Two questions for those who either model European trains or who mix and match European and North American prototype equipment. First, for 1950s forward European prototypes, which manufacturer is better? Second, if you’re running mixed American and European equipment on your pike, do you standardize on micro trains (or compatible) couplers, or do you leave the Arnold Rapido style couplers be? what I want to do is intermix a later (1970s) DB IC/TEE consist and a D Trans Euro Nacht consist with my US HW and streamline trains. This would include German steam, and possibly a 103 class electric. -- John Perkowski BNSF (CB&Q) MP 9.6 Along the route of the Pioneer Zephyr Parkville, MO

Hello all, Please note: the following is a Groups.io procedure, and NOT anything to do with N-ScaleVarnish, other than that Groups.io hosts our group. My purpose in writing is to avoid losing any N-ScaleVarnish members due to Groups.io implementing this procedure. Also note: This applies ONLY to a small percentage of our membership, and those members should have received email from Groups.io- so please check your emails from Groups.io from the past couple weeks. I am writing to encourage those who have been notified by groups.io to "reverify" their accounts (a small percentage of N scale Varnish users) according to the procedure laid out in the emails they sent out a week ago. I am not clear on what criteria they used to select members for this process, or whether this was random. Many members who were notified have already completed the process. But a number have not, so please be aware that groups.io may suspend or revoke groups.io memberships as of Feb 11. The following is from the message I received as group Admin from groups.io: Here are the next steps in the reverification process: On Sunday, January 28th, group emails to people in the RI state will be disabled. Messages from moderators and login link emails will still work. Until February 11th, people will still be able to reverify themselves and the RI and RS badges will still show up in the Members page. After that, members still in the RI state will be removed from groups. The activity log entry will be Membership - Member Removed, with the added reason of reverification failed. If you happen to be reading this on the webpage, and did not receive it via email, please check your account to be sure your email is correct. While searching through to look for verifications, I could see that we have a number of members who's email accounts are "bouncing". Thanks! Tom Davis

Hi all! I've recently begun assembling some South Park Hobby kits of C&O cars that I stashed away for that 'someday', and become concerned when the skirt panel and details didn't line up with what I've found under the MRC/Rowa/ConCor cars I already had. This is a small detail to sweat, but since I have to apply the parts to the AM Ltd core kits, I might as well try. I've not been successful finding diagrams of virtually ANY underbody layouts, let alone the P-S cars, and hoped that someone here could shed a light on this for me, or direct me to such a diagram. Thanks! Steve

Hello all, If you get Rapido's newsletters, you probably already know this, but for the benefit of anyone who might be interested and unaware, Rapido is taking "conditional" pre-orders for a new run of their "Panorama" line of smoothside passenger cars. "Conditional" means that if they get enough pre-orders by July 17, they will produce 8 car sets, loosely based on various CN and Via trains, with the 1954 green-black scheme, 1960s white with "wet noodle" lettering, and VIA schemes represented. https://rapidotrains.com/n-scale/complete-train-78/rapido-ocean.html Most of the cars (coach, baggage, both sleepers) are based on cars from the 1954 orders for new equipment. The cafe-bar-lounge and Daynighter were rebuilt in the 1960s from some of the coaches. The club-galley car was originally built in the early 50s, but is modeled as it appeared after a rebuild in 1971. So, if modeling the Inter-City in 1954 scheme, the coaches and baggage are accurate to the time frame, the other cars are not, although they do resemble other cars that might appear in the consist. I have several examples of cars from the first run Rapido did 10-12 years ago. They are very nicely detailed. Given the amount of detail on the undersides, generous curves are recommended to avoid truck clearance issues. Also of note are kits for SP "economy" baggage cars from Wheels of Time. The prototypes were built in 1959. The cars, at 66' over end sills were a little shorter than most streamlined baggage cars. Rock Island had some similar cars, and some also served on Amtrak trains. The webpage says that pre-orders were supposed to close a couple months ago, but I note the pre-order button is still there. I would recommend contacting Wheels of Time on whether they are still taking orders and/or have some in stock. https://www.wheelsotime.com/sp-economy-baggage/ All the best, Tom D.

Fellow List Members, I'm pleased to announce that there is sufficient demand for Brass Car Sides to bring back into stock three of our most popular N-scale car side sets during our scheduled June etching run. Reservations from two HO and four N-scale modeler-customers and inventory needs form the nucleus for this etching run. The side sets listed below will be available in late June at the indicated prices, which only partially reflect the 16% etching cost increase and minimum annual order requirements that have been imposed on us in 2023. HO 173-52 Milw Road Baggage-Express $52.00 HO 173-57 Milw Road 75' Baggage-Dorm $52.00 HO 173-58 Milw Road "Touralux" sleeper $48.00 HO 173-79 Milw Road 85' Baggage-Dorm $52.00 N 173-524 NP Budd Dome sleeper $32.00 N 173-527 GN Great Dome "View" lounge $32.00 In addition we will again be producing the #173-82 HO and #173-582 N-scale L&N Heavyweight Modernized Coach sides for the L&NHS to sell. More detailed descriptions of these side sets and their use in modeling their distinctive prototypes are available at www.brasscarsides.com. Photos of completed cars built by members of this list and by other modelers are also available there. As I have for many years (now 46), I invite your orders or reservations for the returning side sets as well as those that are in stock or that could be a part of this scheduled etching run, which will be finalized on May 30. More information is available at www.brasscarsides.com and in the latest version of our Bulletin at http://www.brasscarsides.com/BULLETIN.pdf. Feel free to send me your questions off-list. Thank you. Dennis Henry Brass Car Sides

