Are you a Fallen Flag Railfan/Modeler

Stourbridge Lion Jun 28, 2006

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Which Statement best applies to you...

  1. Railfan of one or more Fallen Flags

    22 vote(s)
    7.4%
  2. Modeler of one or more Fallen Flags

    65 vote(s)
    22.0%
  3. Both a Railfan & Modeler of one or more Fallen Flags

    200 vote(s)
    67.6%
  4. Neither

    9 vote(s)
    3.0%
  1. BarstowRick

    BarstowRick TrainBoard Supporter

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    I can't believe I'm hearing myself say this but....
    I just recently purchased a number of GN passenger cars from the transition era of heavyweight pullman green to GN Green and Orange. Looks nice.
     
    Kurt Moose likes this.
  2. MaxDaemon

    MaxDaemon TrainBoard Member

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    When I was a kid (in the early 70's) I loved the Big Sky Blue. Now that I've been modeling awhile, the green and orange really seems to pull me in, even to the point where I'm going to be painting a pair of U28C's and I'd like to paint them orange, but it seems the only colors they came in were BSB. So be it, but a bit of me twinges about it.

    Rick, I also got bit by the passenger equipment bug. I bought a mixed bag of cars and used the three streamliners for my 70's GN/NP/Amtrak bastardization, which left a couple of old heavyweight B&O cars - so they sat for a few months. I got the bright idea to build a GN Business car set - to that end, I bought a diner and an observation heavyweight - just having a hard time putting out $30 each for coach cars - when it hit me that I had two unused coach cars of the right era right there in front of me. So I got some more painting practice in and now have two very nicely done (well, I think so, at least) GN coach cars to go with my business set.

    .
     
    BarstowRick likes this.
  3. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    What I remember about BSB, it seemed to weather poorly. The paint got a flat, almost chalky look after a while.
     
  4. MaxDaemon

    MaxDaemon TrainBoard Member

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    I agree. It didn't seem to take long at all to weather out. In fact, some of the confusion seems to result in manufacturers making locomotives painted in flat, whereas they are all glossy and shiny when new.

    I have to say, those long sets of BSB passenger trains .. just don't cut it. I won't have a single BSB passenger car on my road.

    But a pair of weathered five year old UBoats with a good helping of soot all over the back end should look decent.

    .
     
    SuperGoat likes this.
  5. James Fitch

    James Fitch TrainBoard Member

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    I too am a big fallen flag enthusiast. At one time I was trying to stay "modern", which at the time was late 1980's thru early 1990's. But during the past 25 years time kept on slippin slippin slippin, into the future (Steven Miller band) and in recent years I've decided to back date ten years to late 1970's thru early 1980's. During that time frame, WP was still independent, as well as a number of other fallen flags, and there was a lot of NP, GN, CB&Q, PC, PRR, NYC, etc. rolling stock still out there roaming around in original paint in freight trains, including a lot of box cars with roof walks still.

    If you can get over the sticker shock, you'll find some fantastic rolling stock for fallen flags out there from Tangent Scale Models in HO - including GN and NP CF4740 covered hoppers, baby Hi Cube box cars (NP & Milwaukee) and Dry Flo covered hoppers etc. Intermountain is making some fallen flag box cars in 40 and 50' versions good for 1970's as well and are less expensive than Tangent.

    Really there is a lot of nice stuff come out on the market in the last 20 years, from Athearn, Genesis, Moloco, Intermountain, Tangent and ExactRail, and most of it very accurate to the prototype. In fact I just bought a couple of Tangent 53' GSC flat cars which are dead nuts copies of flat cars used by the NP and are beautiful, although not cheap, it's nice to have a couple. Athearn Genesis has made some nice open bi-level autoracks including NP.
     
  6. RailMix

    RailMix TrainBoard Member

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    Tangent is a little too rich for my blood, but some other manufacturers have been pretty good to us modelers of Michigan fallen flags, particularly for those of us that model earlier eras. Lifelike Proto 2000 has been very good to those of us who model the Pere Marquette with both a very nice 50' gondola ( I thought it was very cool that an unintelligible blob of fine print, when held up to a magnifying glass, actually said "PERE MARQUETTE RAILWAY EQUIPMENT TRUST 1944. NATIONAL BANK OF DETROIT OWNER LESSOR.") Both P2K and Bachmann gave us pretty nice 1200 series Berkshires and Athearn ran their USRA Mikado in both GTW and PM. Accurail (not the high priced spread, but I'll take it) has produced several upgradable cars for both Pere Marquette and GTW. Atlas has also produced a nice rebuilt USRA boxcar available in, and , I believe prototypical for Wabash, GTW and Ann Arbor. Detroit and Mackinac boxcars have been produced by both Intermountain and Bowser (ex PRR round roof and ex-PRR caboose) All in all, no complaints about my three favorite roads here.
     
    gjslsffan likes this.
  7. 282mike

    282mike TrainBoard Member

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    Yes! I model Milwaukee/ Cmsp&p, Northern Pacific, Great Northern.
     
