With 2010 now here, SB Rail Lines is celebrating it's 10th anniversary and what better way to do it with a new crisp herald which I designed on the most part myself using a Rio Grande herald for the basic design.
Here is SB Rail Lines restored Rio Grande F-3 ABBA locomotives pulling out of the yard on it's 10th anniversary celebration. The ABBA is headed up by a restored Rio Grande F-3 unit #5521
Here is my 2nd herald I designed also using the Rio Grande herald as a base in the main SB Rail Lines herald. This design is what everyone on train board is use to seeing. My 1st design herald was never posted on Train Board and I have it hung up here in my basement with the trains. Actual names were used instead of SB which is the first letter of each name actually used on the 1st design.
I originally started out with a Lionel 027 set called the "Rock Island" flyer. It came with a 0-4-0 Rock Island switcher with hand controls inside the cab for foward, nuetral and reverse. It also came with a Penn Central gondolla, a Union Pacific flat bed and a Rock Island bobber caboose. It was added onto every year, even when I got older and held a job on my own, I had added on to the set until I was 20. I ended up with 75 rail cars, 1 SD-45 in the Chessie road name, a F-3 A-B-A set in the Union Pacific name with the B unit having a horn and a Pennsylvania 2-4-2 Steam locomotive. Eventually I lost interest and went to sell everything to a collector to buy a muscle car to restore and show in 1989. When I went to that store he also had LGB G scale trains there, only I didn't know what they were at that timer. I did ask and he explained what scale they were and who made them, I was very impressed and decided then if I ever lost interest in car shows I would go back to trains only in G scale. A deal was struck and I sold my Lionel collection and bought myself a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T to restore. It was a very successful project, winning many best of show trophies including at the Mopar Atlantic Nationals. In 1997, my Dad passed away and my Mom could no longer live in the house by herself without him, so she offered the house to me first and did pay fair market value so she could buy something else. In 1999 I called it quits for car shows and decided to take up a more relaxing hobby. G scale trains
In 1999 I was watching QVC because they advertised that they were going to have a 1/2 train session. They also did alot of die cast car sessions back in the day also before that market fell. I remember them having this particualr set out on display and they were playing with it. I called and $120 later I got my set. Just like many other G scale beginners, I knew nothing about the hobby and just in with both feet. I put the train up on a wall mounted shelf system and added more Bachman track. Eventually I had the gondolla, reefer, stock car, ect all in the Rio Grande name. I nick named this train the "bumble bee express". Then one misfortunate day the locomotive derailed on a track hold down screw that came loose sending it to a plunging death and shattering into many pieces. I was highly upset of course, but by that time I was reading Garden Railway magazine and was ready for a floor G scale layout and had a little more info to go with when making my next decision of what kind of track and trains to use. The train only went thru the summer and I sold off on Ebay what wasn't destroyed including all of the track which meant I was starting from scratch again.
Wow! I'm just not sure what to say. Nice artwork. And, you caught my eye with the Silverton Flyer. Also, the locomotive making the crossing was interesting. LOL
In early 2000 I was armed with info from Garden Railway Magazine and just like alot of people then I tried to use the local hobby store as much as possible and there were 2 stores near my area that were Aristocraft dealers. I decided to buy the Aristocraft Rio Grande FA-FB-FA units to use as a lash up and I bought enough new brass track to make one mainline around the entire basement. It was suggested that I use Euro style track because it was stronger to stpe on than the American style, plus the Euro style was more available than the American style then, but not sure why. I had a few problems with all three locomotives, the wheels would actually quit turning. How I found out what was happening is that I used a marker and made 3 lines on each wheel and you could actually see them slowing and then stopping one at a time. I found the motor boxes were shimmed way to tight and re-shimed them all and they were pretty reliable after that. I also had quite a few Aristocraft Rio Grande rolling stock, but by late 2000 USA Trains hit the G scale market with trains that I was highly impressed with. The USA Trains F-3 caught my eye in a big way.
