Buy anything cool lately?

Gotta love that New York office.  I wish I had one like that.  Office I mean.

@M. Mitchell Marmel posted:

The NYC office sent me an MPC era Pennsy streamliner set last year, but I didn't have appropos motive power for the same until I sold a bunch of stuff at the train show and picked up a K-Line tuscan GG-1:

Also picked up a prewar crane car and complementary gondola...

Mitch

I gotta find out where that NY office is.......

Please promise that this one will not get painted red.......

Bob

@RSJB18 posted:

I gotta find out where that NY office is.......

Please promise that this one will not get painted red.......

No, it wouldn't match the consist if I did THAT...

Mitch

@RSJB18 posted:

I gotta find out where that NY office is.......

Please promise that this one will not get painted red.......

Bob

Just to cover all the bases… or blue… or pink… or Warbonnet…

@Apples55 posted:

Just to cover all the bases… or blue… or pink… or Warbonnet…

Scooped up a pair of Atlas DASH-8's in our very local For-Sale forum.  Although I'm sometimes skeptical of Atlas stuff due to the older electronics, these came with ERR electronics, and they are a good looking pair.

@Apples55 posted:

Just to cover all the bases… or blue… or pink… or Warbonnet…

Stop giving him ideas.

Have finally acquired a very nice AB pair of the colorful 2245 Texas Special last weekend at the Asheville Train Show.

Always admired these when I was a boy but had American Flyer at the time.  These have two small paint rubs on the B unit but overall are quite nice.

Mitch - cannot go wrong with a GG1.

@Guttersnipe  I recently bought an airbrush to detail trees.  I do not have the skills to do a paint job on a piece of rolling stock - might never have. The real issue is I do not have a piece to do a repaint.

That said I have a Quality Craft N6B caboose kit that will need a paint job. Looks like Pennsy and UP ran them. Otherwise I may look at building it into something Illinois Central ran. Do not see evidence IC ever ran any, even through all the mergers over time. 

Next time you go to a swap meet pick up one of those $1.550 Ho scale Box cars. or on the safe side 4 or5 of them.   Use them to enhance your skills,  I believe you will have a great time.  the only draw back to an air-brush is the clean up.  Meanwhile try to paint your favor scheme on the box cars.  for Taping I use Green frog, is really doesn't leak.  Further more your air brush puts on a thinner coat, and the details stand out more.    Onceyou start you probably won't want to stop

You can do it Jeff; I bought a simple airbrush to do the pilots on some of my engines that I made fixed pilots! It worked so well, and you can't even tell the difference!

I lie Guttersnipe's idea I might even give that a try down the road!

@mike g.  Mike did you ever post anything on converting to fixed pilots?   I've looked at closed pilots on the MTH parts site for F3s. Hard to tell which might work. I have an SF F3 I would like to take the front coupler out of and replace with a closed/covered pilot. A later Milwaukee Road K-Line F3 has the closed pilot which looks great to me.  I suppose I could glue a piece of plastic in the hole, finish it and call it a day.

@Guttersnipe  You are making more projects for me. I don't seem to have enough time in retirement as is to get things done. Wondering how I got thing done when I was working???

@ScoutingDad posted:

@mike g.  Mike did you ever post anything on converting to fixed pilots?   I've looked at closed pilots on the MTH parts site for F3s. Hard to tell which might work. I have an SF F3 I would like to take the front coupler out of and replace with a closed/covered pilot. A later Milwaukee Road K-Line F3 has the closed pilot which looks great to me.  I suppose I could glue a piece of plastic in the hole, finish it and call it a day.

@Guttersnipe  You are making more projects for me. I don't seem to have enough time in retirement as is to get things done. Wondering how I got thing done when I was working???

Jeff I didn't as I was able to buy the new pilots of line and just paint them. It was for my ES44AC's which was very easy!

Hi Jeff, here is a few things I found searching for F3 and F7 stuff.

