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    minimum radius for body mounted couplers?

    This has probably been asked many times, but I can't seem to find a straight answer... what is the minimum radius required to use body mounted MT couplers? I currently have 11" mainline radius and Atlas standard turnouts (I think that's equivalent to #4). I'd hate to convert all my cars to body...
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    N scale bricks?

    bricks update Thanks everyone for the tips - I finally succumbed and bought some N-scale brick patterned plastic sheets from Plastruct. They didn't look very convincing unpainted, but with paint and weathering they look great. Unfortunately, they were also kind of pricey - at $8 for two rather...
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    N scale bricks?

    Hi, What do you use for bricks in N-scale? At first, I tried to make a master pattern by scribing bricks in Hydrocal and making a mould - it worked, sort of, but it was a nightmare to get the bricks reasonably to scale and regular. Then I tried to print brick patterns on a colour laser, with...
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    advice on unimates

    I'm thinking of replacing my Rapidos with knuckle couplers but MT couplers are pricey and seem tricky to install, plus I don't need automatic uncoupling anyway. Unimates seem like reasonable option and easy to install, but I don't know much about them. Does anyone have experience with them? ease...
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    New be Flytox

    Forget about feet and inches. With metric, it couldn't be easier. Assuming you have a calculator, it's simple. Just divide any real-world measures (in meters for example) by 87, and you get the model length in HO, also in meters. Multiply the result by 100 to get cm, by 1000 to get mm. 1m...
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    noob in need of help

    It's true that Bachmann's standard line - such as your trainset - is pretty poor quality. But Bachmann unfairly gets a lot of flak for their trainset stuff when the truth is that their Spectrum line - at least the steam locos - beats the competition hands down both in price *and* quality, and...
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    Has anyone tried this? concept for a modular layout

    Zman, that sounds really interesting. Do you have any track plans or photos you could post?
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    Has anyone tried this? concept for a modular layout

    Thanks for the comments and links. Ian Wilson's ideas are very much along the same lines as mine, although I'd stick to one scale rather than use several, as he planned to. Even though I'm not seeking to model a particular prototype faithfully, or have the same ambition in terms of realism, I do...
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    Has anyone tried this? concept for a modular layout

    I just got started in the hobby and right now I'm building a small (2x5) layout just to get some practice with design and construction. I like the idea of a small, easy-to-finish layout, but it's also clear that a larger one would provide more interest and realism in the long run. So while I...
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    kato,atlas,life- like?

    As a relative newcomer to the hobby, I find it baffling that people keep going on and on about how terrible Life-Like and Bachmann are, particularly when these people don't seem to have tried any recent products from these companies. It may be true that not all their stuff is great - I have a...
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