Buy anything cool lately?

These are currently on their way here. Three original American Flyer stations, and five more these great blue lamps, all with white round bulbs.

@Genemed posted:

Just received an order of misc. trees. The cost of trees add up quickly and these aren’t even top of the line.

Gene

I know what you are talking about Gene.     I've been getting quite a few this year and I've got an eyeful on the credit card statement.

Tomorrow the last of the  snow covered pine trees are finally going to be delivered .    I needed them for the Christmas layout.  I'll have to work on them and at least have them up for next Christmas.

The major problem i have with trees is the like to brake off every time anything come near them.  I'm considering the idea of using a plastic tube, like from lastruc, set the base of the tree in, and then when I need to work in the area I pull all the tress out and set them aside until I'm done, the advantage? is sometimes I don't put them in the same place, didn't notice until I looked at the pictures 

I bought a NIB 18314 Pennsy GG-1 Century Club Edition.  It is very nice.  One disappointing thing was that all the window openings were totally open.  I had to open it anyway to check the 20(?) year old battery, and it was fine.  I then installed some clear glass with double sided tapes in all the window openings.  I wanted to add some engineers as well, but it was too crowded and I didn't want to mess around that much.  Looks a lot better IMHO.

Picked up a pacemaker boxcar (hopefully the first of a bunch of them) last night at the club, and won a caboose from the bay…

Great buys everyone!! As always thanks for sharing!! It makes me feel better about my purchases LoL!

So I ended out the year with a few larger purchases from Menards. I took advantage of the recent deal with the FREE National Light and Power deal and I ordered the Tide Plant, Gamer and Thrones building, and the Sprecher Brewery. The second National Light and Power building is going to my buddy who’s a fellow forum member and the other is going up for sale.

I also ordered the M&Ms warehouse, a dealer pack of Dodge Ram pickup trucks, several diecast vehicles along with the Tide covered hopper, Save Big Money boxcar, the Green M&Ms boxcar, Skittles hopper, and the M&Ms bus on the flatcar. I also grabbed a dealer pack of 6 covered hoppers and a dealer pack with 4 flatcars carrying dodge power wagons and sweptsides.

Here’s an overall photo of the 4 orders I ended out the year with. Several items have been crossed off my list so it’s progress LoL!

Onto 2023 with my growing collection and rebuild!

Manard's, does such greet work, I wish they had been around fifty years ago before I got hooked on building projects that actually was in the area I modeled.   Liked your automotive collection also, I will be hunting those up for my pike.

I ordered the Dining Cars and the Dome car for the Aberdeen Carolina & Western (I have the F9 and the 4 cars offered so far), the Golden Ticket Box Car, the Everlasting Gobstoppers Tank Car and the SP-10 Budd RDC car from the Lionel catalog.

Found an engine I wanted way back in 1996 when it came out.  Old USA Michigan built early TMCC with RS2/2.5 6-18046 Wabash Hudson.

Dennis, I got one of those when they first came out for a great deal.  When I was first getting back into trains, the owner of a local gun shop was really into Lionel so he had dedicated a portion of his shop to trains.  It was real close to home so I stopped in often.  I had the basic Lionel Iron Horse Freight set with a Wabash 4-4-2 steamer, and was looking for a second engine.  I saw this one in the catalog but the price was out of my league and I wasn't looking to go down the TMCC path until that fateful day I stopped by the shop and there it was, with what must have been a wholesale price on it.  The price was so low I thought maybe it was a conventional version so I went home to check the catalog.  No conventional version in the catalog so back to the store with a Fistful of Dollars and I owned my first TMCC engine.

@Pingman- Thanks for your comment on my Diesel books. I have finished ( first time) reading the book on E&F units and it was very interesting. Likely not as detailed as the separate versions but detailed enough for a newcomer like me.

Don

She do look fine, bet you have a string of heavy weights to put behind her. 

@texgeekboy posted:

I bought a NIB 18314 Pennsy GG-1 Century Club Edition.  It is very nice.  One disappointing thing was that all the window openings were totally open.  I had to open it anyway to check the 20(?) year old battery, and it was fine.  I then installed some clear glass with double sided tapes in all the window openings.  I wanted to add some engineers as well, but it was too crowded and I didn't want to mess around that much.  Looks a lot better IMHO.

