Buy anything cool lately?

Now, that's a really COOL paint job!

That DL109/110 is a cool engine, period.  I ordered a CNW F3 instead of the DL109/110 only because of the length on my 0-42 curves.  I know it would navigate 0-42 but I thought it might not look good doing so.  I got my F3 set from Mr. Muffins, too, BTW -- great people.  I'm slightly second guessing my decision on the DL109/100, though,  based on your picture -- very cool and definitely belongs on this topic!

Scooped up my gp9. Going to turn into this:

My Latest haul of METCA exclusive Lionel Items

Lionel 460 G

5

Reverse colors Alaska Box Car

reverse colors St of Maine potato Car

7 Dwarf Mine Ore Cars

The Morrison Door factory had its grand opening this week. First Woodland Scenics building on the layout. Hope they release a Soul Kitchen Diner some day. Also preordered the Records and Recruiting Building.

Picked up one of the Lionel - Early Intermodal Yard Workhouses (Plug-in-play). I already had the MOW Workhouse and it is an excellent accent piece. So, I wanted to get the intermodal version as well to go in my trailer yard. Great piece that adds a lot of sounds and realistic bangs, clanks and orders from the boss.

This TTX TOFC with Tropicana trailer from MTH. I like these TTX cars because they're not RR specific and go well with any modern consist.

@gunrunnerjohn  -designed PCB LED regulator boards available on Osh Park arrived yesterday; and, the other components arrived from Digi-Key earlier in the week.  Will have plenty to do putting them together for my passenger car projects.  Thanks, GRJ.

Next time you may be able to save some money on a large batch of PCB's from overseas places.

I received my circuit breakers and TVSS diodes, also some banana plugs.

Oh- and this too! Got a good deal from a forum member.

Bob

Ordered the new Ford trucks auto carrier from Menards and picked up their crane and a four car dealer pack of New Haven boxcars along with it.   

The crane will come in handy for lifting the Hooker tank car after jumping the curve. The crane has some extra heavy weights to stabilize the bottom. In addition, the cab is adjustable up and down and the hook can be moved  forward and backwards along the crane arm and also up and down.

As to the auto carrier, the roofs of the top row of trucks was too high to clear my Lionel pier bridge by about 1/8" (don't ask how I know). Tried  to come up with various ideas for lowering the ride height of the auto carrier (it was not practical to try and remove the bridge and trim/sand/lower the overhead arches). Since I couldn't let the air out of the tires I decide to lower the tires into the floor.

The upper floor detaches from the super structure fairly easily and I then marked the location of each tire; removed the trucks; and cut small holes with a Dremel for the tires to fit into. Then re-painted the floor in chocolate brown; screwed the trucks back in place; and re-glued the floor back. It now passes through the bridge with no issues.

Richie, nice job on the Menards car carriers!  I hope I don’t have to do that with mine, but now I know what to do.

Personally, I would have put a few Mustang Convertibles on top and been happy.

@RSJB18 posted:

Personally, I would have put a few Mustang Convertibles on top and been happy.

That can be arranged on mine.  

@Mark Boyce posted:

Richie, nice job on the Menards car carriers!  I hope I don’t have to do that with mine, but now I know what to do.

Thanks, Mark - like I said, it would have been much easier if I could have just let the air out of the tires

Don't know if you have this bridge on your layout, but this is a picture of the Lionel bridge (with piers) in question (on my old layout).

Richie, great thinking!  But then again you could have just left them off somewhere on your layout! LOL

So I picked up these prints this last weekend at a garage sale for $10 each! To me a great deal!

I had a similar problem with MTH Auto Carriers and my Lionel 213 bridges. The bridge would have sheered the windshield down to the firewall. I really liked the sixties cars on the 5 carriers. I ended up picking up some Evans Auto Loaders with out loads and used the Ertl cars that came with the MTH cars. I also found plastic upper frames for the Evans. There are many red flats with different numbers that work with the Evans frames. If you look on the bottom of the flats you’ll see that they all have the same part number. Not being a purist especially when it comes to runners I was happy. I sold off the MTH Carriers to balance the books. Those plastic uppers can be found at John LaLima’s East Coast Train Parts.

I thought of that Mike, but it looks so good with all the cars, I just couldn't bring myself to leaving some of them off. Besides, it's almost impossible to unscrew the top row of trucks from underneath without removing the top floor anyway, so you're half way there already.

Nice prints and a great price - especially already framed.

I'm apparently in the acquiring phase of the hobby.  I have a humble list of locomotives I want to get and have carefully planned out when I'll be actively searching for them.  However, things took a turn when I made my first impulse buy.

Lionel 6-28503

I think the combo of the price, color scheme and lack of any other small diesels in my collection won the day.

@Richie C. posted:

I thought of that Mike, but it looks so good with all the cars, I just couldn't bring myself to leaving some of them off. Besides, it's almost impossible to unscrew the top row of trucks from underneath without removing the top floor anyway, so you're half way there already.

Nice prints and a great price - especially already framed.

