This is an old Arnold Rapido Pacific that I added a different tender to and repainted for Missouri Kansas Texas. Some day I need to revisit it and turn down the pizza cutter flanges and upgrade the tender electrical pickup. These old grinders from the late 1960s still run rather well.
Not the worlds greatest photo, but it does show one of the best built cars I have ever owned. During a switching move last night this Intermountain caswell gon made a hard right on a left hand curve on benchwork 5 feet above a concrete floor. I heard a smash followed by a truck sideframe and a wheel rolling out into the aisle. I expected to find a jigsaw puzzle awaiting me as I climbed under the layout (wreck was in a tunnel). However besides a few scratches in the paint, the car survived its fall 5 feet to the floor. When I found it, it was sitting upside down, and I expected the brakewheel stim to be toast. Nope, it survived. The only thing that broke was one truck that was completely shattered by the impact. Tough car!
One of my junkbox rebuilds, a patched GP9F (F = Frankenstein) made up of parts from Walthers, Front Range, Proto, Athearn, PPW. A short video of my GP9F's in a run-by. Click on image to play.
I received this in the mail from Japan this afternoon. It's a Kato JNR EF57 class heavy electric passenger loco. I'll use it to pull my Tsubame passenger train when I get my layout farther along.
I went to a local train show this afternoon and picked up this Kato Burlington E8a. I can see why the Q has so many fans. This is a really beautiful loco and once I get it a friend, it'll look great at the head of my Cali Zephyr.