 What you doing, Dirk? Union Pacific excursion train. An excursion train. Of which I did four of these support cars. Okay. This is their work car. It's a box car. Start with an ather and put two of them together. 60 foot long. Passage your doors on each end. Little bit of detail. Try to go prototypical as close as I possibly could. This is the Art Lockman. My decals have since decided they're not going to stick. But the Art Lockman had to have heavyweight passenger wheels put on in place of the streamline trucks. Then we have the Howard Fog. These are all Walther's cars that I kit bashed out. The Howard Fog is a generator car. And you can see that by the generator exhaust openings. The big white domes on the cars are far GPS to locate the cars anywhere they are in the United States. And then of course we have the Reed Jackson. That was the more difficult one to do. Getting rid of all the windows and filling in places and putting your Vents on. That's where the exhibition of buying gifts is. And I put the diaphragms on the end also. So why did you choose to build this train, Dirk? Well I've always seen them. And I like the excursion trains. I like 844. 3985 is the most popular but I like 844. They make the tenders as you can see. This is brass. They made the square in brass. And then Atherin came along and made the round one in plastic. But nobody made the support cars. As you know Walther's is coming out with the E8s and the excursion train cars. But again they don't have the support cars. So I had to build them myself. Now it looks like you've got the start of a really nice excursion train, Dirk. Man listen thank you very much for sharing this with us today. Now back to work. You can see maybe where this shot's going. Copying an old photo that I did about 16 years ago. I sold at the Walther's and sold a copy to Kalmbach. It was just a feel good photograph where the grandfather and the children were running as they brought the Christmas tree up to the front porch and the train was going by in the background. It was just a feel good seasonal shot. Well here in 2013 now. I'm going to put it together again. I'm going to mirror it. Do it the opposite. It's a rather complicated shot to do because the shot's got multi levels, multi depths in it. If you look I've got the mountain range, the trees, the foreground hill and then the farmhouse. And as we swing around and look at the shot you can see the power supplies, the length of the diorama so that I can have the train running through the mountains, the background light and then the background moon that had to be painted. So it's a multi-dimensional shot. Many layers to create the shot. Now the power supplies, the blue Bachmann power pack controlled the farmhouse, the DCC system allowed the train to move. I've got another power supply for powering the truck. And the scene had to be built with extra extensions just to get the videography. That was new, not just still photography for video. Here's a small power supply that's powering the headlights and the pickup truck. That were 1.5 volt bulbs. Then as we go back you can see the light. The light had to be lit for about 15 seconds. The farmhouse had to be lit for I want to say about a minute. And the pickup truck had to be lit for about three minutes. So I had to do multiple exposures on this shot. Now as you see when we pull it together you can see the setup. I put the farmhouse there, the Christmas tree, drinking drug up the front porch. And here's how the final shot came out. It's just it's a it's a beautiful photograph. And of course I had to do video on it. And so here's a shot of the video. On this portion of What's Neat This Week I want to talk about something that's really, really neat. And that's the new Soundtracks Soundcar Decoder that they came out with. It's in the tsunami lounge of Soundtracks Decoders. And what it is is it's a decoder that you put in your freight car. And it doesn't matter what type of freight car that you put it into, as long as your wheels have got electrical conductivity. So that you can get electricity up into from the track into the decoder. Once you've done that you've opened up a whole new realm of possibilities that we could never do before with still freight cars. And that is you can get the sound of the train running and have the flan squeal sound effect. You can have the sound of flat spots. If you program the decoder it's got that capability where just one car can only have flat spots in it as it goes past you in the consist. You can also work with this and have the sound of cars coupling together so that when you push a certain button on your throttle you'll get the coupler sound of it going together. The air airing up in the brake lines. And then also it's got the sound capabilities where you push another number on your throttle and you'll get the sound of the freight cars pulling apart with the air hoses releasing their air sound as the cars pull apart just like the prototype. It's all in them. But there's one other really cool feature that I see in this decoder that they've created that I'll bet you're going to see in every single decoder that comes out in the future. And that is something that soundtracks calls intelligent consisting. And what that is is let me give you a scenario for example. Let's say you've got five or six of these sound cars in your whole train. And you've got to program each decoder individually to consist with your locomotives so that when you throttle up your train the sound effects will then start in the cars. The clickety-clack sound of the wheels for example crossing over joint bars. That sound is timed with the speed of the locomotives. So if you were to consist these cars with the engines and you throttled up you'd get the same clickety-clack sound that would match the speed of the train. And that's really cool but here's the thing. The magic is this intelligent consisting in these cars allows you to do something that we could never do before in the hobby. And that is you take a magnet and you simply wave it over the top of each car. Okay. And as you do that you push f8 on your throttle four times which causes the cars and the locomotives to automatically find each other on the main line. And you don't have to push buttons. You don't have to consist each car individually. You simply wave a magnet over the cars. And then the cars will locate the engine when