Searching for realistic equipment is much easier for modern era modelers. Trying to find wood sided heavyweights with the arched top window pairs, now that is not happening. Like you said earlier, the C-C and Riv stuff is close to SF and some other big roads,. Wasn't there an outfit that made brass car sides for N scale cars?
Yes, there was someone who made Brass sidings. A closer replica's then we were getting in plastic. I have some mail cars with the brass sidings. Thanks to a good friend. All I can see about them is I'm glad I didn't try to attempt that conversion. They are nicely done. My goal is to let MTL come to the rescue with their HW passenger car trucks. If you had the molah you could buy brass models. They were nice and about as accurate as you were going to get. Honestly or literally Heavy. Never mind Expensive!! More Later!
Are you ever going to get trains running ? It's been 9 months since we came by your place ! Most guys can make babies in that time and you can't get trains running ?? !
Brass cars are just way beyond my budget, so I guess foobies will be in order for the time being..... At least MT is producing some decent heavyweights, and I can even order them in just Pullman Green for lettering at my convenience.
I think that BNSF ought to use the Warbonnet scheme, maybe a Deep Green bonnet and Silver body to commemorate both histories?
j Glad you know how to count. Your going to run out of fingers before to long. NO! Not yet. I hate to admit. I'm waiting for my eyes to catch up with the things I need to be able to see to get the job done. Part of getting the job done is setting it up. I pretty much have everything I need but my budget needs to catch up with the things I don't have. For example, Tite Bond Glue, rotary blades for my Dremel tool. Stuff like that. I have track, Zap-a-gap cyanoacrylate glue, brads and even cork roadbed. My vision even with the optimizer is border okay. A visit to the optometrist may help me to secure a different reading type of prescription. Then I will be able to see clearly up close. And now you know what's been holding me up all this time. So I set and grumble...a lot!
I'd like that as well. Although in many ways Santa Fe is gone and I don't expect it to be resurrected anytime soon. BNSF did paint up a SD type with a Blue Bonnet. Unfortunately a lot of the railfans called it a Vomit Bonnet. I believe (a blue collar thing) the paint scheme was something Kreb's wife put together. She captured all the colors of the former merged railroads. I liked it and thought that would make a fine impression. However, someone harked back to the Great Northern Green and Orange livery. Now you know where the pumpkins came from. Oh the roof top is now painted black. I'm still scratching my head on that one. The Executive paint scheme a Dark Green and White stripe is impressive as well. They had them running out in the Coal Country. Here lately they've been seen running in other places. Rumor has it: BNSF has been thinking about going back to the blue livery. I don't know how true that is. However, on Virtual Railfan, some blue units have been seen passing the cam's. Causing me to wonder! More later!
Yup. I remember us both talking about how bad our eyesight's are. The last of the lighting I tried to accomplish under the layout made my eyes...back...knees and every other part of my body hurt ! I am going to wait until my son comes down here again and see if I can get him to finish it up.
The continuing saga. Oh no not some more? Yep! To set the scene it's in the late 80' early 90's when we noticed a Kato four car Santa Fe passenger set. Something about it didn't look right. The cars had skirting over the wheels. Like the California Zephyr passenger cars. They looked good but he shook his head and said that wasn't right. What we did find was a set of Kato shorties. Odd but they did mass produce them. Very similar to HO's Athearn shorties. He bought the Kato set and we proceeded to unbox and run them on his layout. They ran better then anything else on our layout. Hummm!! Are we on to something here?? Back in Kettering, Ohio. Kato products begin to show-up at the Hobby Shop, I worked for. Wondering if it's because of how I talked up the set of cars on Dad's layout. N Scale, Atlas/Kato engines started showing up as well. The boss approached those of us in the train department. With a package in his hand, a gleam in his eye and slight grin. You guys have got to see this. An HO scale, Stewart F type with a Kato chassis. We took it out and ran it on the layout in the back of the store. Smooth? Oh did it run smooth!! Very responsive to the throttle, I best not forget. Suddenly we were all cleaning track, vacuuming, general housekeeping on the layout. Then from his back pocket a smaller package. A N scale, Atlas/Kato GP type. So we all tromped over to the N scale layout. A dinky tight radius curse of the god's. To our surprise. We had never seen a smoother running N scale diseasel. SP intended, as you might guess, up till then nothing in N scale ran smoothly. Start off with a hccup, jerk, stall and stutter to a stop. Up till then no one had produced a smooth running engine (expletives I can't use here) as the Kato's. We all thought, this might turn the industry on it's head. Finally some excellent train equipment, priced right and we can run on our railroads in miniature. Darn those Rapido Couplers. The only negative we could find. Time would prove these units could keep on running. Parts weren't easy at first to get but that didn't last long. Kato was out to take care of us. No doubt. Well, most of you are now living in today's history of things. You know the changes and improvements. Life like, Atlas, Rapido, Micro-Trains all brought to the scene. Train equipment that met up with most of our standards. MTL and those knuckle couplers that everyone has been trying to copy. The times they were a changing. It looked like everyone was stepping to the plate and making changes for the better. Even the freight diesels and train cars improved. Most model makers stepped to the plate, I think I said that already. I did. Manufacturers began to produce some finely detailed, smooth running train equipment. Variety, variety!! A shout out of thanks to all of them. Salute!! Okay, that's it from me for now. Now you know the rest of the story. Wake-up George.
NO! I like that. George, and of course everyone else tuned in here. I'm glad your wife took that picture. That's the only one I have of the two of us. We are a pair. Grumpy Old men as your wife pointed out. God I love your blunt honesty. Great pictures. In the last one your son I presume and did you have an earthquake? I see the cars laying on their sides. Here's to hope-ing I catch up with you at some point. Demolition is the name of the game. More wiring and the clock ticks on. Later!!
It was a short but great visit my friend Oh yea...wiring and reach across the layout in the yard will do that....lol Same here. it's been awhile. .
I called out the wreck train, big hook, boom tender, work cars, dinner, and set up to put this thread back on track. Or rather my layout back on track. But that's another thread. I really like those spur lines to seem-ably no where. The local heading down the spur line wobbling and weaving all over the place. A shove or two, spotting a empty car to be loaded, grabbing the filled car and adding it to the departing train. A run around for the locomotive. Hoping I have a run around to do that on. Remember with a run around you can spot a car anywhere you want. Things to do. I'll get back to you later. So, what's going on with everyone else?
Replacement ceiling fan for the den arrived, so I've been getting the old one out and the new one in. Finish that up tomorrow. Couldn't find my wire strippers, so I hopped on over to HD to pick up a couple that will do the trick, for this and for MRR (see what I did there?). Jobs like that don't seem to go as quickly as they used to... Had to watch the WF/LSU CWS ballgame too. Was rooting for WF (daughter's boyfriend is a graduate school alum) but I'll take an all SEC final anyway. My Razorbacks missed the trip to Omaha this year. Geaux SEC West! (That's as close to rooting for LSU as I can get.)
