Railroad Crossing Flashers

I have always liked the look of crossing flashers on model railroads, and I knew I wanted to incorporate some into my own layout. There is something special about when the red lights start flashing and you eagerly wait with anticipation for a train to arrive.

However, most of the commercial offerings by Lionel, MTH and Menards sacrifice scale fidelity for durability and simplicity. And many of them are permanently integrated into the sectional track. (Yes... "Wehonest" has some for sale on Ebay that look good for under $20, and had no other options been available I would have gone with those).

I wanted a nice look set of crossing signals that would flash as long as a button was pushed on the fascia of my layout. Harrison would get a kick out of that, as would I. I didn't want to have them triggered via optical detection (such as when a train broke a beam of light) or via electronic detection (which would require dividing the track into circuits). I also didn't want gates to come up and down, because to me they never look good scaled down.

So, at the 2025 Springfield train show I talked with some companies and found out that Tomar Industries made really nice looking crossing flashers (#862). Tomar wasn't at the train show, and I could not find any vendors selling them. A call the following week to Tomar confirmed that they did make them, but they were currently out of stock. I ordered two pairs (4 signals total... always order more than you need in case they become unobtainable in the future) and was put on a waiting list. A year passed and I happened to talk to Tomar regarding something else entirely and I reminded them of the order. They were very apologetic and said they would push them through. A few weeks after the 2026 Springfield show and I had them in my hand. They are lovely and delicate, and I can't wait to use them. 

But I have no real idea how to wire them up. You need to purchase third-party software to work with the signals and a power source to make them flash on and off, and alternate left and right. So, I called Logic Rail Technologies, who also were at Springfield. Chuck helped me select the right product to make the flashers activate at the push of the button.

The crossing signals use 2.4 volt LEDs, and if you put 12v of power to them they will blow up! So, you need to install resistors (which Tomar provided) in line. The LRT boards can operate between 7-12 volts so any DC power pack like I use to run my building lights would work. But I wanted a stand-alone power source, and I always have lots of 9v batteries lying around. Chuck said 9v would be fine, and the 300-ohm resistors Tomar provided would be good. He also explained where I had to cut in the momentary on/off toggle switch into the circuit to make it operate.

All was fine and good until I went to give him my credit card info. Then I saw that there are separate boards to control bell sounds. They offer them with "classic" bell sounds, modern bell sounds, and electronic bell sounds. I wanted the classic sounds, so I ordered that board plus a speaker too. All told it was a lot less than I expected.

The instructions are multiple pages with lots of great diagrams, and they cover nearly every possible way to trigger them and wire them up (with options for flashing rates and other such stuff). It was all a bit confusing for me, so I cut/pasted only the relevant portions I needed into one diagram. The green control button wire was added to the schematic after confirming with Chuck that it was correct.

To wire it up, I decided to mount everything on a offcut of plywood so that I could work on at my workbench. I could test it there, and if it operated correctly I could attach it to the bottom of the layout. I glued some small pieces of wood where the circuit board mounting screws would go to elevate it from the plywood and protect the component solder joints underneath. 

G

G

G

G

The speaker was an 80 ohm speaker that I purchased from LRT. It didn't come with an enclosure, and I couldn't find one online for a 2" speaker, so I made one from some sheet styrene and a PVC pipe coupling that I had lying around. To get the larger hole, I chain drilled a bunch of smaller holes and connected them with my chisel knife blade. Then, files brought it to final size. I soldered on some wires to the back of the speaker, and then used clear caulk to attach it to the styrene frame I made.

The base is more laminated styrene, to which I first attached the PVC coupling with MEK solvent. Then, I ran a thick bead around the inside to further seal it up.

I couldn't wait to test the sound so I hooked it up with a temporary on/off button wired in, but it didn't work. So, I reached out to L.R.T. who looked at what I did and quickly noticed one switch was set the wrong way. Then, it worked great. So much so that Harrison could hear it upstairs. Yes!

I haven't hooked up the lights yet because they look fragile and I don't want to damage them. I can't install these on the layout until I have built the road that they are to protect, and I can't do that until I figure out exactly what industry is going on the rear siding (freight station? Agway? Etc.) 

So, into storage they go...

Foam for the layout curves

After waiting for ages to take the next step, I finally had a time when my vehicle's child safety seat was out and the seats were folded down. This gave me the space required to purchase a 4'x8'x2" sheet of green foam board. I cut it in half lengthwise in the store and then managed to get it into my car... barely... with 1" to spare. But at least I could bring it home and start on the next phase of the layout.

My annual vacation is next week, so I hope to make more progress on the layout in the next few days. First, though, I will need to start cleaning up the Lego projects Harrison and I have been working on which are currently residing on the ends of the benchwork. 

Lunch break

The summer is over, and that's fine for me. I much prefer Autumn. But one of the best parts of summer is... picnics! Who loves a picnic? I sure do. Eating outdoors is lovely, especially when you can observe trains at the same time. I don't know if the employees at Northeast Chemical want to watch trains while sitting next to a parking lot, but oh well. I thought a picnic table might be good for their lunch break, and a laser-cut wooden kit on Ebay from the seller The Thumult And the Shouting fit the bill perfectly.