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  8. Joe Lovett

    Joe Lovett TrainBoard Member

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    I model N scale Frisco on my layout with interchange with Missouri Pacific and MKT. The area around Northwest Arkansas between Ft. Smith and Winslow Tunnel is my favorite with mountains and lots of trees. My layout will be a 8 1/2ft. by 11ft. continuous loop divided into eleven modules that are 12 inches wide and vary in length from 35 inches to 58 inches. There will be two passing tracks, several sidings and a small yard, along with a small staging yard.

    Also like KCS, RI and ATSF.

    Joe
     
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  9. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    I model a freelance eastern PA regional set in the late 1970s/early 1980s and for much the same reasons as jimfitch, that it was the final era of cabooses, jointed rail, interlocking towers, 1st Gen diesels, 40 FT equipment, branchlines everywhere, pole lines and more. My railroad's story sets its start in 1976, adopting lines that Conrail didn't want. I run anthracite road diesel power in the classic schemes.
     
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  10. Joe Lovett

    Joe Lovett TrainBoard Member

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    Oh I forgot about the time era. My layout is set in 1949 to 1951 so I can run black and yellow diesels and steam locomotives. Of course cabooses will bring up the rear. Frisco traffic was high during this time era making it very interesting to me!!!

    Joe
     
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2018
    Hardcoaler likes this.
  11. Georgia Trains

    Georgia Trains TrainBoard Member

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    I am a little concerned about this area - it is "Fallen Flags" and the last posting was 2006. Is this topic "fallen".

    I have just started my last layout for the second time. We had sold our house to go fulltime camping and lo and behold my wife found us a small house to retire in and it has a basement for another railroad.

    I model the Georgia Railroad Family - Atlanta & West Point and Western Railway of Alabama - I follow railroads that were in Georgia during the 60's and 70's - pretty much before Grafitti -
     
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  12. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    A fine modelling choice Georgia Trains. Heh heh, I like your era definition too - The Pre-Grafitti Era.
     
  13. montanan

    montanan TrainBoard Member

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    20180211_132140.jpg
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    I'll stick with the fallen flags. Grew up in the transition era and model that area right where I live set in 1957.

    20171118_142608.jpg
     
    Doug Gosha, badlandnp, JimJ and 2 others like this.
  14. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    2006 was when this topic first posted. Prior to your message today, the last activity was February of 2018.
     
    Doug Gosha likes this.
  15. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    I see continuity in resurrecting existing threads, even if they've been sidetracked for a long time. I use the [Search] function and it serves everyone well when topics are consolidated in fewer threads. Just my $0.02.
     
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  16. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    We have seen many threads brought from the past to current days. There have been some interesting updates.

    Reactions from a few range between amused and befuddled. The rest of us enjoy, learn and benefit. Unless a topic has been locked, due to (usually) one headache, anything else is welcome to be resurrected.
     
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  17. MaxDaemon

    MaxDaemon TrainBoard Member

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    I agree 100%. Some boards call it "necroing" - as in bringing it back from the dead, and it's frowned on. I say - if it was relevant and useful 5 years ago, why call it dead and lose all that information...
     
  18. Dogwood

    Dogwood TrainBoard Member

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    I model PGE and BC RAIL as fallen flag railroads. My favorite are but BC RAIL in the great scenery of British Columbia.
     
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  19. Kurt Moose

    Kurt Moose TrainBoard Member

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    And for the scenery up there, just breathtaking!! :cool:
     
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  20. BarstowRick

    BarstowRick TrainBoard Supporter

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    i think I signed off on this thread early on. So allow me to add...what? That hasn't already been said.

    I don't much care for the railroads today. Look alike diesels, look alike trains, no real passenger trains with the character Santa Fe, Union Pacific, Western Pacific and Southern Pacific gave them. I know I left out the eastern or mid west railroads. Them too!

    Now it's just Amtrak and don't get me wrong they are nicer then some of the older train equipment but it just isn't. Never on time, not dependable but comfortable. Did I mention expensive? Cheaper to fly! I didn't really say that did I? Yeah, I did.

    So, my layout reflects the transition era when steam took a dive and diseasels showed up to take their place. Plagued with problems as many of the bugs in those first FT's and Geeps had to be worked out. Some of those FT's required more water stops then the stoves, valves or steam engines of the day.

    It was a good time to be alive and witness both large and small steamers plying the rails and making the pull. That was locomotion and could never be replaced by motors, as the diseasels were called by the rails. It wasn't long and gone was the character that brought reason and cause for this little boy to stand trackside, mouth gaping wide open, eyes wide open and sometimes scared by the awesomeness of it all. Soon heavy weight passenger trains turned to streamliners (I never heard anyone call them light weights). Not nearly as smooth riding as the heavyweights but seemed to capture the attention of it's riders. Lot's of good reviews. Even then something was noted and times were about to change, again.

    Eisenhower came back from Europe all turned on about the Audobon. It wasn't long before freeways resembling such started cutting ribbons across the U.S.of A. Cars became the way to go and passengers dropped off the trains. Aeroplane's with government subsidized airports started to pick-up the slack (and not in the couplers). It was time for another transition. It's that era I try to recapture on my layout.

    Yes, I'm a fallen flag model railroader.
     
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