Tips, techniques and commentary from Master Model Railroader Tom Piccirillo
Some people say, “It’s all in the details.” This is certainly true for award-winning scale models. Models are submitted for judging at contests, and much of the “score” needed to win an award is derived by the clean installation and proper placement of details.
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Tips, techniques and commentary from Master Model Railroader Tom Piccirillo
In recent years, the most-exciting model railroad innovation has been in the field of electronic control. Micro-size components allow the installation of incredibly sophisticated circuits inside small-scale locomotives. These circuits not only allow individual control of trains on the same track, but also provide realistic sounds that emanate right from the locomotive itself. The resulting realism creates a whole new dimension to model railroading.
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Tom’s Corner
Tips, techniques and commentary from Master Model Railroader Tom Piccirillo
Model railroad track comes in a large assortment of lengths and curve radii. Even so, most track layouts still need some custom-sized pieces to fit together without kinks, and sections of flexible track need to have rails trimmed to length. Cutting track to size is usually required, and modelers find it difficult to cut the metal rail . . . unless they have the right tools, like the Xuron® 2175B and 2175M Track Cutters.
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Tom’s Corner
Tips, techniques and commentary from Master Model Railroader Tom Piccirillo
One of my favorite hobby activities is rebuilding old model railroad equipment that I have acquired over the years from friends, estate sales, and flea markets. I think it’s really cool to transform what appears to be a pile of junk into a high quality model. So, the time came to restore a beat-up O scale brass model of a Pennsylvania P54 coach that’s been in storage for about 35 years.
Tom’s Corner
Tips, techniques and commentary from Master Model Railroader Tom Piccirillo
Back in the 1960’s, when I was a teenager, I used to ride my bike several miles to view the annual model railroad show at the Central Jersey Model Railroad Club in Westfield, NJ. Although I liked watching the huge O scale steam and diesel locomotives hauling their heavy trains down the main line, I found myself highly fascinated by the operation of the model trolley cars that plied their way from one town to another on the layout . . . over, under, and around the main line tracks. I was hooked. Modeling O scale traction was to become my life-long passion. Collecting electric current from the wire suspended over the tracks in order to power the cars was the ultimate in realism, and I had to prove this could work in reliable fashion, even in model form.