Sweet pickup!  I seem to recall some discussion about whether the windows would not allow any potential air flow that might "help" keep things "cooler" under the hood. I think that was mostly with respect tot he later conventional classics GG1's but maybe worth keep an eye on it when you run it the first few times and make sure it doesn't get to hot.  May be fine, just want to make sure she stays cool!

New year new buy! This is one of the more expensive purchases I’ve made thus far. For those of you following my recent purchases, the Menards collection I’ve been slowly purchasing is still in the works just on the back burner for the moment. The same gentleman had a brand new, never used TCA 40th anniversary ABA set along with 8 of the 9 cars to complete the set. He’s still checking the collection he’s selling off for the final City of Dallas car. This TCA set has been on my list for some time and the shape of the boxes are simply incredible! He also included a really nicely detailed KLine Conrail gondola with a scrap load for FREE!! What a wonderful guy I’m forming a great train friendship with! Thanks again Dean!!

@Dennis Holler posted:

Sweet pickup!  I seem to recall some discussion about whether the windows would not allow any potential air flow that might "help" keep things "cooler" under the hood. I think that was mostly with respect tot he later conventional classics GG1's but maybe worth keep an eye on it when you run it the first few times and make sure it doesn't get to hot.  May be fine, just want to make sure she stays cool!

Open windows release the Lionel ozone from the pullmor motors better. I love that smell.

@Dennis Holler and @iguanaman3,

I did think about the heat buildup with no open ventilation before I closed it up.  I have an old 671, and it has no openings inside the engine casing (except for small areas around the base), even the smoke stack has insulation around its base, so I thought I would be safe (although I do realize it has only 1 motor).  On the GG-1 I also replaced one of the incandescent bulbs with a much brighter LED, so that will help.  I wasn't going to mess around with the lights on this, but the incandescent bulb was pretty dim compared to LEDs.  I made sure to put in the LEDs in a non-invasive way so as I could pull them out and restore it to the original config.  I'll be replacing the other incandescent later this week after some more test runs.

Thanks for the thoughts.

I feel like I just robbed a toy store!!!

There’s a new Tractor Supply store that just opened near me after having its grand opening day pushed back from the beginning of December. They had the toy isle fully stocked for the holidays with massive markdowns! I didn’t leave one truck behind! Still no bucket trucks found at any of my local stores.

Well I stopped by the same Tractor Supply store and grabbed these 3 Silverados with each having different Kubota equipment. These were also heavily discounted.

Purchased this today from local Hallmark store; 1948 Ford Deluxe Convertible. All the  remaining Hallmark ornaments are currently 75% off !

I ordered this and just got it. I'd seen a copy and wanted to read it in more detail.

After reading it, I looked the guy up and found he passed away last month. He was pretty famous as a folk singer, but I'd never heard of him beforehand.

Shame about his passing, looks like a god read.  Would have been nice to gleen some more information from him. 

@jeffrey O'Brien 082418 posted:

Purchased this today from local Hallmark store; 1948 Ford Deluxe Convertible. All the  remaining Hallmark ornaments are currently 75% off !

heed , hard to believe it's in scale.

3 cabeese, see Favorite Cabeese (Cabooses) thread. LOL.

Picked this up a few weeks ago to add to my K-line Golden State collection. It's sitting on my office desk so I can enjoy it until the new layout gets started.

Really nice, hope you can build a set of them, without re-mortgaging, your home.

Since I couldn’t find the bucket truck at any of the local Tractor Supply stores, I went and fished the Bay. Found myself an older release bucket truck and I also came across a pole auger truck. These crews will be busy with the upcoming town development!

@Richizzle07- WOW man ! you now have more trucks than a auto dealer in Central Texas (That's a lot of Trucks, take my word for it!.)  Do you collect trucks as a hobby or do you intend to incorporate them into a train layout?  I say this because my weakness is steel / lithographed trucks mostly from the 1950's and 1960's (Marx, Wyandotte, Nylint etc).  I know how additive they can be (..."boys and their trucks and trains" my wife always said and we had 2 boys of our own).

