Weekend Photo Fun 1/22/16 HONGZ

Two new items a Susie Q box car and a Belcher oil tank.

Presented for your consideration this week are a Buffalo Creek Pullman-Standard PS-1 40 foot box car and Penn Central 42 foot steel gondola with cement canisters in N scale by Atlas. The tooling for these models dates to the 1970s when the cars were built at the Atlas factory in Hillside, NJ. Many years later, production was shifted to China and, due to the use of older tooling to make them, these cars are now part of the Trainman line. As time progressed, N scale decorating techniques improved tremendously and these models sport a level in the quality of paint and graphics which is exponentially better than the versions which were available in the 70s and 80s. Back then, I was paying $3-5 each for these models and prices for the current versions cost in the range of $8-10 per car depending upon the dealer. Given the fact it's now thirty-some years later and the contemporary models feature such vastly improved paint and graphics when compared to the 70s and 80s versions, these cars represent superb value at this level of pricing.

Bob

Yay! It's time for the HONGZ Weekend Photo Fun!

Speaking of the old Penn Central:

This past week we had an old (Build date: 1971) covered hopper we spotted at a customer's track. It was still in the old PC green scheme, complete with red "PENN CENTRAL" on the sides and the mating worms herald. It wore a CR reporting mark/number. Talk about a rolling time machine.

Alas, we are no longer allowed to use electronic devices (camera in this case) while on the job, or I would have snapped a picture of it and shared it.

Here's one for Jeff. This is Athearn's N scale model of the Pullman-Standard PS-2 2893 cubic foot three bay covered hopper decorated in (what else?) Chessie!

Bob

Not the best pictures but got this MTH GG1 for Christmas and just got this Rapido F40ph today. Both are incredible and I am amazed at how far ho has come along recently. My favorite feature about the F40ph is the 6 available horns to choose from ( and the strobe lights). I don't really buy Lionel engines but hope they do a good job on their F40ph.

Hi BMCCARRON:

Are those models HO?  With the improvements in N scale, and other scales, sometimes it's hard to tell!

Nice looking models either way!

LAMING

Thanks, and yes they are both ho scale. 

laming posted:

Yay! It's time for the HONGZ Weekend Photo Fun!

Speaking of the old Penn Central:

This past week we had an old (Build date: 1971) covered hopper we spotted at a customer's track. It was still in the old PC green scheme, complete with red "PENN CENTRAL" on the sides and the mating worms herald. It wore a CR reporting mark/number. Talk about a rolling time machine.

Alas, we are no longer allowed to use electronic devices (camera in this case) while on the job, or I would have snapped a picture of it and shared it.

 

Andre:

Thanks for sharing your experience of seeing the Conrail car still wearing its Penn Central colors. The early years of CR is a favorite era of mine as I had the opportunity to serve an internship on the railroad's Central Region while I was attending school. The variety and combinations of equipment and schemes which appeared were incredible. In fact, the first time I ran the engine we had former Lehigh Valley U23B 509 still in full LV paint and our caboose was an old Erie Railroad built at the road's Dunmore, PA shops in the 40s still wearing untouched Erie Lackawanna livery. In addition to equipment from Conrail's own component roads, CR was terribly short of serviceable locomotives and was leasing power from Canadian National, Southern Pacific, Bangor & Aroostook, Precision National, Missouri Pacific, Union Pacific, Burlington Northern in the form of ex-SP&S RS3s still in SP&S paint, Southern Railway and Grand Trunk. The effort put forth by CR employees at all levels to restore order to northeastern railroading was impressive to say the least. That was some seriously nitty-gritty work. Your report of seeing the old PC hopper stenciled for Conrail rekindled nice memories for me.

I have some models from this period in Conrail's history. One of them is the Bowser C636. My model is of the 6791 still in its Penn Central black paint with CR stencils. I grabbed the picture from Bowser's site as my unit is still in its box. It's not pretty but this is what early Conrail was all about for me. In reality it wasn't a pretty era and it was all about doing whatever it took to get the job done. I'm very grateful I had an opportunity to play a role, however small, in that effort. Thanks again for sharing your story and it's good to see you posting to this thread again.

Bob

Thanks for saying so, Bob!

And thanks for sharing some of your experiences from back then, as well.

The early times of a merger can typically be some of the most interesting times from an onlooker's viewpoint. I like the early years of Conrail because, as you say, all the mix of road names and engine types. Same with the BN: Engines and equipment from all the merged lines moving all over the system.

There is such a "sameness" in today's railroading. If one didn't live the era's past, one can't really understand how much has been lost or how radically it has changed. The railroading I fell in love with as a young man is long gone, and has been for a long time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful for the good job I have in railroading... but it's simply not the same anymore.