They arrived without markings or instructions, though it wasn't very difficult to figure out how it all went together. The wood was prone to bending while I sanded some of the burrs off so I had to be careful. A little wood glue got them together, with extra added to the underside where it won't be seen for additional support. 

Then, they were stained with various brown ink and alcohol solutions. When I was a kid, our family had a wooden picnic table that was painted fire engine red. I loved it, so I painted a third table like that.

What I am missing are figures. Wanna hear a sad story? Woodland Scenics has made two different figure sets with the same item number (A2759) and the same sculpts. But they were painted differently. Here is the old set, which I have been looking for unsuccessfully for a long time now. Sadly, most listings on Ebay use this stock picture even though the actual figures they are selling are the new ones.

Here is how the set is currently painted. They are nice, and I have them on my layout, but the paint on some of the clothes is a bit too colorful for what I want. I know I could buy them again and repaint them how I want, but I don't really want to. 

I am looking for the guy in the middle with the black leather jacket and the guy with the yellow shirt and tie from the first set. Once I have them, they will sit at the picnic table eating lunch. Until then, I found a different set by Bachmann (#33163) that didn't look half bad online and the people look like they are wearing hazmat suits. Perfect for a chemical factory. But once they arrived I realized the painting wasn't very good. I picked one and did some moderate repainting, but in the process broke his arm off. Oh well, into the parts bin they go.

Thankfully a friend gave me another figure (I think Arttista) that looked a lot better, so he got a seat at the table. He can now eat his lunch in peace and occasionally see a train go back and forth. 

I wasn't going to put a propane grill so close to a chemical plant. However, my wife was looking at the layout and she insisted that it needed a propane grill. "How can you have propane tanks nearby and not have a grill?" I couldn't argue with logic like that so I had to get one. Arittista made a nice painted casting (#1473) that fit the bill perfectly.

Nothing is glued down in case I want to rearrange things, but for now I am calling this scene done. 

Summer Break

I have paused work on the layout for the summer. It will resume in the Fall.

MTH Maggi car

In 2013, MTH (Mike's Train House) advertised some European freight cars in their Premier line to go along with their foreign steam engines that it had been offering. Some of the trains (like the Orient Express) were really beautiful but apparently there wasn't enough of a market for theme both here in the USA and abroad. After a number of years, the line was discontinued. This was before I had switched to O scale and I didn't know much about them, but if they were available now I would probably be very interested. 

A couple of years ago I came across one car that caught my eye. I found one vendor selling it but I had to set my online account and there were issues with that, and by the time it was done the car was sold. Since then, I have been on the look for Itemm #20-99042, the "Maggi" liveried freight wagon. It was available in two car numbers, 91701 and 91702, with either 2-rail scale or 3-rail with tinplate wheels. Perhaps one road number was dedicated for each option. 

Occasionally we see "Maggi" brand seasonings in the supermarket and I wonder what they taste like but can't recall ever trying them. This website has some information on them. Per that site, "In 1986, the Maggi company introduced Maggi liquid seasoning, a dark-colored, vegetable protein-based sauce."

I don't know if a real prototype boxcar was ever painted to advertise it, but if so I would love to find pictures of it. I doubt I will run this car much but it certainly will look nice on display. 

After searching randomly on Ebay for several years, I posted a want-ad on the OGR Magazine forum and one kind gentleman offered to sell me his. He had several different MTH cars that he was willing to swap chassis with so it could be either a 2R or a 3R car. I picked 3-rail, and he substituted some spoked wheels from another project to match the prototype better. The couplers are the stock, non-operating Lionel style knuckle couplers.  

I wonder if anything else is out there?

Atlas announces Arcade and Attica Railroad 44-tonner!

Atlas O recently announced in their Spring 2026 catalog that they are producing 44-tonner models (tooling formerly MTH) in the Arcade and Attica Railroad scheme. As mentioned on my other blog, I am a huge fan of anything Arcade and Attica as well as 44-tonners. They even chose #111 to model, my favorite of their centercab switchers. 

It is nice to see them get some love, and I will definitely need to order one of these for myself.

Visiting Frank Battaglia's layout

On the way to the Great British Train Show in Toronto I passed through Buffalo, and I stopped to visit my friend Frank Battaglia. He has been fortunate to have three of his layouts featured in OGR Magazine, and another article about his current layout in Classic Toy Trains. He is an overall great guy and I count myself lucky to have him as a friend. The first time we visited, he invited my wife and I along with our golden retriever (!) to visit. While the dog played outside for a bit, she also came downstairs to the basement to see what was going on and Frank had no problem with it.

I had hoped Harrison could come with me this time but it didn't work out. He would have loved Frank's layout. 

My skill in taking pictures is limited, and I didn't bring lots of extra lights (and didn't adjust my camera settings to work best with his ceiling track lights) so many of the pictures are washed out. Still, we had fun running trains (and troubleshooting electrical gremlins that pop up when opening up layouts to visitors!). 

I also got lots of ideas for my own layout. While I took dozens of pictures, I focused mainly on his farm areas and rural scenes as they will feature heavily on my layout.

I loved his trees. I need a bunch for my layout. When I asked him where he got a certain variety that I liked, he said he bought them from a friend who made them. Rats... my search continues.

Thanks Frank!