1960s Archives - The Silicon Underground

Scale vs gauge: Not quite interchangeable

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 11:00:35 +0000

Wondering about scale vs gauge? You’re not alone. It’s a common question, and I’ll try to provide a simple answer. The two terms may appear interchangeable, but they aren’t quite. Gauge is the distance between the two rails, or the

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Why do Lionel trains have three rails?

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:00:35 +0000

Why do Lionel trains have three rails? After all, real trains usually have two. This unrealistic feature is a legitimate drawback for Lionel and other makes of O gauge trains, but the decision made sense at the time. Lionel didn’t

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1981 Fleer baseball cards

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 11:00:17 +0000

It’s just my opinion, but I think 1981 Fleer baseball cards get less respect than they deserve. It ended Topps’ 25-year monopoly on baseball cards and, frankly, I think it’s a nicer set than the Topps or Donruss sets from

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How to tell if a baseball card is a reprint

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 11:00:28 +0000

Companies have been reprinting old, rare, and valuable baseball cards for decades. It’s a way for people to have cards of players like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb who otherwise never could. But that can cause problems too. Here’s how

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Fix kitchen light bulb flickering

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 11:00:15 +0000

Flickering lights can be a sign of a serious electrical problem. But kitchen light bulb flickering often is due to other issues because a kitchen provides challenges you usually don’t find elsewhere in the house. Let’s look at things that cause kitchen

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Is this vinyl tile asbestos? How to check.

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 12:00:13 +0000

If you’re working on a house built before 1978, and you’re renovating floors, you need to pay attention to the tile. Asbestos tile was very common before 1978, so you’re not being paranoid if you ask a question like, “Is

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All about the Lionel KW

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 12:00:13 +0000

The Lionel KW is the second most powerful, and second most popular Lionel transformer of the 1950s and 1960s. If the Lionel ZW was Lionel’s Cadillac, the KW was Lionel’s Buick. It was a 190-watt transformer and Lionel sold it from

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All about the Lionel ZW

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 12:00:22 +0000

The Lionel ZW is Lionel’s most iconic transformer of the 1950s and 1960s, and perhaps one of its most iconic products, period. Everyone wanted the two-handled, football-shaped, 275-watt powerhouse that was the ZW. It was one of Lionel’s more venerable

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Bachmann vs Lionel

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 12:00:13 +0000

Comparing Bachmann vs Lionel is a contrast between two very old, established names in electric trains. Lionel, in one form or another, has been selling trains since 1900. Bachmann, the largest seller of trains in the world, was founded in

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Robert Rayford (Robert R): AIDS in St. Louis in the 1960s

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 12:00:38 +0000

The sad story of Robert Rayford (aka Robert R), the first documented case of HIV/AIDS in the United States, shows that if timing had been a little bit different, the AIDS epidemic could have happened a decade earlier than it

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