Just a public service for our friends in Japan and around the world: the Google Person Finder—Are you in Japan, or are you looking for somebody there?

There are a few sites on the web that list hobby shops in Tokyo—and in particular, in the Akihabara—but on a recent trip with a layover in Tokyo, I was able to visit a couple of them first hand.

With some down time during the holidays, I've taken the time to put together some links that I've found useful.

Since my Shelf-Top Modules are reliant on KATO Unitrack, the logical ballast medium was KATO's own product...

A minor rant, but meant in good nature: I've hear a rumor (I'm trying to find it again, and am beginning to think it's just apocrypha) that the NMRA is pushing the spelling gage instead of gauge...

Those stubby Caboose Industries manual ground throws may have a prototypical precedent, after all...

This was originally sent to the RPO at Model Railroader magazine...

If you don't already know, be very careful of magazine renewal notices...

There's quite a fuss being made over on Trains.Com right now, on the matter of degrees and percent, and the like. Probably much more fuss than needs to be.

You asked; here they are... Just the module pictures. Please see the related article for the details.

A set of module standards based on, and plug-compatible with, official T-Trak modules.

As with any job or recreation, railroading (and model railroading) has its own vocabulary. I don't know if I can do justice to the whole field, but here are a few terms that might be useful to those new to the hobby.

I'm of the opinion that there are two kinds of Model Railroaders, namely the ones that love to just run their trains around the track, and the ones that want to "run a railroad."

I see this all the time, and I'll say that I've been guilty of it myself over the years. It's the use of the terms scale and gauge, and in particular, the use of gauge when the person means scale.

As I'm modeling a freelanced west-coast line that runs from the coast through the Sierras and into the desert, it almost goes without saying that I'll have at least one precarious trestle crossing a granite-lined chasm...

There's something really nuts going on in the brass locomotive market right now. I mean, really nuts.

"Way back when," my first "real" layout was on a framed 4'x8' piece of plywood, and I used store-bought (Atlas #4, I think) switches and flex track...

I've been interested in Model Railroading (as compared to "Toy Trains" ;-) for ages now... it goes back as far as I remember, and got its start with an AHM train set and an oval of track one Christmas...