The second one is the old MDC, the first an Athearn. MDC sold the 2-8-0 and 2-6-0 in ATSF, Central Pacific and SP. In the background of the second, you can see the Athearn B&O 2-6-0. It has a more colorful scheme, more appropriate to the 1870s, as B&O acquired its last 2-6-0 in the 1870s. The one exception to that is the Chicago Moguls, which did local, transfer and switching work in and around Chicago. They were really 0-6-0s with a pilot truck. Athearn sold the 2-8-0 in D&RGW and ATSF in black and the 2-6-0 in SP in a Russian Iron scheme. Here is the Athearn SP 2-6-0, from Athearn's website: So you can get the road name that you want, you must look at shows or on the web or on FeePay.
Here's a video of the Big Boy going around 9.75" Curve 180 degrees at the end of the dogbone. as you can see is has no trouble. Looks funny, but is able to handle it with no issues. [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfMS6qlCRsA"]YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/nomedia] I was going to make a video of the GS-4 and Daylight Consist going around it, but wouldn't you know it, the GS-4 through a traction tire, and knocked the drives out of time, so I had the whole thing apart on my work bench, but I decided I'm going to put a reverse light in it, and hook up the second headlight to a function output of the tsunami...
Ok, I’m getting me a Big Boy and perfect timing too. I picked up a lot of overtime this week and I know what I’m spending it on. :thumbs_up:
N scale steam Kinda beating a dead horse here now but, any n scale steam with the spectrum label is worth your time. Also the same stands more than true for Kato as both the mikado and the GS4 are possibly the best engines on the marked. Athern is amongst the top performers in our humble scale. Also soon to be scrutinized are the Intermountain Southern Pacific Cab Forward and the Fox Valley Models 4-4-2 Hiawatha. The spectrums are easy conversions do DCC if they do not already have it on board. The Kato locomotives are a pain. The mikado takes a carefull, non-coffee influenced hand to work on, and the GS4 has a drop in board from kato available however if you want to install a decoder for lights and or sound, your in for a little bit of work, although the GS4 is much easier after tackling the Mikado. The Athern models i do not know any info on non DCC, purchased mine with DCC and sound on board. I am eagerly awaiting the Fox Valley Models 4-4-2 Hiawatha.
I have several Bachmann steams and am very unhappy with all of them; wheels slip and they derail extremely easily. I can't recommend those. The Kato Mikado I've seen in operation and wish I'd grabbed it instead.
The key to Bachmann is make sure to get current equipment and primarily Spectrum line although there were some spectrum dud's also. Don't buy the older cardboard box and flip top case versions from E-bay and you will be fine. The 4-8-2 Light mountain has a traction issue which is fairly easy to solve. The 2-6-6-2 first release was a P.O.S. Subsequent releases run very good but lack traction. The others, 2-8-0, 4-8-4 Class J, and 4-8-2 Heavy are very good runners. I am also quite fond of the 2-6-2/0-6-0 standard line loco. With a little detailing and paint, they look very good and run even better after putting on one of the spectrum tenders: The Standard line 4-8-4 Santa Fe Northern isn't bad but could stand to have tender pickup and a little lower gearing. The little 4-4-0 American is pretty good after an extended break in period.
I was going through all my rolling stock to see what I needed for the Big Boy to pull and I realized that I was going to have to buy something. Then my wife reminded me that I was trying to get out of the freight business and start collecting Passenger trains. I maybe jumping the gun here because the only thing I’ve seen the big boy pulling was hoppers or logs. I really like the Big Boy, but I also want passenger trains so I’m going to hold off a little. I’m rethinking the GS-4 and Daylight Consist. What else would be a good choice for a passenger train. I looked at the Bachmann Spectrum 82514 USRA 4-8-2 Heavy Mountain and the only one I liked was the Rio Grande, but that may be a little too far east for my layout.
I think so. It will run about 2-3 mph on the slow end and pull 20 cars on level. I have some youtube videos of more or less stock 0-6-0's running. I would take a video of this one but one of our cat's and the video camera had a fight, the cat won. [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfexe3C22w4"]YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/nomedia] SleeperN If you want big steam for passenger service, pick up a Challenger. Challengers were used quite bit for passenger service. My wifes grandfather used to crew them on passenger trains out of Seattle and Portland.
Oh boy this going to be a hard decision. I’ve already spent many, many hours reading about Steam Passenger trains and except for the Daylight, I can’t figure out what passenger car go with what Loco. I’m getting a headache and I'm starting to think George is right, I am having a nightmare! mg: I was doing a little pricing and I can buy Kato GS-4 Daylight with a 10 Car Passenger set for the price of a Big Boy without any cars. What type of passenger cars would go with the Challengers? In my Google searches I came across a video of someone made of an HO train that I think is interesting but I can’t identify the engine. [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x10NO4uF_7Y"]YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/nomedia] And did the Big Boy ever pull reefer cars? I always liked the looks of the yellow/orange 50' Mechanical Reefers such as the Pacific Fruit Express and I wouldn’t mind having a consist similar to those. I haven’t really found any other freight consists the appeal to me. I also saw this Mikado pulling reefers, which I like as well.
The Big Boy or Challenger pulling a string of PFE reefers would be a normal sight. The Challengers were used on the flats, then handed the train off to the BigBoy's for the mountains. A Challenger is a more versatile loco as the Bigboy's were only allowed on a few segments of the system and they didn't stray from there much. I believe the Wasatch grade in Utah was their primary use. As far a passenger cars behind a Challenger...the Kato smoothside sets in Yellow, the Con-Cor smoothsides in Yellow or two tone Gray, then add in the various offerings from Rapido and Walthers and you have quite a selection to choose from. The Grayhound scheme (two tone gray) cars were pulled behind oil fired Challengers out of Portland and Seattle from 1946-1950. I'm doing research on that right now as that was the service my wifes Grandfather was assigned to. After 50' the cars went back to Yellow.
Thanks Tony, I was wondering about that. You should add that bit of info to Wikipedia’s “Union Pacific Big Boy”. My daughter bought me a book on Steamers a few years ago when I wasn’t so interested. I’m going to look for it and see if there is any info in it.
