News: Web Site Changes

Phil Scandura shares photos of his previous L-shaped shelf layout as well as a track plan, and a track plan for the current around-the-room layout he is building.

• previous layout
• current layout

Jeff Madden sent in a number of photos taken at the 2023 NASG Convention that were not covered by the other photographers.

• view page

The How-to section's scale couplers page has been updated to include information about the new Inventive Models brass couplers.

• view page

The following were added as we did not have photos of these items:

Jamie Bothwell sent in photos of three Exacta Scale Models heavyweight passenger cars. These were scale model metal kits made in 1947.

Lindsey Neas provides photos of the Coronado Scale Models archbar brass trucks.

Exacta Scale Models Passenger Cars

Coronado Scale Models Truck

The Train Sets category of the Product Gallery section of this web site has been completely revised, and significantly updated. Thorough research went into trying to find all train sets ever made in S over the decades. If any are missing, please contact the webmaster. Update: all of the known S-Helper Service train sets have been added, and photos of those sets have been included, where found.

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The public version of the September/October 2022 issue of the NASG's Dispatch is now available. Also, the members-only issue of the September/October 2023 Dispatch PDF can now be downloaded via the "Members Only" portal.

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NASG Librarian, Dale Minard, has updated the two magazine articles' index spreadsheet files, with magazines covering up through July 31, 2023 published issues.

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As the webmaster, I wish to publicly thank the NASG Board of Trustees for recently approving the funding to allow me to upgrade the NASG's web hosting package so that we now have unlimited storage space on the server for this web site. Before today, we were limited to 10GB, and we were approaching that number.

If you are enjoying this web site, may I encourage you to join the NASG (or renew your membership), as a small portion of the membership's annual fee goes toward funding this web site and cover some of my time spent maintaining this site.

We currently have over 35,000 photos, almost 51,000 web pages, over 550 PDF files, 80+ documents, and 12 videos on this site. Now, there's room for more!

Willy provides details about his Ulster and Delaware Railroad set in the early 1900s.

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The main Events page was redesigned as some of the text didn't fit correctly on smaller mobile devices.

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I have mentioned this in the past, but want to remind everyone about this. If you have a micro business, a home-based business, or you have simply created something that you are willing to produce for other modelers for a fee, but you don't want to go through the time and expense of setting up a web site, an Etsy, eBay, or Shapeways store, or take out expensive magazine ads, please contact me, Peter Vanvliet, the webmaster. The NASG is about bringing modelers and manufacturers together. If you have one or more items for sale, and can compose a listing (preferably in a digital file, but an e-mail is fine too) and provide info about how to order said items from you (including methods of payments you are able to take), then send me that info, and I will be glad to compose a PDF file to make available on this NASG web site (PDF is a file format that is viewable by any device that can connect to the Web), for others to be able to see what you have available. You will be listed in the "Resources" section of this web site. Updates to your listing can be made at any time.
Start an e-mail message.

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As you may recall, the NMRA's S Scale SIG became effectively dormant some time in 2018. The site's forum was closed down in 2021. In October 2022, the NASG webmaster, Peter Vanvliet, contacted the S Scale SIG's leadership team to see if they would be OK with their site's content being moved over to the NASG's web site, as there was talk of closing down the SIG's web site altogether. The SIG's leadership team unanimously voted to approve that, and their webmaster, Chris Borgmeyer, graciously extended the web hosting services for one more year to give me time to copy the content over. That task has now been completed, copying over their articles, their S Scale SIG Journal, and their S Scale SIG Newsletters. Basically, all of their unique content (manufacturers listings, etc., which we have on the NASG web site already, were not copied over). While the content for some of the articles may be a bit dated, there is still plenty of useful information there, that we just didn't want to see disappear forever. You can follow the link below, or go to the "Resources" section of this web site, and then click on the "The Former S Scale SIG" link.

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A while back I revised the main page of the Resources section. Sometimes, one has to "live with it for while" to see if the revised design "works". Well, I found it way too busy, so the page has been revised to significantly reduce the "clutter". All of the content is still there, with some of it moved to sub-pages of that section.