I almost hit buy it now when  they released the car but knowing it wouldn't clear my upper level made me think clearly. 😂😂

You know there was/is another solution to the low bridge problem - raise the bridge. I did not have enough clearance for my K-Line Stack cars so I took the Lionel Bridge apart and added a 1/2 inch of wood blocking beneath the girder section and got rid of the steel base. I now have enough clearance and did not have to modify 15 cars. Made pegs from dowel rods to attach to the screws which previously fixed the girders to the base plate. Easy solution with a bit of effort.  The MTH Premier Stacks are huge and won't fit through my tunnel - a much different problem than a bridge. So no Husky Stacks or Auto Carriers for me - sold all of those off. All the old Lionel truss bridges I've found are not tall enough for the larger cars and need to be modified. The MTH bridges seem to be fine.

Well, yeah actually, I did. Now, mostly everything I buy I would definitely classify as cool, but I usually don't pop it here, guess because I don't want to post every time I buy, lol. That being said, this is a worthy post. Mainly because as usual in this hobby, I got some support and direction to find this engine. I had been chatting with Pat(harmonyards) about finding a great Hudson model, and the Kline J1 is the ticket. Now, I had been looking on eBay for a while at various other ones, and had mentioned something about one on one of the other topics. Well, Pete(Norton) messaged me and we talked a bit about this such engine. He directed me to the TCA site where this number was sitting there waiting for me. The eBay option didn't pan out because the price was high, and the seller didn't accept my generous offer but countered higher than my offer, still less than what he was asking.

Instead I got this one of the TCA site, which the gentleman was very reasonable, and extremely encouraging to keep collecting(which I always intended to do), don't have to tell me twice. It arrived yesterday and I was so beat I didn't even try to unpack it. It was extremely well packed with no damage to the outer shipping box(came USPS, seller had issues with UPS last time shipping)

I only opened it a bit to take a peak as this will be heading to Pat for some tender loving upgrading. Oh, I guess I may have to wait for the weekend to take it all out to get an even better look at it.

Congratulations, Dave!

Thanks Mark.

New order from ModelTrainStuff.com arrived today!

As expected, the red paint on the locomotive and caboose is a bit too bright IMO, and the couplers on the rolling stock (minus the flat car) are the new, flimsy type Lionel (for some reason) started doing in 2018 which is disappointing, but considering the price I got it for from MTS, I’m satisfied.

I’m likely going to convert the locomotive and cars to scale Kadee couplers and ask a friend  to weather this, anyways. That walkway needs to be painted black, too.Fortunately, the locomotive worked as should out of the box, and I love the 5 horns, 5 bells, and updated cab chatter.

I bought this K-Line four car aluminum WA State DOT Grain Train 3 Bay Hopper set  off of eBay a couple of weeks ago.  These are very nice cars.  I have been collecting the Grain Train cars for sometime starting with the Weaver cars.  Larry

@ScottV posted:

I don't know what I got.   LOL. A large package arrived from Mario's today that I didn't purchase. My birthday is coming up in about 13 days. I've been ordered to keep my nose away from it.  

Mystery package (birthday gift) was opened today. A Conrail T1 , plus mail car & a smoking mechanical reefer. 😄😄 Love it!!

(apologies: i originally posted the update in the wrong forum. deleted there/added here).

Very cool Scott! Happy Birthday!

Very nice Scott. Love the CR blue on the steamer. Looks cool 👍

Fantasy or not, that is a beautiful loco. Should get plenty of compliments.

@FECRailroaddog posted:

Picked up the "Pink Lady" today from Bill over at Ready 2 Roll Trains in South Florida. Beautiful Engine.

@FECRailroaddog posted:

Picked up the "Pink Lady" today from Bill over at Ready 2 Roll Trains in South Florida. Beautiful Engine.

Killer!  One of my favorite railroads! Just got an SD40-2 in the FEC Flagler scheme #711 from Trainworld this week since this is one of the four road names I collect😁

@MikeH posted:

Just arrived from Mr. Muffin's: MTH DL-109/100 (20-21374-1)

GM&O "The Rebel"

Love it Mike!  

I am super excited about these comet coaches and Septa AEM 7. The best I can tell these were never offered with the metallic paint. Could these be prototypes? The aem was a shell when I got it.

Just a few projects I completed recently😁

Well, I paid for it, but I haven't received it yet.  I just picked up the scale Lionel PRR T-1 Duplex on eBay, something I've been looking for.  I was considering the MTH PS/1 versions for command upgrades, but this one was cheaper and already has command, so I went this way.

Well I got this today that I got off the bay for what I think was a fair price. I still need to put a battery replacement in it before I put it on the tracks. It was sad to see the bell mount a little bent and the bell was just laying in the box. I hope it will be an easy fix!

Great looking engine Mike. I too hope the bell is an easy fix for you. Looks like it will be.

Mike, it is a really nice looking engine!  

Looks great Mike. I'm sure the bell can be fixed. I will reserve comment on the defilement of the tender 😂😂😂

Thanks everyone, I hope to get it on the tracks soon.

Bob, don't worry, it's safe for awhile. Might even be a winter project.