Well, I went down to Vegas over Thanksgiving and rekindled some mrr fires. Unfortunately, I found when I was packing to head down there that I seem to have a significant quantity of locomotives and rolling stock that is AWOL. So, my subconscious has kicked in and said "replace, replace!" As a result, I have the UTA Frontrunner 3 car set (Athearn) on the way from a shop in Florida, to join up with the loco I bought about a year ago or so. There are several FVM KCSdeMX GEVOs on the way, along with TCS decoders, some IM KCS Trinity 5161 hoppers, and a passel of Red Caboose Autoracks. (Autoracks are among the AWOL.) Add a Kobo E5, another TCS decoder, the CoLA and Silver Streak, plus an assortment of other goodies from various eastern vendors, and there's going to be a LOT of stuff under the tree for me. The good thing is, all put together, it's going to be a darn sight easier to get this stuff inside and where it belongs than was the used 24" bandsaw I scored in October. The bad thing is, N scale trains are a LOT easier to lose track of than is a 7' tall 700+ pound bandsaw... Why, you may wonder, did I get a second E5, since the Silver Streak comes with one, and that's all it ran with? Easy. My California Zephyr is currently without motive power, as the DRG&W PAs that pulled it are also among the AWOL. Now, come the new year, I'll look into getting some motive power for the CoLA (likely some BLI E A/B units). I did the math, and a ABBA Paragon2 equipped set from BLI, with unpowered B's, costs less than a Kato ABBA set + decoders. Add in the silly little fact that 11 wildly free rolling Kato passenger cars can easily be pulled by a single E unit, and the assignment of two powered and two unpowered is perfectly reasonable. 4 powered Es? Mongo overkill. Until the new varnish hits my doorstep, the Delaware Zephyr will continue to haunt the rails... (D&H PA1s pulling the CZ).
A "Yellow Bonnet" Kato F7 in ATSF. It's not era appropriate, I don't model ATSF or any of its progeny, but I REALLY like how this one looks.
Latest acquisition (painted by Jeff Gowers) Yikes! Man I take lousy pictures sometimes! Anyhoo, the lokie looks great, my photograph skills not so great....LOL!
Well, if paper counts: Several DRGW forms that I do/did not have in my collection. Including a couple of passenger car tickets A 1904 auditors check, for $10.40 1928 stationary travel brochure Still waiting on: Full sheet of 1961 DRGW Krauss Maffei 75 cent postage stamps 1958 Green Bay and Western paycheck. Otherwise, nothing new model wise.
Here is my latest purchase Arnold-Rapido (Germany) EMD FP9A & FP9B incase photo is not there mine is AMTRAK tom
a Traincat Southern Pacific C-30-6 bay window caboose...soon, MTL trucks and Microscale caboose decals....
Last Saturday went to a small swap. Very little N scale but some pretty good prices. I did pickup 2 Atlas beer can tank cars. Did find 3 DT&I geeps for only $44 had to pass on them. Did win 7 PFE reefers still waiting on them to be shiped. Dan
Took delivery on a PR3Xtra and a long Loconet cable yesterday. Got it set up and working with JMRI last night. I want to thank Robin for combining my two separate orders
Mike, I am enjoying it already. I even download WIThrottle Lite to my sons iPhone! I was thinking that JMRI could just read the decoder and tell me what address it has but so far, I have not figured if it can do that.
Well, one of my boxes showed up last night. It included a Kato GS-4 in Freedom Train livery, 4 of 5 decoders ordered (one was backorded), and a whole passel of passenger cars. 12 to be exact. 11 of 'em were in the Kato box that said "City of Los Angeles", the other is a Walthers C&O 10-6 Sleeper. (If anybody has a line on more of 'em, please let me know...). Last, there was a 6 pack of Kato passenger LED lightkits, v2..
I recently got the Kato Glacier Express. Very nice train. I bought the close coupler kit have not yet attempted to install it.
WHAT SANTA BROUGHT I expected a thread on Trainboard about what Santa left under the Christmas tree for our trains. But I celebrated late, just got back from visiting relatives and friends and can’t find a thread like that, so “your latest purchase” seems like the next most appropriate place. Santa did me nice, with the elf help of my brother, who has a custom sheet metal fabrication shop in Houston, S. Anthony Fabrication. He made me for Christmas (to my specs) three sets of L-angles and lipped hook strips to help me solve a layout room problem. I will be able to use these metal parts to hang easily-removable styrene background sheets over the windows in my train room- and I don’t see any way I could have made these without the skills and equipment my brother has. I have a styrene background around my train room, mounted on battens held to the walls by moly bolts, so they can be removed with minimum permanent impact on the wall. The background is 16 inches tall (three 16 inch strips from a 4 x 8 foot sheet of styrene). Where there are windows, I have removable styrene pieces held with small nails with heads removed, through small holes in the styrene. But I didn’t realize what a problem the glare from the uncovered top of the window would be. And the piece won’t last through many removals and replacements over the little headless nails. The metal L can be screwed over the top of the window molding. I can cut new background pieces the same width as the windows, but high enough to go from just below layout surface to the top of the window molding. I will affix the styrene with GOO to the metal strip that has a hooked slot, so it can go over the L angle. Remaking the background sheets over the windows will also give me a chance to upgrade some of the image. And I was THRILLED with my Christmas goodies!
I picked up a bunch of detail parts from MbE in Canada, decals for my SD70ACe and some IM covered hoppers: 2 BNSF Trinity's, 1 BNSF Thrall and BNSF green 3 Bay. I had some sweet eBay scores!
Got my Intermountain D&RGW 'Cookie Box' six pack after over a year since they were announced. Very nice as usual... should have come with some Keebler cookies for the long wait.