Best wishes and good luck on your truck hunts

Don

Thanks @Don McErlean! I intend on using a few on the layout, a couple will also be put to the side for changing up scenes on the layout, a few dump trucks might go to the local train club for a possible coal breaker that’s in talks. The remaining ones might make it to the For Sale forum with free York pickup but it’s still early with that decision. It is sparking an interest with the trucks though. I’ll eventually grab an 18 wheeler or two. Maybe even three LoL space permitting of course.

@Don McErlean posted:

@Richizzle07- WOW man ! you now have more trucks than a auto dealer in Central Texas (That's a lot of Trucks, take my word for it!.)  Do you collect trucks as a hobby or do you intend to incorporate them into a train layout?  I say this because my weakness is steel / lithographed trucks mostly from the 1950's and 1960's (Marx, Wyandotte, Nylint etc).  I know how additive they can be (..."boys and their trucks and trains" my wife always said and we had 2 boys of our own).

Best wishes and good luck on your truck hunts

Don

I too have weakness; thankfully many good looking trucks aren’t 1/43 or in the 50-60 era. I did go off the deep end a few months ago and purchased a few French trucks because I couldn’t find what wanted, eg a cement mixer, garbage truck, etc.

My latest arrival; a proto3 FM Jersey Central.
I am very happy that it starts running long hood forward and the crew is facing the right way!

pennsyfan writes: “My latest arrival; a proto3 FM Jersey Central.
I am very happy that it starts running long hood forward and the crew is facing the right way!”

Bob - your comment leads me to believe your were uncertain of the initial direction of travel before verifying it on your layout. It appears MTH consistently poses their engines in their stock photos as if the engine was traveling left to right. Using this as a guideline, you can determine long vs. short hood forward. Or, just ask the seller for that info. 🤔🤔🤔

The prodigal locomotive came back home! I sold it to a friend a while ago and was able to buy it back tonight!

@Steaming Jon posted:

The prodigal locomotive came back home! I sold it to a friend a while ago and was able to buy it back tonight!

It's good to have a friend like that .  It does seem like a locomotive that would be hard to give up.  Nice.

@Mark V. Spadaro posted:

pennsyfan writes: “My latest arrival; a proto3 FM Jersey Central.
I am very happy that it starts running long hood forward and the crew is facing the right way!”

Bob - your comment leads me to believe your were uncertain of the initial direction of travel before verifying it on your layout. It appears MTH consistently poses their engines in their stock photos as if the engine was traveling left to right. Using this as a guideline, you can determine long vs. short hood forward. Or, just ask the seller for that info. 🤔🤔🤔

Mark,

My comment was based on the fact that toy train mfrs at one point emanated the prototype conversion and had the short hood forward.

My latest from METCA, EL AS-616.
One of these will be shipped to Christine for a conversion to PRSL 1616.

CEMENT CITY - I had a lot of the 34' PS hoppers but found some AMAZING deals at the recent Charleston, South Carolina train show. Ten Weaver cement hoppers, two Lionel LV PS2 CD hoppers, an MTH LV BW cab and Weaver L&NE cab.  All the Weaver had diecast trucks and couplers.

Currently populating 4 LIONEL 15" aluminum vista dome interiors, but must also add little people to other pax cars also.  BEEPEOPLE are much too large, and I'm not sure of the scaled size of the figures LIONEL used for them; only that there are far too few.

So, unable to find 1/64 S scale figures in quantity, I found these 1/75 seated people on eBay:

I'll take photos of the three (Lionel, BEEPEOPLE, and these) for comparison in due course.

I picked up another MTH premier wood sided reefer to go along with my Nathans one.  These are so good, I may start collecting a few more.  This Genco Olive Oil one was really well done and a nice offering by Roundhouse South down here in Florida.  Nice job - Love the “Importati Da Corleone, Sicilia Italia”

I think I see an olive oil factory/warehouse scratch build in my future!

Always loved, Wooden billboard reefers, but it doesn't matter what scale they are in, you just can't keep the brake wheel on them. 

I got this is a package deal with a 455 oil Derrick.  It is all metal  and very well constructed. It’s static but the traveling block moves up and down.