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The public version of the July/August 2022 issue of the NASG's Dispatch is now available. Also, the members-only issue of the July/August 2023 Dispatch PDF can now be downloaded via the "Members Only" portal.

Update: This news entry was added yesterday, but I had forgotten to make Steve Monson's supplemental image file available for downloading via the "Members Only" portal. This is referenced in Steve's Dairy Queen article in the July/August 2023 issue.

As an aside, the look of the Members Only page for downloading the most recent Dispatch files and the page for downloading the NASG BOT meeting notes, have been revised to make it more intuitive to download the file or files that you wish to access. These pages now also remember which files you have already asked for, should you return to those pages later within the same web browser session.

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Tony Dixon provides photos and a bit of a backstory on his kitbashing of HO-scale Plymouth MDT industrial switchers. See the very bottom of the linked-to page.

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Several new layouts have been added to the "Layouts" section.

First, a YouTube video of a beautiful Lionel-based Christmas layout from this past Christmas by Mary Roberts. They moved to a larger home, and so they also upgraded their typical HO-scale Christmas layout to Lionel S.

Jim Martin provided the missing lower level track plan of Paul Raham's layout. He took photos of Paul's layout, which are planned for an upcoming NASG Dispatch issue. When that issue comes out, we will also show those (and perhaps additional photos) on this web site.

Stephen Vaughan provided information about his still-under-construction layout. It is an around-the-basement shelf-style switching layout. Photos are forthcoming.

• Mary Roberts Christmas Layout
• Paul Raham Track Plan
• Stephen Vaughan Layout Info

Chris Crnich, NASG Company Store manager, reports that he has received a shipment of shirts that were on backorder, so those can now be ordered via the web site.

Additionally, by request, some of the shirts are now available in 3XL, 4XL, and 5XL.

And, Chris has added a new Cloud Blue Twill Dress Shirt to the Company Store (see photo). These long-sleeve dress shirts are perfect for any special occasion.

The shirts page has been improved by allowing you click on most of the photos and see a much larger version of the shirt, so you can better inspect them.

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Mike Warman provided a few photos taken on Alvin Clapp's layout.

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Steven Allen provides missing photos of an S-Helper Service CGW box car. There were several versions of these CGW cars made with different road numbers. We are still looking for information and photos on those, if you happen to have those. There was contradictory information in the official SHS records, so we are looking for photographic proof of what was actually produced.

• SHS CGW Steel-rebuilt Box Car

John Degnan provided missing photos of the S-Helper Service undecorated F3 A-B set.

• SHS F3 Undecorated Set

NASG Company Store manager, Chris Crnich, has in stock beautiful NASG logo laser-engraved mugs available for shipping today. These are solid, easy-to-hold mugs for your hot beverage. Order two, for a discount.

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The NASG's Annual Member Car committee is excited to announce this year's car. It is the St. Lawrence Starch Company Limited (SLAX) single-dome tank car, available with two road numbers, and in either scale or hi-rail versions. The cars will be manufactured by American Models. You can pre-order them now to reserve yours. We have not yet received a due-date from American Models nor a pre-production photo. Prototype information and prototype photos are available via the page linked here.
Update: American Models is hoping to have these cars ready for the 2023 NASG Convention in late July.

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Jim shares photos and some construction information about his 18" x 30" diorama that is still a work in progress.

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Bill Lane provided photos of the Southern Railway passengers cars produced by American Models, which were missing from this web site.

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Having conversed with others who maintain web sites for other people, it is a common theme that these "webmasters" forget to update their own information or sites. Having just reviewed what I have showing for my own module, I realized its last photo was very out-of-date. I have added a couple of photos and their descriptions of the now completed coal mine tipple building. This is just for the building itself; the module is currently receiving the typical scenery base treatment (cardboard webbing, etc.). The main tipple building was my active project for just under three years, and I'm excited that it is finally finished.

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Austin Birkey has a great YouTube channel featuring this adventures in A.C. Gilbert trains and layouts. He sent in information and photos of his layout, which have been added to his page layout page on this web site.

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The NASG, Inc. now has its own official PayPal account. For the past 8+ years we have been using the NASG webmaster's Fourth Ray Software PayPal account to facilitate the online transactions. From now on, when you make an online purchase via this web site, you will be interacting with the new NASG PayPal account. As the webmaster, I will continue to process all orders as before.