Thank you very much for the nice comments. The F3 making the crossing was actually done as a joke, but I liked it so I posted it.
When USA Trains introduced thier F3-3 A-B units, I saw them in person at a hobby store and was highly impressed. I bought both USA Trains Rio Grande AB sets to make a F3 A-B-B-A lash up, boy I was excited. The USA Trains F3 units would head up the train and I sold the Aristocraft FA units on Ebay, but this would not be the end of my adventures into USA Trains. Eventually I sold alot of my Aristocraft stuff off and started buying USA Trains rolling stock which was only 1:24 scale ratio then. But in 2001 things would change and USA Trains came out with the Ultimate series 1:29 scale ratio and called thier current 1:24 scale ratio the American Series. I was hooked big time on the Ultimate series and sold off all of my USA Trains American series simulated steel box cars for the Ultimate series version. My collection was steady growing as USA Trains kept bumping up the bar for realism and reliabilty. Evetually I out grew the 1 main track I had and then put in a 2nd main line track. This would make room for the next train I wanted. The USA Trains GP-9.
It was finally decided to go ahead and buy 2 USA Trains GP-9 locomotives in 2001 to pull the new USA Trains 70 ton hopper cars coming out and this would become Train #2 USA Trains painted these Rio Grande units in as delivered paint schemes which is great. They have been real reliable locmotives and everything on them is still original. Train #2 is still the way it was then with the exception I added 3 new hopper cars to it in 2009 to make it a total of 15 USA Trains 70 ton hopper cars. USA Trains stepped up the aount of new rolling stock coming out and I was running out of room. I needed one more track and after evaluating the situation one more main line would fit, making the layout having 3 main lines. I was also interested in purchasing 12 wheel drive locomotives this time, but this meant changing out all the 5ft diameter curves over to 8ft diameter curves. It was a huge under taking re-designing the current 2 tracks over to 8ft diameter curves and then installing a new 3rd main line. Now came for the decision, what manifacturer do I buy the 12 wheel drive locomotive from, Aristocraft with thier SD-45 or USA Trains SD40-2 locomotive?
Good to have you here on TrainBoard. I got a good laugh but didn't want to ruin it for anybody else. I have G Scale but do very little with it. I also play around with HO but my mainstay and collection of trains is centered around N Scale. I love your choice of road line. D&RGW and other Colorado railroads are for sure my favorites. Keep coming back and keep sharing. You have my jealousy meeter pegged...tilt. Looks mighty fine.
It was time to form train #3 and I originally went with 2 Aristocraft SD-45 locomotives. I has the first generation SD-45 Aristocraft locomotives which were full of reliabilty problems and then to top it all off they came thru with a weak plastic worm gream. Aristocraft did evetually offer a brass worm gear seperately but you had to buy it. Disgusted with constant break downs which one or the other locomotive would just stop dead in the tracks while the other tried to drag it, I decided to go back to USA Trains. I bought 3 different Rio Grande road numbered USA Trains SD40-2 locomotives and sold off the Aristocraft SD-45 locomotives. I'm not going to say these were totally perfect either, but way more reliable than my SD-45 locomotives. The rubber tires were my biggest problem, they would burn off, especially in a curve due to the SD40-2 has smaller drive wheels tha any other USA locomotive. I eventually switch all of the rolling stock to ball bearing wheels and since only had one rubber tire failure. Other than that, the USA Trains still have all the original motors and slide shoes on them. Now that there were so many big locomtives and long trains, I needed a switcher to move trains out of the sidings.
I originally bought the USA Trains NW-2 Rio Grande cow and calf to perform switching duties, but over the years as my collection of trains got bigger, heavier, and running longer strings of rail cars, the NW-2 could no longer do the job. So I bought MOW cars over the years and now the NW-2 set up pulls a MOW train which suits it perfectly. On another note, the Rio Grande NW-2 calf is no longer in production and is a hard find now a days, I'm glad to get it then. USA Trains was still putting out trains in a big way and when they announced coming out with a GP-30 locomotive I knew I wanted it, but there was no way I could fit 4 main lines in the basement. So then the solution came to start running trains on a schedule, taking turns so to say.
