Ok fellas, I'm back on the board but if you have anything "unpleasent" to say to me do so in my email. And Charlie, no hard feelings ok? OK? Now that thats settled back to what I'm writting. Let's talk HO trains shall we? A series of questions: What is your favorite road to model? Why do you like the road you chose? What is your favorite locomtive to run (steam or diesel)? How long do you like your trains (like how many cars long)? And anything you can come up with!
Well I suffer from liking too much cool stuff! This isn't helped by working on a layout that can be set up to run anything from modern power to the steam age. Mostly I would say that I run 1970's midwestern roads, with some N&W, ICG, Santa Fe, Mopac, Rock Island & the like. Some Penn Central might appear at some point in the future. A Santa Fe piggyback set is on the way from this era. Rusty & seldom cleaned power and some interesting cars & cabeese makes these interesting, though our trackwork is just too neat for that era I also have some Pacific Northwest early 70's, which is mostly BN, a circa 1993 piggyback train (ATSF) and some other odd bits & pieces from other era's. Plus some UK outline modern equipment. The piggyback set is quite cool IMHO and looks good rolling through the curves, the layout is set up to accept trains of an average of 15' length or so, which is enough to make it look long without having to deal with problems of optimum car weighting. There's some layout pics at the Rock Springs site below, the SP/DRGW/SSW modern loco lashup is one of mine too....
Well Martyn, I suffer from a few but not cool things but EXPENSIVE things HA! I'm Big on steam, and even bigger to HUGE on the B&O! I model the B&O's western mainline of Pennsylvania, "Sand Patch", where some of their steam loco's became famous. And to this day still are famous! I model a wide time frame of 1940 to 1958-60, reason for the long time frame is the use of steam. I can run almost anything in steam and be prototypical. And in this area in those times did not have much change. With the railroad and so forth. It all kinda stayed the same untill the areas railroads all dieselized. And that not only includes the B&O but also the Western Maryland... Even though the WM dieselized way before the B&O did. If my memory serves me correctly the WM was totally dieselized by 1955, where the B&O still have steamers with fire in their fire boxes in 1960. Matter of fact, the screen name I use here at train board is the number and class of a very famous B&O articulated steamer, the cab number "7600" was on the B&O's EM-1 which happened to be the very last steam locomotive run on its home rails. in 1960! Hauling the varnish! My layout is named "Making the Impossible Grade, by the B&O" because I modeled the B&O's, "Sand Patch Grade" which to this very day CSX is still having loco trouble on this mountanous stretch of land. And that i'm within walking distance of the actual tunnel. I also have the WM modeled as well and single mainline as my modeling left me to do no less then double mainline for the B&O...And on a day I feel challenging. I'll run freelanced, B&O, C&O, WM, Chessie System, Family Lines, and CSX.... All for the fun of it... As of now though I'm kinds not in the runng mood. I got some track tore up for an addition of a loco service facility of Cumberland, Maryland. So thats going to add a few feet in length to my "L" shaped layout on one leg in width and in length.... And being I was introduced to some newer diesel power, with a CSX C44-9W, well now i'm going to collect some to go with that to my own liking...
Good thread with good question. I have a suggestion though. Run a search for "Favorite Locomotive" or "Train Length" and I bet you will find the answers to your questions. If you want to add on, go ahead, and it will bring the thread to the front, so others can see what we wrote and add more as well. It just seems every now and then this thread pops up, and rather than re-type the info every time, it would be quicker, and save more space on the server, to continue the old thread.
I may be getting senile, but I can't seem to get Search to find any of my older posts. Maybe they didn't have Search back then. In fact, it may be my early posts were carved in stone and must be too heavy to come up now that we don't have the steam to do any heavy hauling with anymore.
This is'nt only for me but for the newcomers as well that are on this board, so if it was an old thread then revive it for the new members. Can't hurt can it? [ 18 January 2002: Message edited by: UnionPacificBigBoy ]
Well my roads to model are the U.P. & P.R.R., I just like them cause back during the steam era they were huge compared to other companies at that time. My favorite steam loco that I run is of course the Big Boy, not only is it the largest beast to roam the rails it kind of gives you a sense of what those monters did while in service on the prairie. I typically like to run a very long train, as soon as I can get the right place I'll set up a permanet HO layout that'll be 10 1/2 X 7 1/2. I estimated that the layout could hold up to 76+ cars.
UPBigBoy, speaking of Big Boys, I just got an ad from Pentrex--they have a new BigBoy video out that supposedly has footage of ALL of the Big Boys in action. Check it out @ Pentrex Videos
Pentrex did a great job transfering the older films on to VHS Tapes. Brief run of each loco with added narration. This is copied work, not one of their own on the scene shots. $40.00 plus shipping .
I model the Spokane Portland and Seattle (SP&S) in the late pre-merger and early post BN merger era (1965-72, or so). I got into it largely by accident, but I can trace it back to the Atlas RS3 in SP&S which was the first power I saw in that road. Modelling the SP&S is both fun and quite challenging. Fun because of the variety of rads that ran over certyain sections (5 different roads had trackage rights over the SP&S between Vancouver and Portland) and also because of the variety of freight and passenger trains on the live. The flip side is the difficulty of finding power and cars in this road name. Only a very few manufactrers have done SP&S power, so I spend a lot of time custom painting my own cars. At the moment I'm constructing a 15X18 foot HO layour in my garage, but this is mostly to keep me occupied for the next couple of years until I can buy the vacant lot next door and build a proper layout. I'm developing plans for a 5000 Sqft layout of the SP&S Terminals, first and second subdivisions as well as the NP's Pasco Yard and a major staging yard. My single biggest current project is modelling SP&S trains 1 and 2, which made connections and carried cars from both the Empire Builder and the North Coast Limited into and out of Portland.
I'm also modeling the SP&S. I first became interested in the road back in the '70s, when my parents gave me a copy of Charles Wood's book, "The Northwest's Own Railway." Haven't quite worn the cover off yet! Anyway, I grew up in Central Oregon, only about five miles from the Oregon Trunk line near Prineville Jct. I actually lived on the rimrock overlooking the City of Prineville line near O'Neill, and would ride my bike to the edge whenever I heard the train's whistle, just so I could see it go by. I really don't have a favorite engine right now, though I'm always partial to anything in SP&S colors. Hopefully we'll be moving into a larger house soon, so I can actually build a railroad. I'd like to incorporate the Crooked River Bridge in my layout, although I know building a model would take me a couple years.
My favorite era is the late 70's and run mainly N&W and Conrail. I do love running coal trains. With my home layout, anything over 12-15 cars looks kind of funny, as it is a 10 x 10 ft layout. However, out at my club with its huge layout I get two or three big six axle units out and pull around 35 or 36 cars. That train looks cool pulling all those hopper cars up an almost 2% grade. As for favorite prototype diesel it has to be Conrail's SD80macs. If you ever get lucky to be trackside when one of these beasts is notching out the throttle you will know why I like them. As for favorite model railroad loco. I have 4 Atlas C30-7's. These beasts can pull and have great low speed operation. [ 24 January 2002: Message edited by: ajy6b ]