Dan Vandermause has recently moved, and is working on a new S-scale layout. He actually built the first sections of the layout in his previous home in preparation for the move. Dan's new layout is a switching layout focusing on passenger train movements. He shares with us a few early construction photos.

• view the page

Tom and his wife recently set up their temporary Easter-themed layout at a local train show, and he shares a few photos with us.

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The digital PDF file of the May/June 2023 Dispatch issue is now available on this web site via the "Members Only" portal. Also, the May/June 2022 Dispatch issue is now publicly available (its articles have also been indexed).

• view Dispatch issues

While most modelers just want to enjoy our hobby, we would like for you to consider helping those of us out who are committing personal time to marketing S as a continued viable scale. ScaleTrains announcing their first two cars in their "S-Helper Service" brand name is helping us with boosting our scale. American Models is still very much alive and working hard to supply our needs. Lionel continues to make products available in S. So, we now have three "big players" in the field. P-B-L is back at producing a new Sn3 engine, and Portland Locomotive Works routinely makes Sn2 and even Sn3 cars and structure kits available. Additionally, there has been a good-sized influx of smaller manufacturers making some or all of their structure kits available in S-scale recently. The main-streaming of 3D-printing has made a large amount of new product available in S that we could have only dreamed of as recent as just a few years ago. We now have literally thousands of S-scale figures available!

So, while a number of us are actively working on the promotion of S, we need your help in creating content for us to "consume". It is said, "A picture is worth a thousand words", so we are looking, first and foremost, for photos. If you have a spare moment in your day and you have a camera (including cellphone or tablet) handy, take a photo of a project on your workbench, a new item you just bought, a progress photo of a scene on your layout, a close-up photo of a completed scene on your layout or module, or your club's recent train show layout. Pretty much anything is just about fair-game, so long as it is S. Then, send your photo to one or more of the following...

a) NASG Dispatch editor Dan Dawdy (nasg@modelrailroadresource.com). He needs photos for the Dispatch cover, and possibly multiple photos for an article that you think others might enjoy (associate editors are available to help you draft an article, and photos can be enhanced). Note that the Dispatch needs A.F., hi-rail, scale, Sn3, Sn2, and Sn42 photos. A product review short article is also welcome.

b) NASG RMC ad manager Brooks Stover (bcstover@comcast.net). If you have a "scale" layout or module, and you would like to see your photo appear in a future Railroad Model Craftsman inside-the-cover NASG ad, contact Brooks, and he will work with you. Brooks is also looking for Sn3, Sn2, and Sn42 photos.

c) S Scale Resource magazine editor Dan Dawdy (daniel@modelrailroadresource.com). If you have a "scale" layout or module, he needs photos for the cover of his magazine, workbench photos of your current project, and possibly one or more photos for an article that you would like to submit. A longer product review article is also welcome, as well as Sn3, Sn2, and Sn42 photos and articles.

d) Classic Toy Trains magazine editor Hal Miller (HMiller@kalmbach.com). If your layout is predominantly A.F.-based or hi-rail, they need photos of your models or your layout. The magazine features O predominantly, but that is only because so few S photos and articles are submitted.

e) Railroad Model Craftsman magazine editor Otto Vondrak (contact info). He needs both cover photos and articles. As he stated in the excerpt quoted in the April/May 2023 issue of the NASG's Dispatch, there is no bias toward one scale or another in RMC, but rather that few S-scale modelers submit content. So, if your layout is "scale" or even "hi-rail" (e.g. as Brooks Stover's layout is), consider sending photos or articles to them.

f) Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette magazine editor Bob Brown (contact info). He needs both cover photos and articles. If your layout is predominantly Sn3, Sn2, or Sn42, Bob will be interested.

g) And, finally, consider sending photos to me, the NASG webmaster, Peter Vanvliet (webmaster@nasg.org). I need photos for the NASG web site's home photo rotation. I add a new photo to the top of the rotation every Sunday. That means I need 52 photos per year. I work with Brooks Stover who sends me the monthly photos that are used in the RMC inside-the-cover ad, so that takes care of 12 of them per year, so I am still in need of 40 photos. I need A.F., hi-rail, scale, Sn3, Sn2, and Sn42 photos. I currently only have one photo in reserve!