you push push f8 four times. That's called intelligent consisting. And I could see all locomotives at some point their decoders having that feature where decoders could simply find themselves on the layout to run together as a consist rather than to actually manually program each one. If you were to sit here and program say five or six or seven box cars into a consist at one time you're probably looking at 15 minutes of programming time. And that's all avoided now with the simple wave of the magnet. Again intelligent consisting from soundtracks. I'm not trying to create an advertisement but the only way to really inform you and tell you about something this cool is to tell you about it the way it is. So watch this demo tape and I'll show you some of the effects now as the trains run past you showing what it is I've just described. There's one thing I want to talk about for this what's neat this week. A fun subject that a lot of people always discuss on the internet and I've seen it time time or two is work benches. Work benches and what does your work bench look like? Well after building models I want to say for the last 40 years I've come up with a design that I created out of two by fours out of the functionality of need. What tools do we use all the time? How many electrical outlets do we generally need for those tools? What is it that we need within the peripherals of our finger for immediate model building? I'm not talking about going to the heavy construction work bench where you're going to cut out bridge piers on the table saw. I'm talking about where we're replacing katie couplers or I'm scratch building buildings or laser kits or something to that effect where I've got to have an intimate workspace where I'm within reach of every tool that it is that we pretty much use and over the years these are the tools that we regularly use all the time and not very much more than this when it comes down to it. You've got screwdrivers, pliers, wire cutters and files and paint brushes between that and the calipers and the tweezers and the glues those are essentially the six departments of tools that you pretty much use to build models and so that's why I've got them lined up in plexiglass holders at the ready at a moment's notice. But another thing that I've discovered it's not just the model building I've discovered that my workbench is the nucleus in the center for where I conduct business so I've got my spray booth right next to the workbench where I can sit there and paint I've got my programming track for my DCC system on the workbench so that I can just plug in my systems and turn them on and I've got decoder pro ready at the willing to do programming for my DCC system on my programming track so my workbench doubles as the power nucleus for my entire train layout where I've got my system set up and ready to go at a moment's notice for test running locomotives for getting scenes ready for videography anything that I might need I can do it from right here I've got my internet I've got decoder pro my programming track and capabilities are in the program and for heaven's sakes yes I've even got a telephone so I can stay in contact with the outside world on an old-fashioned landline so between all of that and the ability to simply build models here in this centered environment I've got my power supply I've got my soldering iron ready at the willing to reach any project that I need so I don't have to move things around and plug them in I've built outlets I've got 12 gang boxes where this workbench is wired to the wall with a nine foot long cord an umbilical cord for all intentional purposes that connects the DCC system to my layout that connects the regular DC throttle to my layout that allows me to do programming on the main line with the computer and run the computer run the layout with the computer all of that can be achieved from this one centralized tabletop surface that's been built for modeling built for how we use it I've got my electrical I've got the tools that we need I've got my communication I've got a good set of double lights and nothing is top-heavy everything's been designed with heavy two by fours where I kept the center of gravity of weight as low as I could so that the things on top don't teeter totter backwards and cause the bench to flip backwards even the weight of the trash can is built to be supported by the table itself so that everything moves together with no top heaviness katie couplers dremel motor pool tool parts all the things that are necessary for the immediacy of small model building are just right here without any drawers it's an open design the only downside is you've got to keep it dusted you've got to keep it clean down here which I do often but if you want to design a workbench that's functional to model building follow my lead on this one I've got 20 years of use out of this and it works you know what's neat this week I want to talk about some cool things just in time for Christmas I found this really cool G scale carousel at the Home Depot and I want you to know it's perfect and for $89 you and I couldn't build a carousel for that amount of money and it's absolutely perfect for your garden rariting or indoor display models and it works it's got lights in it so why not when you're at the hardware store picking up stuff this is a really cool thing to pick up the next thing I want to talk to you about is something that's really important and that's the fact that every time I put masonite or I put plywood on my dioramas I'm always using an air gun running around with the hose adjusting the air making sure it's just right just to get the right depth every time I use my staples what a hassle 10 test shoots just to make everything just perfect every time I found a cure for that well I was at the Home Depot picking up that carousel I came up with this Ryobi stapler and it's electric it's an electronic stapler and the magic of this thing is you pre-dial it in to a setting that you want and it stays that way all the time and there's no air hose so I'm not getting tangled around the dioramas when I'm sitting here and I'm popping on the staples to secure it and this thing's a gem so you take your laminate plywood and generally I secure it to wood it's embedded in the foam and this thing is just slick as can be and it works so there's a gift idea for yourself for this December what's neat this week tip