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Paul, like you I spent a lot of time on the the D train, just at the other end in the Bronx.  In answer to Dallas' question maybe Corey can find some figures that look like us to go in his model.

Patrick, nice outdoor pictures.  Is tat your backyard?

Bob, a trip to Trainland after your wife handed you a train box.  You're a very brave man.

@RSJB18 posted:

Received a Rutland wood-sided caboose from Beth at Public Delivery Track. It was a pre-order custom run from MTH. I'll post some pix when I have a chance to open it up.

I usually wait to post here until I have pix (cause otherwise it didn't really happen). But I may have finally reached a milestone with the CEO. Normally I ship train stuff to my office to avoid the inevitable dirty looks and "what's that, another train?" comments. The caboose was shipped to my house accidentally and when she handed me the box, there was no commentary to go along with it........

I'm goin' to Trainland now.......BYE!

Bob

I think that a book could be written about the antics involving bringing trains into the home and hiding them from significant others.

@coach joe posted:

Patrick, nice outdoor pictures.  Is that your backyard?

Actually, those were taken in front of the house adjoining our driveway. Being on the north-facing side of an east-west street, the low afternoon sun lights up the area pretty well. Our backyard doesn't have much in the way of raised hard surfaces the like front-yard planter I shot these on.

Next photos I set up there will be of my new B&A caboose with my 2004 K-Line B&A Berk, which I finally extracted from its "burial" spot ...and maybe my newly-upgraded Class A with the auxiliary water tender I found at this past Greenburg show.

---PCJ

@coach joe posted:

Paul, like you I spent a lot of time on the the D train, just at the other end in the Bronx.  In answer to Dallas' question maybe Corey can find some figures that look like us to go in his model.

Patrick, nice outdoor pictures.  Is tat your backyard?

Bob, a trip to Trainland after your wife handed you a train box.  You're a very brave man.

I kid, but she's actually a great gal who puts up with my digressions despite the comments......

@pennsyfan posted:

I think that a book could be written about the antics involving bringing trains into the home and hiding them from significant others.

After moving a stack of empty boxes to the attic a while back, about a month later she was in the basement looking for something and commented....."didn't you just put empty train boxes in the attic?"

Lionel and MTH gotta stop using bright colors on their boxes......

@Postwarman posted:

AMEN Bob 8-)

Jeff

Or one of these might help......

Last edited by RSJB18

I went off the deep end last week looking for one thing ended up with two. I searched the bay for blue stripe 2400 cars which I found and bid on. I showed them the other day. Of course the gremlins at the bay conspired and showed me a set of 2430  Blue PW tin cars. Since I only had brown my finger started twitching and I bid yet again.
IMG_9575

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Received a delivery from Menards today...20230824_145351

As with several of the M&M's boxcars I have bought from Menards, 3 of the USSF boxcars have the trucks crimped too tightly around the axles and the wheels will not turn at all.   The M&M's gondola is fine.

I now have a bowling alley for the layout.

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An update to my post about the Menards stuff I received today....

Upon closer inspection of USSF boxcars, I discovered that 3 of them had at least one axle that was not properly in the depression in the truck.  Once I got the axles properly aligned in the truck, all the wheels now spin easily.

When I picked up the shipping carton with the 4 boxcars it felt rather heavy.  These boxcars have metal trucks.

@VinceL posted:

An update to my post about the Menards stuff I received today....

Upon closer inspection of USSF boxcars, I discovered that 3 of them had at least one axle that was not properly in the depression in the truck.  Once I got the axles properly aligned in the truck, all the wheels now spin easily.

When I picked up the shipping carton with the 4 boxcars it felt rather heavy.  These boxcars have metal trucks.

Not unusual. I've had to do the same with several Menards cars.

@RSJB18 posted:

I usually wait to post here until I have pix (cause otherwise it didn't really happen). But I may have finally reached a milestone with the CEO. Normally I ship train stuff to my office to avoid the inevitable dirty looks and "what's that, another train?" comments. The caboose was shipped to my house accidentally and when she handed me the box, there was no commentary to go along with it........

