Peter's Model Railroading | My Library | Magazine Authors
Magazine Articles By David Popp

2002 NMRA National Model Contest Winners

Photos of the contest winners' models are shown, including Marcelo Lordeiro of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for his S-scale meter-gauge Sao Paulo Railway 2-6-0.

A Fistful of Details

Adding people, business marketing signs, street signs, backyard details, and products of industry.

A Sound Victory

Broadway Limited Imports' HO scale sound-equipped Norfolk & Western class A 2-6-6-4 wins product of the year. S-scale rolling stock was won by River Raisin Models' troop sleepers and kitchen cars. Southwind Models won the S-scale locomotives category with its brass version of Baltimore & Ohio's class EM-1 2-8-8-4 steam locomotive.

ABC's of Painting and Lettering

Prepare before buying, preparation and priming, couplers and trucks, using spray cans, airbrushing passenger cars, airbrushing cabooses, apply decals.

Basics of Kitbashing Plastic Structures

Step-by-step instructions on kitbashing a structures. Subtopics are: Surveying the site, cleaning and cutting walls, assembling walls, roof and painting, roof details, and final details.

Build a Better Bridge

The author scratchbuilds a through-girder bridge. The article has step-by-step photos, prototype photo, and diagrams.

Conifers for All Occasions

The author shows how he builds conifer trees.

Easy Street, Paved with Styrene

Creating roadways from 0.040" styrene. Article includes step-by-step instructions and photos on cutting and scoring the styrene, installing the streets and shoulders, painting, and finishing the scene.

Great Operation: Expert Advice

Techniques the Model Railroader staff employs to maintain great operations. Covers smooth roadbed, trackplanning, wiring, coupler standards, leveling benchwork, keeping freight car rolling smoothly, planning for access, ballasting turnouts, and tuning commercial turnouts.

Guess Your Height and Weight?

Using a workbench board, the article describes how to quickly determine what a car show weigh according to NMRA standards. Adding a Kadee coupler can be used to check the car's coupler height and a wheel gauge can be used to check the wheels.

Layout Planning Fundamentals

This introductory article covers how to design your own trackplan. It discusses dealing with curve minimums, turnouts, track centers, grades, clearance, and using templates.

Layouts Should Be Seen and Heard!

This article covers self-contained sound systems, sound-effect CDs, interactive sound modules, under-layout sound decoders,

Magnetic, Movable Maps

The author describes how he prints a town's track map, inserts it into a plastic picture frame and attaches it to the layout's fascia. He also describes an idea by Gerry Leone to glue a magnet to the picture frame, and a metal washer to the layout's fascia, so that the map is removable.

Make Night-time Switching Simple

Glue a wooden skewer to an LED flashlight to light up the area between two cars for easy uncoupling.

Make Your Track Realistic

This step-by-step article covers painting rails and ties, cleaning rail, painting the scenery base, adding ballast, final clean-up and weathering

Mirror, Mirror on the Layout

Using a mirror and the correct positioning of lights to make a track and scenery appear to continue beyond the wall.

Modeling Foreground Trees

Creating realistic scale trees using a Super Tree starter kit from Scenic Express. The author describes his step-by-step process to preparing, soaking, painting, and adding foliage to these trees.

Moving Freight and Making Names

The article introduces the concept of operations and how to get started in it. It covers mapping your railroad, industrial analysis, starting with a switch list, car cards and waybills, and boxes and shelves in which to store these car cards and waybills.

National Model Contest Winners

Some photos of the winners of the 2004 NMRA convention's contest room, which includes Ken Ehlers' Sn3 scratchbuilt D&RGW passenger car and caboose.

Operating Gates of Industrial Spurs

A brief description of a diagram that shows how to using a fascia-mounted push-pull knob to open and close gates on a spur.

Putting Together a Station Scene

The author shows how to build a small passenger station and position it on the layout (on curved track). Includes step-by-step photos.

Seamless Removable Scenery

Using a strip of fabric to hide the seam of a piece of removable scenery (to access hidden tracks, for example).

Simple Rotating Signs

This one-page drawing shows how to model a slow rotation gas station sign using a Hankscraft 1rpm motor.

Steam is Still King!

Readers' Choice Awards for 2002. Broadway Limited's HO-scale sound-equipped New York Central 4-6-4 Hudson took the top prize. For S-scale S-Helper Service's F7 and Lehigh Valley 55-ton two-bay composite hopper took first place in each category.

Styrene Backdrops and Easy Clouds

The article covers working with styrene, creating a free-standing styrene backdrop, framing a styrene backdrop, and painting clouds with an airbrush.

Threading the Needle

Using a straw to guide track feeders through layers of insulation foam.