If you can't decide to whom to send your photo or article, feel free to contact me (webmaster@nasg.org) and I will be happy to direct you to the best-fit person. Just remember that we have photo-editing and article-text editing abilities available within the NASG to help you.

Unfortunately, a small coding error crept into the web site's formatting file that caused the site to not do the correct thing when viewed on smaller-screened devices or when pages were printed. I apologize for this. My records show that it has been that way for the past two months now, and I will do a better job at routinely double-checking the site's display on cellphones.

Jerry Poniatowski shares with us photos and a brief description for three of his fantastic scratchbuilding efforts.

• view the page

Bill Lane provided a very nice photo of an American Models SD60 lettered for the Norfolk Southern.

• view the SD60 page

The recently re-formatted "Locomotives" Product Gallery reports have had the following corrections made to them:

a) The "By Model Manufacturer" pages are now sorted as follows: 1. Model Manufacturer; 2. Model Type; 3. Road Name; 4 (new) final page by Road Number (where applicable). Previously, these reports were sorted by Model Manufacturer, then Road Name, and one final page listing all of the entries by their Model Types (this was just simply the wrong way to show this data - sorry about that).

b) The "Road Number" data field in the final report pages has been moved from the "Prototype" section to the "Model" section, as that is more specific to the model that the manufacturer produced in S.

c) The "By Model Manufacturer ID" reports now show the numbers in true numerical order.

d) Similar to a) above, the "By Road Name", "By Model Configuration Type", "By Gauge", and "By Material" reports have all been reworked to show their data in a more logical progression. Some of the other reports have had their last pages changed to sort their data (if there are multiple entries on those pages) in a more logical manner.

These locomotives reports are now in their final format, so if you find any issues, please let me know. On to the next project...

Tom Lennon completed the All-Nation Line Northern Pacific box car kit and sent us a photo.

John Degnan provided unbuilt kit photos for a Pine Canyon kit (which was missing from the Product Gallery), and a Gold Coast Railway Southern kit.

• view the All-Nation Line page
• view the Pine Canyon page
• view the Gold Coast page

Bill Lane provides unpainted model photos of the Overland Models SD50, and photos of the S Scale America Thrall Gondola decorated for RJ Corman (this entry was missing from our listing).

Mike Swederska provided the first photos we have of any H.D. Scale Models' kits.

• view the Overland SD50 page
• view the SSA Gondola page
• view the H.D. Scale Models page

All of the entries shown in the Resources section of this web site have had a thorough review done on them. They have all of the latest information (as of their individual dates indicated). All known companies are listed. A couple of obsolete entries were removed, and several new ones were added.

The "Former Companies" listing is also up-to-date.

This completes the re-formatting phase of that section. From now on, one entry will be thoroughly reviewed every day (or, every entry will be reviewed every one-and-a-half years!). But, of course, any new information about a company is added to their entry as soon as I become aware of it.

As always, let me know if you find any typos, errors, companies that are missing, or additional historical information on a particular company.

• view the page

Several changes have been made to the "Resources" section of this web site. First, the main page itself has been laid out a bit differently, so that the most important or most-often visited areas are near the top of the page. All of the same content is still there as before.

Under its "Full Listing" sub-header, and new entry, called "Former Companies", has been added. This is actually the "Manufacturers' History" link that was found in the main "Product Gallery" section of the web site. So, that has been moved, because it seemed more logical to keep lists of companies together in one area. As part of this move, the "Former Companies" listing has been reformatted to look like the full listing of active companies (which was reformatted a while back).

With both of these listings now in their final formatting, I am continuing to get all of them updated with the latest info. We currently have 784 current and former companies, and I am about halfway done with updating them.

The "Catalogs" entry under the "Reference Material" sub-header has also been formatted and now lists the companies that offer a printed and/or downloadable PDF catalog of their products.

(if you are interested, behind the scenes all of this data is now sourced from one "database" that I maintain, whereas before there were several different sources, causing duplication, errors, and stale data; this is making my life as the webmaster a lot simpler, while still providing you, the visitor, with the same or even more data)

This is not your average Christmas-tree layout. This is a work of art! Includes construction photos, final set-up photos, and some video action.

