Hello all! My real name is Isaac. I live in the Tampa Bay region, and of course a really big fan of trains! I am not new to model trains, however I am making my first foray into serious model railroading. I'm working with HO scale. My interests are very diverse as far as trains go, anything from turn-of-the-century steam and mid-century streamliners to more contemporary stuff. I'm mostly into passenger trains (streetcars, interurbans, commuter, intercity) but am also starting to build an interest in yard switching and small freights as well. One of my first projects involves mostly consist-building, as I am currently not at a place where I can begin building a layout. I have quite a few consists that I wish to build in the next year and a half or so - my first is B&O's Capitol Limited. My grandfather worked for the B&O (as did quite a few other relatives both immediate and quite distant; I like to think it's in the blood) and he operated the early diesel streamliners and if I am not mistaken he was usually assigned to the Capitol Limited. There are a few other trains that I am looking into creating as well including the National Limited and perhaps a CN&W '400' train or the ATSF Super Chief. It's quite challenging, trying to find the cars needed at a low-budget. I'm not going to be quite prototypical with the B&O trains as I prefer uniform car styles whereas the B&O was light on ordering new cars and mixed their trains with heavyweights, streamstyled, smoothside, and corrugated. I'm choosing to have these consists with smoothside cars. Currently I have an F7A/B unit from Bachmann (needs couplers; I actually wanted an E6 unit but that got snatched up before I could bid. I may opt for an E8 unit in future), a Con-cor B&O smoothside round-end observation car, as well as one of the discontinued Rivarossi '1930s' smoothside blunt-end observation cars. I also have an E8A/A unit set from Con-cor as well. There are quite a few more of the Rivarossi '1930s' smoothside cars out there that I have my eye on as well which will be enough to complete the consist. I received my blunt-end observation car in the mail and was impressed with it despite it's age (I believe these were produced in the 70s or 80s?). So far eBay has been my best friend and it has been easy on my wallet but unfortunately I will have to wait for next month to go on though. Part of my larger goal here is to rehab the cars I buy and give them a fresher paint scheme, standardize and switch out some of the couplers, etc. Maybe a few other modifications as well. But I prefer to have all of the cars I need first (at least for the Capitol Limited). For now I am spending most of my current free time in researching techniques surrounding painting locomotives and cars, what paints I will need, etc. Anyways, I look forward to seeing what happens on these forums - I stumbled upon this place when researching HO scale B&O.
Welcome to TrainBoard! Please keep us updated, as you progress. If you have any questions, we've many forums just awaiting your inquiry!
Hi Isaac, welcome. I'm impressed with the way you have developed your plan, very logical and budget conscious. I wish you the best of success with searches and bidding. Stay in touch.
Welcome aboard, Isaac! It does sound like you've defined your interests/goals/parameters quite well. I'll just make a suggestion for what I'm interpreting your future: consider centering your future layout on a "Union Station" kind of terminal area. That would give you an excuse to have various name trains meeting (even if you have to fictionalize a bit) and would also present an opportunity for switching head-end cars and rearranging consists for trains adding/dropping cars. Along with connections with commuter/interurban lines.