Bob

Trouble in Paradise Bob ?

There does seem to be certain times when some outside circumstances do result in an unexpected change in CEO responses.     Judy has been excited about my two recent purchases..................... ...........however.......before that I had the " no commentary "   issue with my CEO for quite some time.

Fifty years has taught me to be patient with CEO responses .   Don't understand yet.....maybe never.

Bye..........have a ball at Trainworld Bob.

@RSJB18 posted:

Received a Rutland wood-sided caboose from Beth at Public Delivery Track. It was a pre-order custom run from MTH. I'll post some pix when I have a chance to open it up.

I usually wait to post here until I have pix (cause otherwise it didn't really happen). But I may have finally reached a milestone with the CEO. Normally I ship train stuff to my office to avoid the inevitable dirty looks and "what's that, another train?" comments. The caboose was shipped to my house accidentally and when she handed me the box, there was no commentary to go along with it........

I'm goin' to Trainland now.......BYE!

Bob

Bob, I think she was just in awe of your purchase. Plus your wonderful Mrs. realizes that your taste in trains is only exceeded by your choice in a wife.

Jay

Yesterday, I made a trip to TrainLand in Lynbrook to pick up two Trainland exculsive engines, the Chris Raines Katy and a Lionel ES44ACFlying Tiger.  The Flyig Tigar comes in two color schemes, one with yellowish coloring and he other with a grey coloring.  I preferred the yellowed version, see pictures below;

Flying Tigar 4Flying Tigar 5Flying Tigar 7

Below is a picture of the Katy;  This will go nicely with the Heritage Katy;

Chris Katy

Trainland plans to issue a new Texas Special exculsive Lionel engine to go along with the above engine.  I saw the art work at Trainland and on their latest EM.  see below;

Texas Special

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Last edited by FrankRazz
@pennsyfan posted:

I think that a book could be written about the antics involving bringing trains into the home and hiding them from significant others.

Bob - don’t know if I ever told you this in person, but I have a doozy of a “hide my trains from wifey” story.
Many years ago, I lived across the street from a woman who sold wigs. One day I came back from a trip to the supermarket to find a police car in front of my house, the wig seller talking to the cops, and my UPS driver sitting on the back of his truck. As I pull up, and get out of my wife’s car, the wig seller starts screaming “There he is! There he is! Arrest him!” to the cops. I had given my UPS driver a key to my car and he would open my trunk with his key and drop any UPS deliveries in the trunk. He had made a delivery that day, and my trunk was still open. The wig seller had called the cops, thinking that the UPS driver was stealing her wigs and putting them in my trunk.  And she wanted me and the UPS guy arrested. The cops straightened out the story. And, of course, the wig seller did not apologize, but I sure had some explaining to do to my wife.
I want someone to top that story!

Last edited by Mark V. Spadaro

Bob - don’t know if I ever told you this in person, but I have a doozy of a “hide my trains from wifey” story.
Many years ago, I lived across the street from a woman who sold wigs. One day I came back from a trip to the supermarket to find a police car in front of my house, the wig seller talking to the cops, and my UPS driver sitting on the back of his truck. As I pull up, and get out of my wife’s car, the wigmaker starts screaming “There he is! There he is! Arrest him!” to the cops. I had given my UPS driver a key to my car and he would open my trunk with his key and drop any UPS deliveries in the trunk. He had made a delivery that day, and my trunk was open. The wig seller called the cops, thinking that he was stealing her wigs and putting them in my trunk.  And she wanted me and the UPS guy arrested. The cops straightened out the story. And, of course, the wig seller did not apologize, but I sure had some explaining to do to my wife.
I want someone to top that story!

As a retired UPS driver, I can believe this story.   Several people made arraignments with me to have their packages delivered in places other then their front door.   

