Hey guys Pleased to find this forum! I've been away for a little while. Like 40+ yrs. When I turned 9 (June 1963) dad bought me a Tyco HO starter set with an 0-4-0, 4-whl caboose, flat car with a pipe load, and a box car. I got hooked and by the time I turned 12 I had saved up my lawn care money and bought a Rivarossi 2-8-8-2 N&W. I put the trains away in my teens, then tinkered with N scale in my 20's and 30's. Many moves destroyed that setup and I haven't dabbled in modeling in 30 years. Last Feb I was unpacking an old box in the storage room and discovered my old HO stuff, including the 2-8-8-2. The pilot was trashed and the tender was missing. I also found that old caboose and the switcher, a couple of transformers and a bunch of N scale stuff. I got sentimental and decided to try to restore the Mallet. I won an Ebay bid for a perfect 2-8-8-2 Rivvy, a "Silver Series Limited Edition" with very nice, SMALL flanges, not pizza cutters! I think I got a great deal at $124.00 +S/H. Well, if ya give a mouse a cookie...since Feb '18 I have acquired quite a roster of impressive articulateds & Mallets, to sort of do a static display history of the progression of development from 2-6-6-2 C&O through 4-8-8-4 UP, to include 2-6-6-4 N&W, 4-6-6-4 Clinchfield, 2-8-8-4 B&O, 2-8-8-2 N&W and the coup de gras, a 2-6-6-6 C&O. I also picked up the 2-8-4 Pere Marquette, and several other assorted locos, rolling and stock, 18 buildings from the Roy Stanley estate collection, and other things like a 130' Walthers motorized turntable. Guess I am back into train modeling. I picked out a nice clear acrylic shelf display unit for the locos, and it looks like I have run out of room in it with the last loco I won last week, a 4-8-4 N&W J class. I grew up with the original Flint & Pere Marquette running next to my back yard in Northville, Michigan, which by then was the C&O. As it turns out, after doing some history research, the trolley which came to Northville became part of the Detroit Interurban, and - to my shock - Detroit had the largest trolley system in the world, even bigger than NY! It was known as the Trolley Capital of the World, as well as the (later, more popularly) the car capital. Things ya never knew...huh. So I got a trolley, as close to the same type car as served my old hometown (got lots of photo help from our local historical society folks on Facebook), and the controller. Can't wait to set it all up and get stuff ROLLIN'! My office will never be the same
Hi Greg, welcome. Glad to have you on board. That is quite a stable you have there, You're going to have fun running them.