Fixed pilots for F3 and F7 locomotives | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum (ogaugerr.com)

and from P&D Hobby on The big Bay.

NOTE:  Ebay link removed per OGR Terms of Service

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Scooped up a pair of Atlas DASH-8's in our very local For-Sale forum.  Although I'm sometimes skeptical of Atlas stuff due to the older electronics, these came with ERR electronics, and they are a good looking pair.

Hi John, those are really great looking models, leave it to Atlas! I would love to have a pair of those too, but they probably require 072 curves.

Question, have you run them yet? I'd like to know how they run and sound with the ERR. Also, are you planning to lash them up? Video?

Thanks for sharing them, nice find and purchase!

@WesternPacific2217 posted:

Hi John, those are really great looking models, leave it to Atlas! I would love to have a pair of those too, but they probably require 072 curves.

Question, have you run them yet? I'd like to know how they run and sound with the ERR. Also, are you planning to lash them up? Video?

Thanks for sharing them, nice find and purchase!

Well, I ran them on O72, but I'm sure they don't require that, the box says O31.  The run and sound great, and they did MU seamlessly.  These are the lower tier, no cab figures, but I can fix that.  They are really good looking engines in any case, Atlas does do top notch detailing.

This past week I took delivery of two locomotives.

One of them decidedly lightweight, the other...not so much.

One quite detailed, the other, not so much.

Enough with the vagueness, on to the hardware. Descriptive text references the photo above.

Back two posts when I talked about a group of Lima European freight cars I acquired off Ebay, somewhere under the part where I rambled on about the G-scale Marklin car I received in error, I mentioned maybe looking for one of Lima's diesel locomotives, perhaps a British Rail Class 33 or the French SNCF BB-67400 diesel they modeled. Well, one of each turned up a couple of weeks ago from the same seller, not as a buy-it-now entry but a regular auction. Somebody took an interest in the BB-67400, but the BR Class 33 sat unloved for the entire auction at its starting price of just under $25 with no bids (though a number of people were watching it), till I put in a bid and won it at the starting price. Shipping from MN was about the same as the selling price, but at a total price of 49.50, it cost less than the shipping alone had I got it from a UK seller

Nice shade of blue there, but I believe the actual British Railways scheme was a noticeably darker shade of "rail blue" (or Monastral blue according to Wikipedia) You might notice after looking at prototype photos, this model seems uncharacteristically chunky--it appears Lima stretched the Class 33's proportions to fit an existing chassis, or some other reason for freelancing the 33's proportions.

Now for the elephant in the room. This is a 2-rail unit, as you can see by this truck closeup. I thought long and hard about what it would take to make this locomotive 3-rail compatible before pulling the trigger on this auction. I've figured out something for the freight and passenger cars, but the locomotive is another ball of wax entirely. One aspect of this unit that may save me is that the wheelsets on this locomotive aren't exactly finescale. I've tilted the unit up on its side and posed a Weaver 2-rail truck next to it to demonstrate the difference. By the way, these truck sideframes aren't even remotely accurate for a Class 33, they're re-used from some other Lima model. Someone did devise a 3D printed version of an accurate truck sideframe for these, but the trucks would still have the incorrect wheelbase and spacing relative to the body Also I'm not a UK finescale modeler so neener neener .

So, not "I wanna be Proto:48"- scale, but not quite pizza-cutters either (we won't talk about those couplers). Perched atop the tubular rail of my test track, these wheels did resist token attempts to shove them sideways off the railheads, which is more than I can say for the Weaver truck

So as mentioned before, my mad plan for this unit is to convert it to 3-rail operation -- the twist being that I'll be using as much of the original chassis and running gear as possible, instead of grafting an entire Williams or Lionel chassis into the Lima shell (the latter described in this forum back in a 2012 post ). The rest of the re-engineering would consist of devising a mount for a pair of pickup rollers on the non-powered truck and mounting a basic E-unit between these improvised pickups and the motor, and if this proves successful, sticking a TMCC board in there, as there is plenty of empty space inside this cavernous body shell.

