HONGZ Weekend Photo Fun For 11/27/15

I fired the retro-rockets this weekend, a throwback to my early HO days:

Picked up these at an LHS 33% off Athearn sale... 

The Athearn F7 hearkens back to the 1950's (as Globe Models) and is part of the model railroading DNA as much as the Lionel postwar F3 is. 

No road specific or super detailing, no DCC, no sound, too wide a gap between units (I'll take care of that, already removed the offending couplers for the photo,) better paint job than in the 60's and a far cry from the $12.00 a "super geared" unit cost back then.

I've been pondering these for some time now and finally couldn't resist.

Rusty

I do hope chessie1971 is doing well. Hopefully it's just the rush of the Holiday that caught up to him.  Thanks CNJ 3676 for remembering and staring this thread.

Rusty:

What a blast seeing those icons of HO. Right you are, the Athearn F unit goes waaay back in the history of the HO modeling scale. I think my first one was back in the mid-1960s and had the rubber band "Hi-Fi" drive. Ironically, it too, was a Santa Fe unit, only the freight blue/yellow "Cigar Band" scheme. (I still admire the "Cigar Band" scheme to this day.)

I sure have a lot of good memories in HO scale.

Obtained this from the widow of a fella who lived in nearby Maggie Valley. I had met him briefly some years ago at a Charlotte show and noticed the 'Maggie valley Southern' on a boxcar he was selling. I helped the lady sell most of his stuff and was so taken with some of it that I bought a few boxes of trains for future use. I came across this swell caboose today and thought I'd share it with you.

We have several nice BL steamers (Berk. Mikado, J3 Hudson) lettered for the fictional MVS and a lot of nice weathered freight and passenger cars. Also had a glossy N&W 611. I came across his empty box for the N&W Class A 1218 which never did turn up. I would have loved to have that one!

Neat little work caboose, Sam!

Memories:

Seeing as Rusty brought that subject up, and seeing as I DO have a LOT of very good memories of the HO scale variety, I thought I would take a couple of my own pics (instead of using the eBay ad pics) of my replica Lindberg Lines set that I received back on that magical Christmas of 1963.

This set I purchased off eBay was originally the lesser set (only four cars), but seeing as Lindberg cleverly used a system of spacer boxes within the same set box to accommodate either the basic or "deluxe" set (two more pieces of rolling stock), I thought it would be an easy fix to at least make me a replica of my original set, even if the small set numbers on the ends of the box lid don't match.  I was able to use excellent condition "filler" box within the lesser set to replace a damaged one in another of my Lindberg sets: Win-win!

Anyway, here's the box lid that has the super-neat and dramatic Lindberg box art thereon:

Yes... it was VERY exciting to open such a dramatic looking box on Christmas Eve night. It really stirred my childhood imagination!

And here's the set that I have replicated by removing the filler box and adding the two missing cars that were in my set:

If it weren't such a pain the butt to lay on the floor assembling train sets, it would be tempting to assemble this set around the Christmas tree... but I don't want to invoke the ire of The Mrs. by marring her "perfect" Christmas tree/presents setting!!

Don't worry, though, I'm still the MAN around my house!

Switching 1 car out

Bob aka CN 3676:

Forgot to mention how neat those N scale switchers are.  Both models look very good, more so when you consider they are N scale. According to the videos I've seen of the Atlas N scale VO1000, it runs excellent.

There's a guy on Youtube that models in N scale, and he is adding sound to his fleet.  One of his videos illustrates his DCC/sound installation into an Atlas VO1000. 

Considering he's only using a small speaker in the cab of the engine, I think it is EXCELLENT sounding... and the smoothness of the Atlas product comes through nicely in the video as well.  Here's the clip:

Andre:

First, let me compliment you regarding your Lindberg set. It is both amazing and awesome. The box art is wonderful.

Thanks for that video of the N scale Baldwin with sound. It's quite impressive. The Atlas model is very well done. It features tremendous detail and runs very nicely. Until recent years, the selection of diesel switchers in N scale was rather limited. There was the Arnold Baldwin, Minitrix F-M H12-44, Rivarossi SW1500 and Arnold S-2. These were produced with varying degree of success with respect to accuracy and running qualities.

We now have the aforementioned Baldwin and just released S-2 from Atlas, Life-Like's EMD units such as the USN SW1200 pictured in my initial post and Micro-Trains' new SW1500. Each of these newer features accurate details and excellent running qualities. The Atlas S-2 is even available with factory equipped ESU DCC and sound. It's hard to imagine how far N scale has progressed from just twenty years ago.

Bob     

Thanks Bob!! We had a train show friday and saturday so i was running trains both days. I'm doing fine.   

Jeff:

So happy to hear all is well. Your HONGZ photo thread has become the highlight of my week on the OGR Forum and, being aware of the pending health situation, I grew concerned when you hadn't started it. Again, great to hear you're well and I hope you had an enjoyable weekend running trains.

Bob 

Staying with the N scale theme this week, here are two videos I shot on the Midwest Modutrak layout at the 2015 Railway Prototype Modelers meet in Naperville IL.

Here is their web site, lots of great modeling on this modular railroad. 

http://www.modutrak.com/about/

Sorry for the poor quality of these videos, they were shot on my i-Phone as I was too lazy to take my regular camera with me. 

The first video shows the PRR K-4 on the head of a coal train. Yeah, I know, it is a passenger train, and the guy that was running it has a proper M-1a mountain on order from Bachmann.  They were running a Pennsy passenger train earlier in the day, but I did not have a chance to shoot that. 

The second video has some Milwaukee Road freight action.

Regards,

Jerry

PS - Glad to see Chessie is doing just fine, and running trains this weekend. 

Don't see a thing wrong with the video quality there, Jerry.

Thanks for sharing!

Amazing how far N scale has come along over the years.