All items HO scale, located near Amesbury, MA.  PayPal or check. I'll pay USPS shipping to the continental US.

Wooden Hotel kit (aka King Edward Hotel) by Full Steam Ahead. Out of
production laser cut craftsman kit for 3 story wooden hotel. 3.75" x
4" x 5" $70 (original price new, opened only for inspection)

B&O #624537 Offset Side Triple Hopper. Accurail RTR new in box, knuckle
coupler, metal wheels.  $15

Grand Trunk #74568 USRA Coal Hopper (twin, exterior ribs).  Accurail
RTR new in box, knuckle coupler, metal wheels.  $15

ATSF #180877 Offset Side Twin Hopper 3-pack: 3 numbers, Atlas #1108
new in unopened box, knuckle coupler: $30

B&M #1929 1957 steel single door milk car, Challenger Imports 2070.1.
New, factory painted, test run only, slightly dirty box: $120 (The
Chrysler FR-5 trucks CIL put on this model are very likely to short
when their brake shoes rub on the railhead).

New Haven NE-6 Caboose, Overland Models 1194. New in box unpainted
brass, box slightly dirty: $140 (never opened, used by PC & Conrail)

New Haven NE-5 Caboose, Overland Models 1198. New in box unpainted
brass: $120 (never opened, PC, Conrail, also C&NW or CGW, steps
a little different from B&M C1-10, C-40-49 series)

Madurodam was begun in 1952, named after a Dutch WWII hero whose family donated money to found it.  It has models of many real buildings of all types, from Schipol Airport and the new Thalys high speed RR line to museums, town halls, farms , canals and other structures from all over the country. They've expanded and updated it over the years; now it's about 2 acres next to a tram line and a highway on the edge of a park.  I believe most structures are 1:25, with commercial 1:29 or 1:32 RR track and equipment.

There is much to learn here, particularly for outdoor modelers.  Their highly-detailed structures are out in the weather, mostly within reach of the audience, year in, year out.  Almost all of their in-scene trees are live plants. I will ask around to see if their craftspeople have ever published anything on structure materials and techniques.

Many of the scenes are detailed with people and vehicles.  I had the idea of shooting 'LP eye view':

I spent a couple of hours in Hamlet, NC Saturday.  Luckily, I was there when volunteers arrived to open the museum in the former Seaboard depot, and I got a chance to see the HO scale layout.  The depot has been moved across the tracks from its original location, but you can still see its outline in the old passenger platform.

Here are some Phoenix-area layouts I visited during the convention.  If anyone else has more/better photos, feel free:

The Gilbert (AZ) Model Railroad Club layout:

I bought this a while back thinking it would make a good depot for Bexley, the town on my B&M Eastern Route that is a stand-in for Salem, MA.  A friend has made some progress in building it, but somewhere between buying it and giving it to her, I mislaid the instructions.  RRKits has downloadable instructions for many of their kits, but not this one. I've asked via web form and phone call, but no response in a couple of weeks.  If anyone here has this kit and can copy or scan the instructions, PM me?

Having spent a while looking around the internet for suitable backdrop photos, I find that existing indices are not very helpful unless you're looking for a fairly famous landmark or photos of a popular vacation area.  Pay or free, panoramic views of urban or suburban scenes shot in the 20th century aren't what stock agencies or libraries seem to have much demand for.  I chose this title thinking that others may have similar quests.

What I want is "Boston Inner Suburb" in color, ideally taken from a rooftop or a low hill sometime between 1950 and 1980 (e.g. pre vinyl and aluminum siding). Three-deckers, commercial buildings, 2-family residential areas are all OK - I need about 30 linear feet with foreground buildings printed 4-6" high. Recognizable scenic features or conspicuous post-1960 vehicles may have to be edited out.  Can be moderate resolution.  I can do my own cut & splice with GIMP.

Does anyone have or know where to find a few pre-1980 slides of Lynn, MA taken from up in the Lynn Woods, or Malden looking down from the Fells?  I could make it work with the right pictures from another Boston inner suburb, or residential parts of Boston itself.  Photos of Toronto or Baltimore probably won't look right to me.

My old friend Reilly McCarren invited a group of people, most in the RR industry, to ride a special train on the Arkansas & Missouri last Friday, the day after the company's Annual Meeting. Alas, he was too sick to join us, which cast a cloud over the event.

https://picasaweb.google.com/115858323281274415788/ReillysSpecialTrain

Modelers may be interested in my photos of A&M Alcos and the interior of their loco and car shops (including 251 engines being worked on).

This part of the forum is pretty quiet, so how about a place where modelers can post interesting prototypes, current modeling projects, photos of model cars alone or in settings, without committing to starting a new thread?

I'll start out with an HO scale ACF 70 ton covered hopper assembled just like Bowser made it.  I wanted it weathered, but didn't have time to get out the airbrush, either to weather it that way, or to seal powders.  So I thought about what I had on hand that looked like cement:  Savogran's 'Wood Putty'  (out of production, but Durham's Water Putty might work the same way).  I shook some powder on and liked the way it looked spread around with a brush.   Then I thought about bonding it:  Water would set the product's glue base, but my sprayers were too coarse; they'd wash it away.  But I have a teakettle.  I held it by the couplers while turning it in the water vapor (not too close to the spout, you'll scald yourself).  Once it was all wet and the powder looked like it had vanished, I set it aside to dry.  10 minutes later it looked like this, and the finish seems fairly durable.

I began this a year ago, and recently got going again.  This is the cinderblock version of the kit.  I shrank the office area by a window and added a new window opening in the RH wall.

I built this some time ago, but took the pictures to show how it went together.  It's stock except I sanded the roof down to reduce the height of the clerestory.  I made a new overhang out of styrene strip, visible in the last photo.