Occasionally we visit the local train auction (Ted Mauer) and decided to go on Saturday. Mauer does multiple days on Thanksgiving weekend. The sale was of one man's collection and most of the trains seemed to be from the early to mid nineties. Most bidders were getting lots of 6 freight cars for $50 - 60. There were some Lionel freight cars that were listed as "scale" and they were scale sized, but lacked the detail available today. One bidder bought most of these and paid more than $100.00 each. I'm not sure what I'm missing here, but that seemed way out of line.
I was the successful bidder on the two items that interested me and here they are:
A Williams brass PRR B6. No sound, Seuthe smoke. I paid $120.00 + $12.00 buyers' premium.
A Weaver brass PRR G5. No sound, Seuthe smoke. I paid $130.00 + $13.00 buyers' premium.
Neither loco had ever been out of the factory packaging. Both made in Korea. I lubed them and test ran them. They both ran beautifully, even after ~25 years. They have sprung drivers and a very robust and well geared drive system. They run so well, I'm a little hesitant to convert them to PS2, but I will. The B6 will be more difficult because the tender is small and there are no pre-drilled holes for the speaker sound to escape. Each loco has 4 traction tires and they're well weighted so I expect they'll be good pullers.
We all love to acquire new locos, and at these prices, I'm really thrilled.
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