There are kits to install a CD drive motor in-place of the ring-field open-frame motor inside (I don't yet know it if works, but the loco shows little evidence of being run), giving you smoother quieter operation, at the expense of a narrower range of operating voltage -- 12 volts is the most I've heard of for these motors, and most of the ones out in the wild  are only 6v, so whomever is offering the upgrade kit  with a 12v motor really had to scrounge for them.

Now for the heavy beast. I have a lot less to say about this one since they've been made before, but no one is really talking about this so I decided to say something about mine. Here's MTH's newly-released Premier UP Challenger:

This was announced way earlier than expected -- I was keeping tabs on the real 3985 being restored at the RRHMA's facility in Silvis, IL, and was planning on getting a scale Challenger (I have a Lionmaster one) to go with my restoration-edition Big Boy when MTH announced theirs well before I expected them to. Well, it would be at least half a year before delivery so I put in a pre-order with Mr Muffins in June 2023. Much to my surprise, the locomotives arrived early in February, my invoice arrived 2/19, (paid the same day), and it arrived 2/24. I only got to take photos today in the fading late-afternoon light, so I had to use my phone, which is a bit better at low-light shots then my old Canon SX100 in the background (it's batteries collapsed before I could take any photos anyway)

_{(Nav links redacted...Forum rule disallows crosslinking one's posts within a thread)}

---PCJ

Mr. Muffins February auction done did it to me again   This time it was a set of New in Box (from a private collection) Lionel 18” aluminum passenger cars from 2004. As much as I like the new 21” passenger cars, I seem to have a weak spot for the 15” & 18” aluminum cars from the early 2000’s (in the last couple of years, I’ve picked up sets for D&H, PRR (Fleet of Modernism), NYC Dreyfuss). Now I can add Santa Fe - this set is 29144 and represents the El Capitan. I must say, I was surprised at just how heavy these cars are. They are quite nicely detailed and have a beautiful shine to them. As with pretty much all the other sets I’ve purchase as used or NOS, one of the cars has an issue where the lights don’t work - I’ll have to open it up and futz with the light strip to see if I can find the problem. But I am VERY happy with this purchase!!!

One downside to passenger cars of this era is that they were shipped with tight twist ties on all the trucks. From past experience, I’ve learned to just cut them instead of trying to untwist them.

Nice pieces and thank you for the tip

@Apples55 posted:

Mr. Muffins February auction done did it to me again   This time it was a set of New in Box (from a private collection) Lionel 18” aluminum passenger cars from 2004. As much as I like the new 21” passenger cars, I seem to have a weak spot for the 15” & 18” aluminum cars from the early 2000’s (in the last couple of years, I’ve picked up sets for D&H, PRR (Fleet of Modernism), NYC Dreyfuss). Now I can add Santa Fe - this set is 29144 and represents the El Capitan. I must say, I was surprised at just how heavy these cars are. They are quite nicely detailed and have a beautiful shine to them. As with pretty much all the other sets I’ve purchase as used or NOS, one of the cars has an issue where the lights don’t work - I’ll have to open it up and futz with the light strip to see if I can find the problem. But I am VERY happy with this purchase!!!

One downside to passenger cars of this era is that they were shipped with tight twist ties on all the trucks. From past experience, I’ve learned to just cut them instead of trying to untwist them.

Mr. Apples , Paul, I too suffer from the attraction to extruded aluminum cars from the early 2000's. I have a small layout so 15" is best suited for me. While your beautiful set are 18" Lionel, mine are 15" K-Line, but they share the same extrusion and trucks! You also mentioned that they are heavier then you thought they would be. Yes, even my 15" cars are 2.5 to 3 lbs each. There is a lot of weight on the axles and bearings (bushing), so here's here's a bit of advice on the axle and bearing lubrication. Below is a eye opening photo of the bushings on one of my 15" k-Lines that I bought used! Obviously, these bushing had not be lubricated properly or often enough, and have many hours or use.