• view the page

The March/April 2023 Dispatch issue PDF file is now available on this web site. Also, the March/April 2022 Dispatch issue is now publicly available (its articles are also indexed).

• view Dispatch issues

For S clubs and individuals that hold open houses, the NASG has materials available for you to hand out to individuals whom express a sincere interest in learning more about S. We have, within the past 6 months, completely revised the hand-outs, and they are now available for clubs to order from the NASG's Promotions Committee. We highly recommend that you replace any old hand-outs with these new ones, as the new ones are a lot more effective at getting our message out to the general public. Click on the link to view and download the PDF, which will contain instructions on how to order yours.

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Allen Ambler provides a photo of the River Raisin Models 2-6-6-6, which we were missing in the Product Gallery.

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Bill Winans dug through his collection of figures and photographed a large number of them.

• June's Small World
• KLM Creations
• P-B-L
• Fun & Games
• Pacific Rail Shops
• American Models
• Scenery Unlimited

Bill Roberts provides photo and catalog scans of the various S Scale Locomotive & Supply trucks.

• locomotive trucks
• rolling stock trucks

Joe Kimber sent in a photo of his new auto servicing center, completed by a friend of his. Art Cominio sent in a handful of photos he took while visiting Dave Woodrell's layout back in 2001, because we didn't have any of Dave's Lizard Head area of the layout.

• Joe Kimber's Layout
• Dave Woodrell's Layout

Art Cominio provided photos of his visits to Joe Brooke's Sn3 layout. It shows what can be done in a bedroom-sized layout in Sn3.

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NASG Librarian Dale Minard has provided the latest version of his magazine indexes.

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This web site's Search page has been appended with information about how to do effective S-scale searches on eBay.

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Yours truly, the webmaster, has finally taken some time to update photos of my small layout/diorama/module.

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Yes, the original Chicago-based American Flyer had a typewriter. Follow the link to see a photo of it. This is not S-scale- or train-related, but history buffs among us might find this interesting.

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Bob Hogan contributes photos of his completed Eastern New York Kits unique water car.

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The "Product Gallery" section that covers track components had the various track gauges buried under the generic "Specialty" sub-section, so it has been made it is own sub-section. We now have quite a few gauges available, and a number that were missing from the listing have been added with today's update.

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In the "Resources" section there are several companies that officially start their name with "The ...". Some people don't realize that, and so they look up the company's name without the leading "The" and therefore can't find them on this web site. I have removed the leading "The " from all the companies that start with that, and appended it to the end of their names with parentheses. For example, "The Aspen Modeling Company" is now "Aspen Modeling Company (The)". For now, this only applies to the "Resources" section; I have not made a similar change to the names of companies in the "Product Gallery" listing.

• view the page

Karl Johnson provides information and photos of his near-ceiling shelf layout.

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John Degnan provided a large number of photos for the "Product Gallery". Too many to list individually, but they included Pacific Rail Shops, S-Helper Service, MTH, S Scale America products, Kinsman, Smoky Mountain Model Works, SouthWind Models, Pennsy S Models, River Raisin Models, and Trout Creek Engineering/Taurus Products entries. Most were additional photos, but for some entries we didn't have photos yet.

Terry Dillon provided photos of S-Helper Service flat cars with trailers.

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A large number of PDF instruction sheets (over 150) belonging to the NASG Library have been added to this web site and have been integrated into the "Product Gallery" listings. Too many to list individually.

Data from catalogs by both Pacific Rail Shops and Perma-Bilt were integrated into the "Product Gallery" section of this web site, adding both missing entries and missing data.

• PRS page
• Perma-Bilt page

Jace Kahn provided a scan of a product brochure that Robert L Miller Laboratory put out for his unique locomotive trucks (click the link on the page to view the scan).

• view the page

Hugh Sinn provided two missing Northern Pacific photos for the American Models lightweight passengers cars from AM's 1985 release. Several corrections were made to the listings of those cars.

• NP coach
• NP observation

Gaylord Gill provided a very nice photo of a built-up version of the "J.R. Siedel Welding Shop" released by Building & Structure Co. and then later by banta modelworks.

