I have two motors from now "dead" trainset quality engines. Next weekend I am going to be making some signals and was wondering if it would be ok to use the thin wire from the motor as leads from the LEDs to the main power wire. It is only going to be 6 volts but still wanted to check. If not where can I get cheap thin wire?

I was bored in photoshop and saw KCS matches my name so here it is the new KCS:

I am looking for the artwork for the Allagash RR I have tried PMing mike but I know that it can be kind of iffy so I thought I would ask here to. I am looking for what would be needed for an F7 and info such as the font used. This is for the virtual train simulator Trainz and is for my personal use unless I get permission from mike to share the files.

I have been working on some custom painted engines for the game Trainz simulator. These are all made in photoshop and are my first attempts at using it (no joke) I think they turned out pretty good and will look even better when I eventually try them in game. 

MR&T boxcar

Metra F7

Well you know they say there is a prototype for everything and here it is an SP CAMERA CAR. This was used to film footage for simulators but hey it still had cameras!

I will be participating in two operating sessions at the NMRA midwest regional convention in april. The two layouts (not sure which two yet) are an HO and an O scale one. This is my first time ever attending one and I don't want to mess up to badly so what is some recommended reading I could use? I have read through the MRR operators columns and some in MRH but am looking for some other stuff to help, whether is be tidbits you have picked up yourself or other things I would greatly appreciate it. P.S.

So I was able to bring my equipment to a foreign road AKA our local club. The layout is huge, 60'x100' and it is a 25 roundtrip run I went twice and of course all these things went wrong...

-Trip pins were suddenly low

-Cars would stay

-Almost a corn field meet

-Followed by a car shoving derailment

-Suspicious shorting out possibly me...

-Eventually it ran nicely.

So what are your experiences with murphy's law in model railroading these should be interesting...

Here it is (I really should have taken progress photos) a small 1'x4' module. The scene includes an abandoned track by an old warehouse, three small shacks and of course two garden tracks with a turntable. This turntable took 3 separate designs eventually deciding on this one. The track is non powered and I will just push engines on it as it is more of a scenic than operational thing. Scenicking starts tomorrow and may be finished in the same time.

I have a HO DCS equipped engine that I am switching over to DCC. I would though like to keep the DCS decoder to use for sound only. The one problem I have is that it needs a Cam. So is there a way to turn that off? It would work much better for me as I am going to run the sound through a speaker separate from an engine one. I have tried emailing MTH but their are quite slow to reply so I may get an answer here first.

So I just thought of something kind of random but also thought provoking. For measuring train length is that with the coupler slack pushed in or pulled out? I know in some long trains this could make quite a difference so in the real world how is it done and also at the same time in your model world how do you measure it?