The strangest thing is happening on my track. My loco slightly shudders/hesitates intermittently when heading south on my layout at higher speeds, but not north bound. If I turn the loco around facing the other way, it still hesitates heading south, but not northbound. So It seems there is nothing wrong with the loco. 

My next test will be to reverse the lead wires to the track to see if it changes the shuddering to the north bound direction... will try this tomorrow. 

Has anyone ever replicated the look of 4' fluorescent lights commonly used in businesses? I've been trying to come up with a way to allow light through a translucent cover and then have two/four brighter strips of light showing. I've been working with various masks but it just ends up creating shadows. The best I can come up with is a milky white rectangle with slots cut in them. This is for the full LED to come through. Then have another translucent cover over all of that.

I just came across an old turn table that I had stored away and forgotten about. It is the Rivarossi 5104 model and is complete with pit, bridge and control box. The control box is wired into the bridge but I can't figure out how to wire the control box to a power supply and whether the required power is fixed AC or fixed DC from the power pack.

Internet searches have proved useless. References to an article in Model Railroader, Jan.1980, keep popping up but it relates to modifying the track wiring not to initial hook up.

I read with great interest the excellent beginner’s Arduino tutorial by Dr. Geoff Bunza.   See: http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/17244  I decided to experiment.

First, I found 10 Arduino Pro Minis (5 volt) in China for $20.10 delivered to my door.  For $2.01 each, I’ll let a few take one for the team while I learn.