• view the page

The collection of A.C. Gilbert track-related entries have been integrated into the overall Track Components portion of the "Product Gallery" section. These were previously listed in another section of the web site.

• view the page

The public version of the January/February 2022 issue of the NASG's Dispatch is now available. Also, the members-only issue of the January/February 2023 Dispatch PDF can now be downloaded via the "Members Only" portal. As previously stated, the print copies will be a couple of weeks late due to the prior months' paper shortages.

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In our "How-to" section's "Scratchbuilding" topic, we have a page devoted to the current listing of model railroad-related paints and weathering manufacturers. This page also includes some tips that modelers have shared over time. That page has been updated, its content verified, and a number of new weathering powder systems have been added as of today.

• view the page

Terry O'Kelly provides two beautiful photos we were missing in our Product Gallery.

• Lionel SD70ACe Savannah & Atlanta
• Lionel ES44AC Interstate

The reformatting of the "Product Gallery" section of the web site continues, with today's update migrating all of the road diesel locomotives over. The changes are similar to the other reformatted categories in that we have:
- better, larger, and/or more photos.
- external links to prototype pages for engine types.
- all data has been thoroughly reviewed.
- a number of engines that were missing from the listing have been added.
- many YouTube videos have been found of models, which have been added.

A new bit of data that has been added with this update, is a listing of parts that were manufactured by another manufacturer for a particular model, to either fix or enhance the original model. You can see an example of parts that Bill Lane has available to enhance the stock American Models Train Master locomotive, for example, via the second link below. The data field is called "Supplemental Part" in our listings, and will appear for those models for which we have such data.

• view the Product Gallery
• view parts listing example

Jace Kahn provides scans of the instruction sheets for the Sunshine Models' flat car, gondola, and their plow.

• view the page

For the entries in the Product Gallery section of this web site that have been reformatted (the ones for which category thumbnails are shown on the main Product Gallery page), the data on the final report pages (the pages that show the model's data, photos, and/or videos) are now separated into sub-sections, so that it is clearer which bits of data are related to prototype information vs. S-scale model information.

new

previous

The pages in the "Resources" section that list the various companies that make or sell S-related products, have been reformatted to better show their information. Changes include the following:
- under the company's name is a date which was the last time their information was verified and updated (those without a date have not been checked in a while, but will be in due time).
- below that are two "columns", one called Contact and one called Products.
- Contact includes what type of company it is and all of their known contact information, including the new field for fax numbers (yes, people still use that).
- Products includes the types of products they manufacture or carry, as well as a specific page for their S-scale listings (where applicable), and a link to their catalog file (where applicable).
- where applicable, below that are two possible paragraphs, one showing notes about the company, and the other their history.
- and finally below that, where available, one or more photographs.

The previously-existing data has been transferred to this new format, but some of the new data mentioned above (e.g business type), will take time to be supplemented. If you want to see an example use of photos, go to the "S-n-S Trains" entry. New owner, Bill Sheneman, sent us photos of his new shop. Photos can be clicked to see the larger version.

There are some additional expansions planned for these pages, such as links to our "Product Gallery" where a company's products are listed, maybe some representative product photos. Feel free to send me photos for possible inclusion in this section, such as your store front, shop photos, photo of the owner(s), etc.

• view the pages

As part of my migration of the content found on the S Scale SIG web site, I have added photos that they have that we didn't have, for both Dave Held's former layout, and Dick Karnes' current layout. We were able to receive the original files, so our photos are larger than the ones on the SIG's site.

• Dave Held's photos
• Dick Karnes' photos

Chris Rooney shares some photos of his layout.

• view the page

For the entries in the Product Gallery section of this web site that have been reformatted (the ones for which category thumbnails are shown on the main Product Gallery page), the embedded videos that some of the entries have, have been enlarged to make them more viewable. Previously, the videos were the same width as the photos above them (if any). Additionally, under those videos you may now see a descriptive text of what you'll see covered in the video. The latter is still a work in progress as that data entry takes a bit of time. These embedded videos should also now scale better on smaller screens.

