scale or HO scale was "better." Six years and one completed layout later, I can tell you that question misses the point entirely. The real question is what you want …