Wow. It's been a month already? And so far spring hasn't sprung other then floods in the midwest and I suppose twisters else where. I got drenched at the Train Show on sunday but despite being flat broke walked away with 2 pieces of LGB Track for 10 bucks. No sign of my grills yet. L&B Just got orders placed from last year in but nothing on the list. I found a Piko Building for cheap but I will pick it up next month. Ran into a guy selling custom equipment and said he'll be back in may with Aristocraft/USA Trains Rolling stock for 20 bucks a piece. I'm alloting 40 bucks to spend assuming I run into some CBQ/SPS/GN/NP/BN/Frisco equipment. Also we lost power at the train show and had to have trenches dug to avoid flooding the main building. But what of Wolfcreek? Well remember those 2 pieces of track? Siding Extension work has begun. A Second functional siding to be used heading in and out of Wolfcreek station mostly to house equipment to be switched for 2022 and 2072 to haul out. Here's a quick photo (Note: Those are 6 rails that crane's lifting and to prevent toppling it over, I have 3 on the hook and 3 rails underneath to pull an optical illusion): FInally I've priced out what it will cost to do my conversion to FPA-4/FPB-4. Most of which are electronic pieces and parts from USA Trains. I saw a used PA-1 at the train show in less than perfect condition. I was going to buy her to salvage parts, but the guy was charging 300 for a unit that had no working power trucks. Uh.....Nice try pal but No. So I did the next best thing, I painted the edges of my step ladders with normal Testors White. It turned out pretty good after Clean up and I don't have center Stepladders because the PA-1 fuel tank has step ladders built in: Finally my track's back in a working arrangment. I have a class action lawsuit against a certain pharmasutical company for causing a problem (Not going to say anymore as this isn't trainboard.com related) and my lawyers in New Orleans say they will have a figure by april and money by June. The money is going to go into finishing my FPA/FPB conversion and to pick up some rolling stock and start swappin over to kadess and hopefully get the outdoor portion of the layout going. Things are starting to look up despite the gloom of the economy. Things could be worse, I could be out on the street, but all that does is make me appreciate life a little better and realize I could be so far worse off. Hopefully I can track down my Woodland Scenics Gothic Railroad Numbers and finish the Numbering job on my FB-1 and get the stripe on the FA-1. Won't know until I can actually find my dry transfer numbers. Can't make it to East Coast this spring, going to try for fall. Have fun up there to all who are going.
DragonFyreGT, great work, hang in there and we will all make it. I will be thinking of you at the show and will bring back any pictures of Burlington Northern trains which usually there is plenty of. There is a guy in the New Hampshire GRS club last year who had a similiar set up to your FA FB and was pulling 50 Aristocraft coal hopper cars all of which were Burlington Northern. Some people do want ridiculous prices for trains just because it is a train and they figure someone will pay it. Their mentality is > It's a train is has to be worth big bucks. Thats like how I see Bachman regular run train sets on ebay for $250 and up. That is funny, because I remember them only being $100 at one time and would never pay that price for a regular run Bachman. I bought my Bachman train set back in 1999 on sale for only $75 new.
It's nice to see someone else keep most of thier equipment in the road name they like. Most of my equipment on SB Rail Lines is Rio Grande. One of the hobby stores I used to go to made fun of me for wanting mainly Rio Grande rolling stock. He laughed at me and would say "Just run a Rio Grande locomotive and caboose, then you should run any road name rolling stock in between, it's more realistic" Maybe he is right, but it's my money and I want Rio Grande rolling stock and if it isn't available, then I will pick out a secondary road name which would be Southern Pacific since how they merged with Rio Grande before the big UP buy out.