So I decided on purchasing 2 USA Trains GP-30 locomotives, but the question was, what do I do with them? I was a big reader of Garden Railway Magazine then and there was a article on how fun it could be running a "Flat Service" train and how flat bed cars are often over looked when people go to buy roling stock for thier layouts. I was hooked and made my own version of a "Flat Service" train which features nothing but different various types of USA Trains flat cars. I can say to date the fun of running a Flat Service train has not worn off. This would become Train #4. Since I already had the idea of having a schedule for trains I went foward with the idea of having a steam engine, but disaster was ahead, only I didn't know it.
I went shopping for a steam locomotive. MTH trains were all 1:32 scale ratio, the Bachman locomotives were not heavy haulers and I needed something to pull USA Trains wooside reefers which I saved aside from when I started. Acucraft was to far out of reach as far as pricing. The USA Trains Hudson was also too pricy for me at the time. So I decided on a Aristocraft Mikado to pull what was suppose to be Train #5, but soon things went wrong fast. Just like with the Aristocraft SD-45, the Rio Grande Mikado was also a 1st generation model and this one was loaded with problems. The locomotives operated very jerky, often losing track power, there were sparks flying out from under it once in a while and then the motor eventually burned up all in 2 months time. I tried the factory forum but was treated like I was doing something wrong. Very discusted I sold the locomotive at a huge loss on Ebay and the person who bought it was a die hard Aristocraft person and he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He told me the following problems, the gear box was not squared, the motor was not squared to the gear box, there were wires inside rubbing, he did say that model Aristocraft should have taken back and just gave me another. I thought for sure that would be the end of Aristocraft locomotive power for me. Being upset and in such haste, I started selling off my USA Trains woodside car collection that I had saved up over the years thinking I would never find a reasonable decent steam locomotive. In the mean time in the USA Trains camp, even more releases came out and I formed another Train #5, this time with 2 USA Trains Rio Grande SD-70MAC locomotives pulling 8 55ft Centerflow hopper cars and 8 55ft aluminum tan cars. If that wasn't a great enough set up to have, USA Trains introduced the Heritage series for the SD-70MAC and of course I bought the Rio Grande version and sold one of the other regular Rio Grande paint schemed SD-70MAC locomotives on ebay as having 3 of those monsters would be too much for my layout. Today Trains #5 still runs the way you see it pictured below. The biggest improvement over the SD40-2 was the SD-70MAC has bigger drive wheels on it so there has not been any traction tire failures at all. The SD-70MAC locomotives also have 4 motors instead of 2 motors like the SD40-2, they have way more pulling capacity than anything I have seen and would put them to the test up against the Aristocraft Dash 9 in a pull competition any day.