I am almost completely sure that these bushings are powdered bronze. If Lionel and K-Line knew what they were doing they would have used powered bronze bushings, because they are porous, hard, and  can absorb oil and retain it. That being said, more lubrication is better as the bronze will absorb the oil. I lube these once a year, two to three drops from a needle applicator like Labelle. Also, use a synthetic lube or similar to Labelle. These trucks have plastic chassis, so a petroleum based lubricant could damage the plastic over time if it should get on the plastic.

Hopefully with proper lubrication you will get many years of enjoyment from your new Santa Fe passenger cars! enjoy!

FYI - I had to purchase a donor 15" car to replace the trucks, as replacement trucks were not available. Now I have some extra parts should I need them in the future as well.

Here's a photo of the CZ Diner car with the new trucks. I had already updated the interior with figures, carpet, and painted seats, as well as LED lighting.

I had scratchbuiit a small town Nash automobile dealership, and stocked it with a 1/43 Brooklin Nash, but l model 1940 so wanted a 1940 (only obvious difference is that all makes switched to seal beam headlights in 1940).  So l looked for a Brooklin one of those.  Turns out Western Models makes one, and it is a completely different casting from the 1939 Brooklin one.  I found one priced right, but in France, so bargain price was offset by shipping, But now l have a "new" 1940 for the showroom floor. I wanted a different make for a showroom, and Nash is interesting mechanically, OHV 6 and 8, and a side valve six, engine choices, as well as in styling (coupe bodies are twins of the iconic 1939-40 Ford coupes, favored by hot-rodders).  I have been to a LOT of antique car shows and never seen a 1939-40 Nash shown. I just need to make a billboard from a 1940 Nash magazine ad, and l am done.

@colorado hirailer - How about some pictures?

I finally found The engine at the top of my list, and now the search is over. The Lionel BNSF Burlington Northern heritage SD70ACe. I now have all six of the fantasy heritage units Lionel created for BNSF.

Congratulations.  but I'm sure you will find something else to hunt for.  It never stops, my quest is now a Southern PS 4.  been at it for a while. the last quests was a pair of GP 30's

The next grouping of acquisitions for the PENN AMERICAN RAILROAD.

Rail Car Department

(2) MTH Premier 36’ Woodside Refrigerator Car (Schmidt’s Beer) (20-94487)
Another purchase that I never indulged in but with a touch of nostalgia. I never drank Schmidt’s beer (I prefer Yuengling) but it’s the only beer my Grandfather, who introduced me to this wonderful model train hobby, would drink. Beautifully detailed cars with a logo that I saw almost everywhere, on tv, the beer distributor and in our basement fridge.

These reefers are nicely painted with separately applied details. They’re 1:48 scale cars yet at 10 3/4” long they run on O31 curve track.



(2) MTH Premier “Oscar Mayer & Co.“ 36’ Woodside Refrigerator Car (Public Delivery Track Exclusive) (20-94627 & 20-94628)
Another find while perusing hobby shop websites! And another nostalgia purchase, who doesn’t remember the Oscar Mayer commercial jingle? Same cool features as the Schmidt’s reefers above, they’ll go great with my Oscar Mayer Wienermobile on the city streets. Maybe I’ll kitbash a Menards building into a Oscar Mayer factory!

Atlas O Premier “Strasburg” Operating Side Dump Car (Nicholas Smith’s Trains Exclusive) (30099695)
Another addition to my Strasburg roster. Numbered for the Maryland and Pennsylvania (Ma & Pa) Railroad side dump car on the Strasburg Railroad property (#302), built by the Kilburn and Jacobs Company in 1914, arrived at Strasburg in 1971. These cars were utilized by the railroads in maintenance-of-way roles for rapidly building up fills and cuts with stone, rip-rap or soil as well as for depositing ballast. Side dump cars are also used in revenue service hauling ore, limestone, gravel, and coal in many different settings.