As to an overall status update of the Product Gallery migration: I am about halfway finished with the "Road Diesel" category, which is my current active project. We have a ton of diesel engines, and I am thoroughly reviewing each entry, which also includes finding any web pages that specifically reference a model, as well as finding any YouTube videos that feature a model. There will also be additional data fields available when the Road Diesel category is made public.

• example page showing larger videos and video descriptions

The "Fourth Dimension" store on Shapeways offers early maintenance-of-way hand cars in both standard- and narrow-gauge. These are static 3D-printed models. They had been listed in the "Resources" section of the web site, but hadn't been added to the "Product Gallery" section yet. The Sheffield Car Company was owned by Fairbanks-Morse, and so these cars were also listed in their catalog. The prototype link in the "Product Gallery" page, provides a complete overview of these cars.

• view the page

Alan Balma shares with us a number of photos and a video of his layout, which is still under construction.

• view the layout page

Tom and his wife have a home layout that changes themes throughout the year, and they set up temporary display layouts at local train shows and events.

• view the page

The public version of the November/December 2021 issue of the NASG's Dispatch is now available. Also, the members-only issue of the November/December 2022 Dispatch PDF can now be downloaded via the "Members Only" portal.

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The new format "Maintenance of Way" category under "Locomotives" has been renamed to "Self-propelled MOW" as that is a better description and it matches the "Self-propelled Railcar" category.

Using the data that we show in the main "Layouts" section of the web site, three new pages have been added to that part of the web site. These make it easy to visit the owner's web site for their layout, their layout YouTube channel, and/or their layout's Facebook page. The master listing has not been changed; these are just additional summary pages for if you want to spend some time just browsing what's new with the layouts for those owners whom have gone through the extra effort to document their layout.

• view the page (see the new Quick Links sub-topic)

Dick Karnes provided photos of two long-gone track systems that he used when he built his layout. These are the Midlin Models wood-and-brass "flextrack" and the Robert L. Miller Laboratory nylon-and-nickel-silver track system.

• view the Midlin page
• view the Miller page

Dick Karnes thoroughly reviewed our listings of the Northeastern Scale Models entries in the Product Gallery, which also affects the Ambroid Co and Kinsman Scale Models listings. If you are not familiar with their history, originally Northeastern Scale Models (which still produces sheet goods and strip wood to this day) created several S-scale craftsman-style kits in the early-1950s. Bob Blois was the company's shop foreman and got permission to use the company's equipment during afterhours to produce his own set of S-scale kits under the name Kinsman Scale Models (using his wife's maiden name). The relationship ended when the Northeastern owners discovered that Bob was using up their wood supply without compensating them for that. Ambroid (of glue fame) had Northeastern produce three S-scale kits for them as well, but that was a much more formal arrangement. Ambroid's involvement in S-scale kits was an effort to help promote their own glue products. Imagine that; an established company using S-scale to help promote their own product line! My, how things have changed. Some of the kits originally produced by Northeastern themselves, were later sold by either Kinsman or Ambroid. So, as you can well imagine with this complex history, that there might be some confusion as to which company actually sold which kit to the general public.

Gene Ploeger provided photos and information about his nicely-detailed A.F.-based layout.

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Bill Lane sent in photos he took of Frank Titman's "Spiral Hill" layout back in 2008. Knowing that Frank, and his layout, would not be around for much longer, Bill took lots of photos of just about every aspect of the layout. The page in our "Layouts" section now shows the photos in an organized sequence so that you can enjoy a "virtual" tour of this famous work of art.

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Jim King recently provided some tips on how to adjust the wheelbase of the NWSL Stanton Drive. This is useful information that we want to capture long-term, so a new page has been added to the "How-to" section of this web site. Any other Stanton Drive tips are welcome.

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Dick Karnes sent in two photos of models he had kitbashed in the past. One is of a Reading gondola using Lionel O27 donors, and one is a Westchester passenger car using AF donors.

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Larry Shughart shares videos of his three recent specialty layouts. All are whimsical American Flyer-based layouts with lots of animation, lights, and fully detailed. Watch these videos to be inspired to build your own Christmas layout.

• 2018 Christmas Layout
• 2020 Christmas Layout
• 2021 Easter Layout