@Mark V Spadaro, Mark, now that’s a hum dinger of a story indicating our purchases in this hobby sometimes need discretion on exactly how they get to our layouts, man caves. Our wives or better half’s sometimes get excited when we say, Lionel is coming out with a new VisionLine Big Boy, it’s only $2500, may I place my BTO order now???
WOW, here’s my little story, after being out of the hobby for 6 years,  (ended 1989), a friend contacted me in 1996 telling me about the new TMCC Command Control, I was amazed and wanted it very much… My wife, is the controller of our finances and would have never said yes to a $1,000 train set… So, I ordered the new 1996 Sante Fe F3 ABBA and the 7 passenger cars over $1K…. Now, I paid for the set with bonus monies set aside and given to my dealer, Phillips Toy Mart of Nashville, Tennessee. It arrived, it was paid for, but how do I set this up on my layout without World War 3, this was scary… I had a brain storm, “what if I Won the set”, so here’s how we pulled this one off. I called my friend Lou DellaPenna, I explained my situation, I said I let’s pretend that Phillips had a Christmas prize drawing and my name was pulled out of the box?? He agreed, then he called my wife, trying to get ahold of me and she said I was at work. He told her that I had Won a nice toy train set from Phillips and they were trying to call me. She immediately called me with the great news, she was so happy for me, and that worked for me. I’ve won several trains, all in fun….. Ok, here’s my new purchase, The Frisco HoBo Box car, sounds car… It works… Happy Railroading Everyone IMG_9028IMG_9029IMG_9030

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@Apples55 posted:

Another great set, Corey, and another line I spent a lot of time riding when I lived in Midwood (in those days, there was a 4-track line… the D was the Express, and the M was the local). I used to get the local at the Ave. M stop - sight of the old TrainWorld!!! Unfortunately, I never remember delay announcements EVER being that clear on one point, I must respectfully disagree with you… taking the subway to college in the early/mid-70’s and work beginning in ‘78, I saw way too much graffiti to ever buy a train that has it

Thanks! Yes, I've seen a lot of graffiti also, that's probably why I like it. The announcements definitely were not clear when I was growing up!

Well, one of my locomotives received a "present" today (a day before my b'day no less). This K-Line Boston & Albany Berkshire has been in my collection since 2004, according to the receipt still in the box. I think I may have had it out one time since taking it home. It finally gets to see daylight after I excavated it from the bottom of one of those Home Depot storage shelf units, surrounded on all sides by stacks of train boxes"...

K-Line B+A 1407 closeupK-Line B+A 1407 side

So, what was the present? Almost 20 years after the above locomotive was released, we have JR Junction's custom-run B&A caboose:

20-91791 JRjct

Bringing the two together, we see the 1407 with it's new partner:

K-Line B+A 1407 low 3quar & cabooseK-Line B+A 1407 high 3quar & cabooseK-Line B+A 1407 rear 3quar & caboose

Out of curiosity, and since B&A 1179 is the new kid on the block, I thought to compare it with it's Rugged Rails predecessor from 2001, the 33-7802:

20-91791 and 33-7802 compar-1

Wow, look at the difference in end-platform detail, eh? Not to mention the truck placement.

20-91791 and 33-7802 compar-220-91791 and 33-7802 compar-3

Well, to be fair, the Rugged Rails car only cost me $25 or so at a Greenberg show, after 22 years of depreciation. MTH's website doesn't even show a retail price for this piece

33-7802

The 33-7802 by itself, so you can flip back and forth.