This is the first ‘dumper car’ I’ve bought since the Lionel MPC era. This version is a different animal! With its die cast frame this is a heavy car. At about 12” long it’ll operate on O31 curves. A neat feature of this car is the ‘shake’ action after dumping its material to fully empty the car. Underneath the hopper is hinged with springs that tilt it and a small electronic board that operates the dumping action by way of either Atlas O rail blades installed in Atlas O track or similar tracks from MTH and Lionel that activates sliding shoes.  It includes some metal (plastic) pipes.

Atlas O Master Line “GLNX” 33,000 Gallon Tank Car (3003006-1)
I purchased one of these in a different car number last Spring. I don’t know if it’s the same kind of tank car that I saw sitting on sidings near the old Philadelphia Energy refinery in South Philadelphia some years ago. I only remember it was blue and it was a long tanker! Probably not because these ‘whale body’ tank cars were made to carry liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and ammonia. Oh well, it’s still cool to run with a few of these cars I have from some years ago.

It has 1:48 scale dimensions and separately applied details, at 17” long it operates on O45 curve track.



Cabin Car Department

MTH Premier Bay Window Caboose (New York Central (20-91749) & Milwaukee Road (20-91748))
Picked these up to alleviate the shortage of Cabin Cars on thePENN AMERICAN RAILROAD roster for these Heritage roads. It was interesting to learn that these cars were built because as freight cars got bigger the cupola caboose wasn’t as useful. The bay window enabled the caboose crew to see the train better. They will run on O31 curves.  The bars on the end windows is a neat touch.

Lionel “Pennsylvania” N8 Cabin Car w/ Crew Talk, Freight Sounds and Whistle (2326780)
I had not witnessed one of these talking cabooses before. This is an action packed caboose with the user activated crew talk, radio dialog and an air whistle for backup moves. It also has a Track IR sensor for use with SensorTrack to activate features. And a Pennsylvania caboose with the TrainPhone antenna was hard to say no to! I have several PRR cabin cars but I’ve been wanting to get one of these.

A little more is coming soon!

@Traindiesel-

My dad was  Schmidt's drinker, and my model train mentor as well. I remember those stubby brown glass bottles like it was yesterday.......

Who has the car, I want to get one also.

Bob

@Traindiesel,

I’m envious on the side dump car.  The first time I saw one was at a tourist spot in the Catskills last summer and didn’t know what it was.  I took a picture and posted a question on OGR to ask about it.  I’ve been searching half-heartedly for one, but the only ones I saw were Lionel and they didn’t look good. Yours looks exactly like the one I saw.

@RSJB18 posted:

@Traindiesel-

My dad was  Schmidt's drinker, and my model train mentor as well. I remember those stubby brown glass bottles like it was yesterday.......

Who has the car, I want to get one also.

Bob

In my continuing effort to assist my fellow travelers down the slippery slope, check out sponsor Public Delivery Track…

https://www.publicdeliverytrac...&section=product

@RSJB18 posted:

@Traindiesel-

My dad was  Schmidt's drinker, and my model train mentor as well. I remember those stubby brown glass bottles like it was yesterday.......

Who has the car, I want to get one also.

Bob

@Apples55 posted:

In my continuing effort to assist my fellow travelers down the slippery slope, check out sponsor Public Delivery Track…

https://www.publicdeliverytrac...&section=product

Yes, Public Delivery Track is where I bought one of them.

@texgeekboy posted:

@Traindiesel,

I’m envious on the side dump car.  The first time I saw one was at a tourist spot in the Catskills last summer and didn’t know what it was.  I took a picture and posted a question on OGR to ask about it.  I’ve been searching half-heartedly for one, but the only ones I saw were Lionel and they didn’t look good. Yours looks exactly like the one I saw.

