There is another maker of passenger trucks, P.I.A. which I think stands for Precision international, or something like that. I think they were produced by PFM. They were plastic and much more durable,

For years the brass builders in HOn3 were putting out RPO cars with incorrect outside clasp passenger trucks. Offhand, I can think of Key, PFM, Balboa or Custom Brass and maybe others were doing this.

I have 316 and 319, both professionally painted (one by Jerry Spoelma). I suspected that the tender shell could be removed with a single edge razor, but no way was I going to compromise that work (the

Some sad news about Dave Garcia. You can read below. Dave had told me long ago that he had a lot of Rio Grande archive material. Does anyone know if he had donated or otherwise gotten it into one of t

I have a green boiler #455 with the original cab + sound and original box. It was test run only (I have four brass K-27s;the Blackstone was an impulse purchase). $250 plus shipping. Jim

I have a pair of the Key C-18 late runs with the sprung drivers. Both have Namiki motors, a slower running version of a coreless motor. But I don't know whether they are original to that run. Now I'm

After using Homosote previously, I switched to 2” extruded styrene foam panels available in 4 x 8 sizes. I bond it to thin plywood door skin panels also 4x8 using a water based construction adhesive (

I remember 410 M as being the first paint available in a spray can.

I, too, have a pair of unpainted DL-535s. Like the two in the photo painted Rio Grande, I bought mine with the same idea: to make them what-might-have-been Rio Grande. I also have a pair of "shovelnos

Whoops, I discovered my Micro Tsunami (TSU 750) is actually a K-Class. But here is a website that seems to offer the whole suite of TSU-750s: yankeedabbler.com I checked and their website shows the D&

I have a C-class Micro Tsunami, if that is what you are looking for. I will sell if for about $75, what I paid for it, plus postage. Let me know. jim

John, thank you for the info. The kit contained a History In Brief which noted: “1,700 Vandyke class V 6,500 gallon frameless tank cars were built during the years 1908, 09, 10, 11, & 12. These cars w

I have built a dozen or more of the PSC HOn3 kits and have one of the standard gauge unbuilt kits. I could see no difference whatsoever between the two. My standard gauge kit came with set of plastic

For those of you who suffer with humidity concerns along with temperature concerns, there is the option of closed cell foam (pink or blue foam) as a structural material. This would substitute for wood

Someone told me that the new Division Point K-36s and K-37s come already wired for DCC and sound. Is this the case? I couldn't find any evidence on the DP site, though I see that some of the upcoming

Another option if you already use DCC and DecoderPro is to input each loco into the roster. It includes columns for the loco number, railroad, owner, builder, and other criteria.

Thank you for clarifying the boiler diameter issue. My fellow members at the Slim Gauge Guild agree as well. So I stand corrected! On my original comparison of the 3 “good” K-28s (PSC, DP and Westside

I’ll go back and check. But my recollection of the folio sheet is it showed the boiler plus the lagging.

Though this is an HOn3 site, since it was brought up, here is what I know about these NJ Brass M-67/78 models: They have two serious discrepancies: 1) the cylinders are too short, and 2) the tender is

Mick, I happen to own both a 1994 PSC K-28 and a couple of the Westside K-28s. While I agree that the detail on the PSC is much greater (brake shoes, for instance), I think the Westside is little more