I shot quite a few more photos today...but there are enough in this post already. Make note of the sunlight levels between here and the third post I make here today

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

---PCJ

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Last edited by RailRide

But Wait, There's Moooooore!  ('course there always is)

So, back in April York I bought a Protosound-1 Class A, and found a PS3 steam upgrade later on the last day of the show, thanks to JustTrains. Although it's not visible in this shot, the two have been joined, and now this Class A is a PS-3 model:

N&W 1218-side

At this past Greenburg show in Edison, I found this N&W auxiliary tender. Okay, so it's striped to match a J-class. Still a N&W. Good price too. Only wish I had noticed the dealer had grabbed the wrong box when I said "Sold". He had a Virginian aux tender next to this, and it's that box he grabbed. So it took a little digging about to identify this one. I think it's a 20-3126 from around the turn of the century, so naturally it's equipped with a Proto-1 electrocoupler. I don't think I would have hooked it up anyway

N&W aux tender 20-3126

And so here's the Class A, with some extra H2O for excursion service

1218 and water tender

When I bought the Class A, I also got a caboose to go with it. Hitched behind the water tender is a 30-77368 extended vision caboose. These two will accompany the Class A on whatever adventure I concoct for it...when I finally make time to catch up to the stuff I haven't run yet.

water tender+caboose

And now for a few views of the whole assemblage:

1218 and water tender+caboose21218 and water tender+caboose31218 and water tender+caboose4

I must say, it wasn't fun jockeying this beast back into its styrofoam pocket perched upon this narrow platform. Had to wheel out the luggage cart to bring it back inside via the front steps, as I wasn't about to hand-carry that 16-pound bulk inside it's box-less styrofoam clamshell back up the basement stairs, (I carried it down them) owing to how steep as they are

One more set coming up, my recent Cabin Fever wins at yet another MTH warehouse auction.

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

---PCJ

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ET&WNC trucking company stationery (off eBay)

BN stationery and a UP regional profile book, showing all the routes in the Western Area, bought from a small hobby shop in Centralia, WA. I walked down there on Saturday while I had my WW2 Jeep at a car show a couple of blocks away.

20230828_121026-01

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Last edited by p51

Well, now comes the biggie:

the big box

My purchases from Cabin Fever on 8/14 arrived 8/23 after one day in transit PA-NYC, and boy it's a big box. I posed one of my NKP Berkshires atop it for size comparison -- it's 24" by 16" by 12" and weighs in at 24 pounds. Careful carry to a spot big enough to sit it down

Within is 16 freight cars from the MTH auction, the most I've ever scored, and as of this writing, I have photographed all of them for this thread (and my collection inventory). Took two days to do it too. Some cars got more than one photo owing to one oddity or the other stemming from these being sell-offs from MTH's former warehouse. That being said, in order to avoid flooding the thread (and gobbling up all my spare time), I'll post these one lot at a time and give others a chance to post their stuff before adding additional entries.

Leading off is this two-piece case of 20-95234 Premier 60' TTX flatcars with ScaleTrax crossovers, released in June 2017

20-95234 [93600)

Above: TTX 93600, Below: TTX 93639

20-95234 [93639)

And the two of them together...

20-95234 pair

The coupler cut levers are user-installed accessories, since installing them significantly affects the minimum radius curve these cars can handle.

20-95234 detail

Ever wonder what these cars looked like from the backside? Well wonder no more. Also, the track section is held on with a twist tie.

20-95234 [93639) backside

Can you tell what is off about these boxes? I didn't notice this till I was packing the cars up after the photo session. If anyone else has cars like this, are your boxes the same? (I have some 60-footers carrying ScaleTrax switches, theirs don't exhibit this discrepancy).

20-95234 box header

14 more cars to go

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

---PCJ

(Another one of those posts where half the pictures break every time I edit the post, forcing me to go back in, delete and re-add them)

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Last edited by RailRide
@Henryjint posted:

Love the SIRTOA train!  Recently bought on the 'bay the MTH SIRTOA caboose and have the Lionel SIRTOA S-2 on pre order. When I grew up on Staten Island, the S-2s were still wearing B&O colors and lettered "Staten Island". Wish I could find a set of Staten Island decals to relabel my Lionel B&O S-2.

Thanks and congrats on the caboose. Did you try island model works for the decals?

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