If you model N, and you want the KATO 11 car 1955 UP City of Los Angeles, Midwest Model Railroad of Lee’s Summit Missouri is offering it for 205. That’s 18 per car. I bought my set yesterday. I’m revising my retirement layout. Two 4x8s. One cut in two, 1/2 will be the coach yard and the other will be the terminal. The main 4x8 will be double track with passing track. -- John Perkowski BNSF (CB&Q) MP 9.6 Along the route of the Pioneer Zephyr Parkville, MO

Just to let you know, we at Union Station Products have just introduced 3D printed N scale core kits for Pullman Standard, American Car Foundry and Budd. You can see them on the Core Kits page at unionstationproducts.com. Thanks. Mark Meeks, USP

I’m contemplating buying some Fleischmann N scale equipment: a steam locomotive, A diesel, and several passenger cars. Fleischmann still uses Rapido couplers. Has anyone converted Fleischmann equipment from Rapido to microscale? How much of a process is it? as a second question, are Kato cars/couplers and Micro-scale cars/couplers compatible? I’d like to Be able to make up a city of St. Louis or a Los Angeles Limited from the cars in my coach yard. Thank you, all -- John Perkowski BNSF (CB&Q) MP 9.6 Along the route of the Pioneer Zephyr Parkville, MO

Like so many N-scale modelers, I have an out-of-the box Kato Daylight 18-car trainset in my collection, even though it is way too long to realistically operate on my small bedroom layout. After working on N-scale stock cars for several months, my mind is back on passenger cars; particularly those for the T&NO’s Sunbeam, but those brought to mind a couple of ways to individualize the Kato’s Daylight train sets too: The articulated diner-kitchen-coffee shop in the Kato set is the 1939 version with a single door centered on the kitchen-side of its kitchen car. The cars constructed in 1941 had three doors as shown in plans and elevations for them on page 399 of Richard K. Wright’s Daylight book. The coffee shop-tavern lounge cars constructed for the 1937 Daylight proved to be a problematic bottleneck for passengers preferring to eat in the dining car and after both were wrecked they were converted into full tavern-lounge cars, but with only six windows per side instead of four. These cars then became relief cars for the regular tavern-lounge cars. Plans and elevations for the original coffee shop-tavern lounge cars, which will give one an idea of what a six window tavern-lounge car looked like, are on page 407 of Richard K. Wrights book. Their interiors were similar to those of the Kato tavern cars, but since tavern car windows had blinds which were closed during operation, it would be difficult to tell if there were, anyway. It’s not all that difficult to remove the sides from Kato Daylight cars using the method described by Robert Diepenbrock in his 2010 article in N Scale Railroading, but I’ve found that using an Exacto boxcutter knife works better for separating the sides from the subroof of the car because its thicker, stiffer blade isn’t prone to wander as much as a #11 blade. Once that’s done, they can be replaced by sides made by Union Station Products. Happy Rails, ~Diane Sent from Mail for Windows

I added a few pictures of some Wabash cars I decorated (stock bodies) in a folder called (unsurprisingly) "Wabash" Link to Pullman Dorchester Link to Baggage 346 Link to Cafe-Lounge 1565 Pullman and Cafe-Lounge are Micro-Trains cars. The Baggage is from Wheels of Time. All were painted with Tru-Color TCP-352 Wabash blue, and lettered with Gary Roe decals. The "WABASH" roadname and "PULLMAN" in the letterboard were placed one letter at a time to correct the spacing. The name DORCHESTER was pieced together from other words on the decal sheet D - OR - CH - ESTER

Did rapido ever produce the 9 window version (larger restroom version) in N? Trying to make a O-B combine (SAL 285/6) they were down up in L&N blue/gray for the Gulfwind

anybody have one of these they would be willing to part with... looks like I lost out on getting one from Skytop Models, just my luck is there anyone else out there that made them?

I figure that some of you may have layout focused on the steam-diesel transition era and finally tracked down a source of "kits" for appropriate vehicles for my own. Brian Fedoroff has an incredible line of hollow, resin cast vehicles and they're only $4 each. You can view them by searching for Rasputen on Trainboard or by emailing him at Bfedoroff@... and asking him for a current pdf catalog. Has such classics as Packards, Studebakers, and Nashes as well as Chrysler, GM and FMC models. As far as I can tell the most difficult part of making them is painting the chrome trim. I'll soon find out if my hand is still steady enough to do that. Happy Rails and Trails, ~Diane