Category: Blog
You Say It’s Your Birthday
Yesterday, July 25th, was my birthday, always an interesting day. I took the day half-off, getting to a few small organizational chores around my workshop. As some readers may know I’m a sucker for milestone days and events, and birthdays definitely qualify. Not wanting to let a good milestone go to waste, I decided to […]
US Road Dimensions
I received an email late last week from one our readers here at Ztrains, asking about some specific American-style road dimensions. Nothing like getting it right from the horse’s mouth so I took my camera on the road, almost literally. Here’s the road question from Ryan: I am making a road on my Z scale […]
More From Showcase Miniatures
I recently wrote about a very cool new pick-up truck in Z scale from Showcase Miniatures. Here it is just a short time later and I felt compelled to again highlight this company. I got a few more of their vehicles this week, I popped their “F” Type Day Delivery Tractor out of its bag […]
Crewe Works In 1938
Long-time Z scaler Jeffrey White sent a YouTube link along to Rob Kluz and me last night that I wanted to share. With a length of just 15 minutes, it’s an amazing look back at one corner of the world just prior to WWII. From the YouTube description of this video: Building a full size […]
Locomotive Break-In Method
Whenever there’s a new Z scale locomotive about to be introduced, there’s always a lot of buzz and chatter in online user forums. The new Mikado from AZL is now the talk of the Z scale motive world and as we look forward to its release, I got to thinking about correct break-in methods and […]
Showcase Miniatures
I really love to see existing manufacturers opening up their product lines to include Z scale, as Showcase Miniatures has just done, with some much-needed high quality pieces. Vehicles such as trucks are hard enough to come by in Z scale, to find great looking US-style trucks is even more difficult. I came across this […]
Z Scale Mini-Module Layouts
Is Z scale moving more towards the big, permanent layout model, the Z-Bend Track modular route or the smaller desktop layout approach? Maybe it’s just my own need to categorize things and Z scale is actually growing on all fronts. I don’t know how popular it would be but I’ve again been thinking about a […]
Goodbye Milwaukee
I hated doing it, but the Milwaukee Road layout had to go. I never like giving up on a piece as I did earlier today and the short version is there was an issue with the track itself. On most layouts, these smaller desktop layouts included, I always add just a touch of superelevation, or […]
100 Z Scale Articles
As I responded to an online comment today here at Ztrains.com, I noticed our recent Marklin article was actually our 100th article since we went live with this Ztrains.com redesign in 2011. This means we’re averaging an article per week, and while I don’t think we’ll be challenging Stephen King anytime soon for the most […]
Where Is Marklin In 2013?
When many of us in this hobby think about small trains, Marklin and Z scale really are synonymous. In the past couple of years though, there were financial issues with Marklin including a 2009 insolvency filing in Göppingen, Germany. Companies (and countries) around the world had major financial issues after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, […]
