Jim: I have room for a layout, but need to move a wall...which involves an engineer, which means I need to contract that out.....
Rather than post them singly, all except of 3 were acquired in the past 12 months. A 2-10-0 'Hippo' is on the way. Is it obvious I prefer PRR? top-to bottom is old-to-new, an 1898 Mogul and American on top, a huge J1 at the bottom. The display case is constructed of recycled pre-finished bamboo flooring. Pre-finished flooring has several advantages over plain pine. It does not need finishing. It is usually temperature and humidity resistant. Some disadvantages: You usually need to trim the tongue from one side. It is constructed with much glue and epoxy, which gives off annoying fumes during cutting.
Due to reliability issues with the POCR SW1500 it was decided by management to secure a lease locomotive for long-term use at the port. GMTX 401 was leased from GATX Locomotive Group. It arrived today and the local crew put her through the wye and other trackage to test her out. Athearn GP 15-1 with Tsunami sound and DCC. She runs very sweet, with good low speed performance. I attended the NW Arkansas show a couple of weeks ago and came across some ladies selling off estate cars. I picked up 8 of them at a decent cost. 3 plastic pellet hoppers, 2 KCS boxcars, a ConRail coil car (not shown), a Ashley Drew box and the ARCO car. The City of Prineville box car came from eBay. All have been treated with metal wheels and weathered. I didn't have the heart to really dirty up the pellet cars so they were mildly weathered and added stripes. Thanks for looking! Dale
I recently acquired a Six Car BLI Wabash Blue Bird set of Passenger Cars, will have a complete picture when our club layout is back in operation. Rick Jesionowski
No one has posted in a while, so here are a few things I got on a road trip. In Kokomo, Indiana, there is a store called The Train Exchange. It is one of the best train stores I have ever been to. They have a ton of custom painted Athearn Blue Box, and a lot of other vintage things, but they also have brass and normal Atlas, Bachmann, Etc. I talked to a few of the employees about their pending shop move (one block west and one block north) and their club layout. While in the back looking at the track plan, I saw the unmistakable gold of a Quality Craft Models box. I also found an E&B valley 8600 class Pullman kit. To round things out, I got an Atlas Master Line Evans boxcar, all for under $30.
UPDATE: I did my math wrong. It was actually $30.90 (not including taxes), but that is still a pretty good price.
Yes it is, a lot of folks are not willing to put the time and effort into those Craftsman kits, and they are so good when you get done. I am glad to see you get them and please post pictures of your progress.
I just started a thread on the Pullman. Not many companies make kits like this anymore. If you think about it, one day all of these old kits will have been built, and that will be a very sad day. Almost like the end of an era, when all the good models were kits.
Broke down and bought a DCC locomotive even though I operate DC at home. Got it to run at the model railroad club in the old Northern Pacific depot in Livingston, MT.
Just Arrived, new Scaletrains SD40-2's, this is one of two I got, will test them out at the club this weekend. Rick Jesionowski
Very nice. Takes me back to railfanning on the west side of Emmett (just west of Port Huron, Mi.), many years ago prior to the Canadian invasion. It was a great place to spend a Sunday afternoon.
I recently bought this early Kraus-Maffei, a loco I have wanted since the review in MR in the early sixties: Doug
Ordered one of these 18 months ago when BLI announced. Ordered it through the C&O Historical Society. Got it back in late June/early July.
That ExactRail GT blue waffle box car is real nice looking, along with the UP, ATSF and DT&I cousins. I think the GT is a repaint from around 1980 or 81? I like the Jeld Wen blue island reefers - I picked up 2 numbers a couple years ago as those were common out of the Pacific northwest.
Also just received my Rapido FA-2's! PRR Version with the trainphone antennas and all the correct detail for a PRR Unit.