Atlas O made these recently in a few road names. The Strasburg side dump car is a custom run for Nicholas Smith’s Trains still available.

@Traindiesel posted:

Yes, Public Delivery Track is where I bought one of them.

@Apples55 posted:

In my continuing effort to assist my fellow travelers down the slippery slope, check out sponsor Public Delivery Track…

https://www.publicdeliverytrac...&section=product

Thanks gents. I have a L&NE RS3 on order with Beth that is supposed to be arriving soon. I'll add one to the order!

Bob

@RSJB18 posted:

Thanks gents. I have a L&NE RS3 on order with Beth that is supposed to be arriving soon. I'll add one to the order!

Bob

Well, my work here is done (for today anyway )!!!

I picked up an old Williams brass steam loco recently.  Not sure a 30+ year old loco counts as cool.

@Bill N posted:

I picked up an old Williams brass steam loco recently.  Not sure a 30+ year old loco counts as cool.

It counts if it is cool to you.  My Williams 5040 Dreyfuss counted.

@Bill N posted:

I picked up an old Williams brass steam loco recently.  Not sure a 30+ year old loco counts as cool.

Like he said if it's cool to you, that's all that matters, but would love a picture

Paul you're such a mensch!

The voices have spoken to me again!  And our good friend Paul was not the Siren responsible for the voices I heard.  The whispers I was hearing, sounding much like Donnie Kennedy, sent me in search of Weaver Aluminum passenger cars to go along with my new to me, first brass loco, the Weaver Dreyfuss Hudson.

Our good friends at Trainz.com had Diner 681 and sleeper Imperial Court. 

Not a bad start for the consist of the Advance Section of the 20th Century Limited, a short 4 car train carrying only the brightest luminaries from the Windy City to the Big Apple.  Until a proper Observation lounge can be acquired Lionel's Train of the Century Solarium Observation will fill in.

I always liked the Lionel Skytop Observation cars and this version from the Train of the Century was my favorite.  My son played youth hockey for an organization called the Lions and they wore blue, white and orange colors.  I wondered how hard it would be to drop the "el" and add a matching "s" to change Lionel to Lions?

@coach joe posted:

Paul you're such a mensch!

The voices have spoken to me again!  And our good friend Paul was not the Siren responsible for the voices I heard.  The whispers I was hearing, sounding much like Donnie Kennedy, sent me in search of Weaver Aluminum passenger cars to go along with my new to me, first brass loco, the Weaver Dreyfuss Hudson.

Our god friends at Trainz.com had Diner 681 and sleeper Imperial Court. 

Not a bad start for the consist of the Advance Section of the 20th Century Limited, a short 4 car train carrying only the brightest luminaries from the Windy City to the Big Apple.  Until a proper Observation lounge can be acquired Lionel's Train of the Century Solarium Observation will fill in.

I always liked the Lionel Skytop Observation cars and this version from the Train of the Century was my favorite.  My son played youth hockey for an organization called the Lions and they wore blue, white and orange colors.  I wondered how hard it would be to drop the "el" and add a matching "s" to change Lionel to Lions?

Lookin good. if they aren't on the layout though, or in a glass display case, they need a storage box   like the one they are sitting on.

@coach joe YES! Those cars look amazing. Can't wait till you get the layout set up and have them running. I have officially turned to the dark side of the force thanks to @Apples55 training. I might of accidently bought another Hudson. When will this madness end?

NOPE.......NOT  GOING  TO  BUY  ANYTHING .......have enough stuff................

............well.....we went to the annual  LENTEN FISH FRY at St. Joseph Church in Force Pa. yesterday .    NO intention to go up the hill to the VFM.

Whoops.... ran in to Charlie .   Went up the hill with him.       Judy's  fault . She wanted the Dubois beer reefer.        I got sucked in again.

My FIRST MTH Premier steam engine .    0-6-0  USRA  Swircher PS3.