The state of Texas, witch loved to regulate things, required some sort of accommodations for the breakemen on freight locomotives. Some railroads like the Santa Fe just lengthened the cab with a jump seat and used a longer drawbar while others like the Missouri Pacific added a "dog house" to satisfy the requirement. On this Kato Mikado I added a dog house as well as an oil bunker.
Good morning from cloudy and hot Northeast Ohio! Got a little work done this week! Branchline Railway Express Reefer kit, much different from the Walthers car, more underbody detail but one does not have to drill all the hand grab holes. Car was painted with Scalecoat II Hunter Green including the trucks and lettered with Microscale decals. REX had several hundred of these cars built in the late 40's for use delivering perishibles by passenger train speeds also used for regular shipments like newspapers, magazines etc. where speed was of the essence. Atlas/Kato C424 where I added the lift rings, carved off the cast grabs and installed new wire grabs, removed the fuel tank bulges and made a new piece to cover the holes left over, painted with Scalecoat II Wabash Blue and Silver paints then lettered with Microscale Decals. The Wabash received 6 C424's that the NdeM railroad could not take for some reason and the Wabash got them for a song. The were relegated to being B Units as all the instruction plates were in Spanish and therefore the flag herald was not put on the nose nore the upper level pin striping. When the N&W got the units after the merger they changed out the plates and the units were in general use. As far as I know these were the only Wabash units with Dynamic Brakes. I took my new B Unit to the club and added a Kato GP35 and Stewart/Kato U25b to a general freight and ran it for a while. One of the club members noted he had never seen so many Wabash Freight cars. Thanks for looking! Rick Jesionowski
From some years ago, a Kato Mike I painted in Erie rolls freight over Ash Gap Viaduct on my N Scale road.
c You know what's funny, Broadway Limited brought in the cars for a semi-close Bluebird, and I could not find a set, luckily they did a second run and I got a set. (Can't find a set any more.) Rick Jesionowski
My son and I went to a friend’s house Thursday night for a regular scheduled operating session. Here is Landon as the engineer of train 104 as it starts up grade. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Finally got all four of my Tyco Kansas Colorado Railroad GP20 shells on Mantua chassis. The Mantua chassis has a better wheel spacing and motor.
Here is a little Old & Weary. That is a New York Ontario & Western NW2. The loco is a Kato and is my first Kato loco. I purchased it used and custom painted and decaled. I need to touch up the railings in a few places. Also I keep seeing flakes of yellow on various places on the loco.
Flashback time! My second layout, built by my Mom and Dad, way back in October 1975 (I was just turning 12): Most of the buildings on this layout were hand made, scratchbuilt. Like the water tower and the coaling tower here. Balsa wood, cardboard, some glue and lots of heart. And a tad of improvisation - the railing around the upper and lower platforms on the coaling tower are leftover picket fencing! Chains are some surplus jewelry chain donated by my Mom (she also supplied some paint - she was the artist of the family). That little 0-4-0 is one of the survivors of my collection. I can't believe this was 46 years ago... Photo by my Dad, Roger.
That's a beautiful photo Mike. You're blessed to have it. The image captures much of the contentment and happiness you knew and that which is shared by others who enjoyed model trains in their youth. It's somewhat a shame that we lose the element of youthful fantasy that once made perfect models of cardboard and balsa.
It's been a while since I've contributed fresh material in this thread, but here goes. Colorado Model RR Museum, Greeley, CO. Lighting was a challenge (high ISOs/noise), but the scenery they built was incredible. 3 trains in this shot, about to meet a 4th, just out of frame at lower right.
Seems that you're back with a vengeance! That's a spectacular layout. Stuff of my dreams. Makes me want to be 50 years younger, full of sugar, and run around chasing the trains...