After calming down from the big loss I took on the Mikado I evetually stopped selling off my USA Trains wooside collection, but it was already half sold off and realized I did it in haste. I started off again after some time looking for what I sold off. I recently within the last month finally got everything back that I sold off and that was about 3 or 4 years ago. I still had the itch for a steam engine though and the USA Trains Rio Grande Hudson was long sold out, so I couldn't even save for it. Then I found out that Aristocraft was coming out with a new Mallet, but this time I wasn't just jumping right in to buy it after 2 first generation Aristocraft failrues. I went to many train shows and watched them run in person, I saw other forums and reviews and alot of those reviews weren't all that great with complaints of motor electirc contact loss which the loco stops in its tracks to binding of the side rods which instantly destroys the motor to screws falling off. After alot of research of both good and bad reviews and seeing how to articles on beefing these units up, I then decided on buying a Aristocraft Rio Grande Mallet. It was almost too late how ever, everyone was sold out and I finally found one hobby shop who only had 1 Rio Grande Mallet left. I put a deposit down and then went to pay it off, but my credit card company had other plans. I gave my credit card company $450 towards the card so I could finish paying off the item, They put a hold on my payment to the point where I could not get it back either, the credit card company was just sitting on it in limbo, not applying it towards my balance but would not refung it either and they claimed to have the righ to do this. My locomotive was at the point where I could lose it and the deposit, so I used money I shouldn't have so I could get it, but eventually got it back 3 weeks later when the credit card company cleared it. I mean why would you need to take 3 weeks to clear a cash transfer from a checking account??????? Well needless to say that card is now paid off and shreaded, the account closed. The Aristocraft Mallet ended up being one of the best Aristocraft locomotive I have owned and has been very reliable pulling now 22 USA American Series woosdie type rail cars with ease and is a very smooth runner, I'm very happy with this locomotive and on the plus side I absolutely love Articulated type steam locomotives, so I really wouldn't have been happy with the USA Trains Hudson in a sense.
Where does SB Rail Lines go in the future? Well I can definately tell you that I will not be buying any USA Trains bigger than 55ft. USA Trains is planning on coming out with 60ft rolling stock and that is just too big for my layout plus the body mounted couplers won't work on my layout due to 8ft diameter curves. I'm looking forward to the new 2 bay Centerflow hopper car and will be buying possibly 3 of those. Idea purchases I did not go thru with : I had the idea of purchasing 2 of the Articulated intermodel train sets in the TTX name, also I wanted to buy the Rio Grande Ski Passenger train cars, both ideas were quickly axed due to thier size. What locomotive would I like to see USA Trains come out with? I would like to see USA Trains come out with a EMD SD-9 in the Ultimate Series, I love 12 wheel drive locomotives. I would also like to see USA Trains come out with a mountain type steam locomotive in the Rio Grande name in the Prestiage series. Future plans at SB Rail Lines includes going foward with finsishing some more of the basement for 2010 and building another train wall shelf system. There are only 2 train cars left on my wanted list, so there won't be alot of purchasing on trains for 2010. My G scale collection has gotten bigger than my Lionel train collection ever was. I now own 2 USA Trains F3 AB sets, 3 USA Trains SD40-2 locos, 2 USA Trains GP-30 locos, 2 USA Trains GP-9 locos, 2 USA Trains SD-70MAC locos and a NW-2 Cow and Calf set. I have also now topped over the 100 rail car mark, I only originally wanted 75 rail cars, but there is way too many USA Train rolling stock I like. I do own 2 rail cars which are not USA Trains, I own a LGB box car in the Rail Box road name and 1 Aristocraft stock car, thats everything thats not made by USA Trains that I own. In retrospect I had alot of fun over the last 10 years, been to many train shows, met alot of nice people and found Train Board which I consider my 2nd home and look foward to another 10 years, see ya in 2020, lol.
The Future Awaits SB Rail Lines.................................................... I remember going to the East Coast Large Scale train show and saw the new USA Trains 2 bay ACF centerflow hopper I would love to buy. I have not seen any release date, but if my hunch is right it could be out just in time for the 2010 East Coast Large Scale Train show in March. The car was originally advertised for release in late 2009 or early 2010, here is a photo that I took.
During my 10 years of collecting USA Trains I often ran into surprise finds at shows like the below pictured USA Trains custom car and it was custom made by hand from none other than Charles Ro Jr himself, you bet I bought one of those 3 that he made. Charles Ro told me the interesting story of how he hated seeing things laying around, so when he saw a length of unused PVC piping and a couple of odd flat cars laying around, he took matters into his own hands and I have that hand written sticky note he wrote.
Now for my Ultimate find. What better way to top off my USA Trains collection by finding a Charles Ro 1st anniversary car. For those who don't know by now, Charles Ro started USA Trains and I have the first anniversary woodside box car.
