My latest acquisition, a new Athearn ICC Caboose lettered in one of the many Chessie Safety Schemes. This is a later version of the ICC Caboose offered by Tangent Scale Models. Rick Jesionowski
I've always wanted one of these. Just got this on the cheap as a closeout from Walthers. The package says DCC, but the instruction sheet inside says there is no decoder. Anyone know what's up with this? If it is DCC, what would it take to get it to run on DC? I would rather not preclude future conversion back to DCC if possible. I plan to run my layout on DC, but never say never. Down the road, who knows, but I do hve a lot of old DC locomotives and don't care to make a large investment in decoders.
Usually a DCC locomotive will run fine on DC. You don't need to pull the decoder out or anything. Have you run it yet?
Haven't run it yet. Just looked at it and snapped a couple of photos on the old layout. Since I'm pretty sure it won't cause damage, I'll have to check it out. Thanks much.
I have a set of six Walthers Bethlehem 4000cf triple hoppers, along with a few dozen other high side gondolas from Athearn and Walthers. Walthers numbered one of their Bethlehem cars as one of BN's double rotary gondolas, so I added the rotary stripe on the B end and weathered it. Even though BN owned both Bethlehem and Pullman rotary hoppers, Walthers put numbers from the PS series on the BSC cars. I didn't bother worrying about because who's ever going to come out with a PS 4000cf rotary hopper? Tangent, of course! Here's the new Tangent Pullman Standard double rotary 4000cf hopper (foreground) along with my older Walthers BSC double rotary 4000cf hopper:
That's a killer model. Why does it seem like every time you do a project, a company comes out with the model you just did? I think that's the universal crisis of the model railroader. Tangent has been doing some crazy stuff lately, they caught me off-guard with the Greenville box, and now this. The first time I saw the Greenville car was actually on eBay. I thought it was some old Tangent model, but when they kept coming up, I realized something else was going on. The fact that they don't do pre-orders is cool, but I am always surprised when they release models. Do the models have the spinning roller bearing trucks? Since when did Tangent have those? I just saw them on their website. Looks like Genesis and Scaletrains have some competition.
Boy I know that feeling. I had just finished upgrading an old Athearn boxcar when Tangent released theirs. I removed all the cast on grabs and replaced them with wire and carved off the door bars and replaced them with styrene rod. It's a big improvement over the original Athearn model, but the Tangent version is amazing. I'm waiting for them to release some quad door cars since I'm modeling traffic to and from a GM plant. Yes, the trucks have rotating bearings. They come with 0.110" wide wheels, but I believe you can buy replacement 0.088" wheels if you like. The wheels have a nice contour on the front and back and the truck detail is excellent. They don't roll great right out of the box, but it's easy to improve. I remove the axle then take a sharp no. 2 pencil and twist the lead into the slot where the axle mounts. I also look for any flash on the truck at that point and inspect the axle for any problems. I've been able to get all of these rotating bearing trucks to operate smoothly after doing this. Personally, I think ExactRail has the best trucks even if the bearings don't rotate, but Tangent, Genesis, Kato and ScaleTrains are all very nice. I got one of the new Arrowhead Railgons and it doesn't have rotating bearings but the trucks are very nice and free rolling. I don't have any of the recent Moloco trucks, but they look great in photos. The fact that each manufacturer has done so many different versions makes it much easier to apply the correct trucks to the models. My only beef is that the ExactRail trucks aren't always available so you have to get them when they're in stock.
2 cars here got over the weekend in the mail A T&P branchline boxcar kit nice car kit And 1 of 80 accurail V&O 2020 release Brad and allen McClelland approved 3bay coal hopper Finally figured my camera out so it posts correctly weird
Ryan, nice Tangent coal cars. I dodged the bullet on those but there are a couple of Tangent models I still want to get from the past years offerings. Speaking of Tangent, those 86' auto parts boxcars are very nice. I picked up a DT&I, Southern and 2 SP. Subsquently 8 of my Athearn blue box 4-door models were sold on HOSwap. I have a few left for now and am interested to see what versions Tangent offers next. You did a nice job on your DT&I magenta version.
Purchased this fine looking DCC Conrail Locomotive with intention to convert it into a BNSF Blue Smurf locomotive(Google BNSF Blue Smurf Images)... but the Conrail looks so fantastic on my layout... thinking about changing my mind and keep it as Conrail. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
I don't know if this is appropriate here, but I couldn't find a tread for 00 Gauge. I've been doing some planning for an HO scale switching layout and was interested in what ideas I could get from some of the British modelers out there. Well, that lead to me watching YT for British shunting layouts and I caught a bug. These are my first two British Prototype locos. The first is a Hatton's Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST lettered for Great Western Railways and the second is also a Hatton's model, but a Class P 0-6-0T lettered for the British Railways. Both are very nice models and I can't wait to get some track down so I can get them running:
I brought in a bit of a haul today, with an Athearn Maxi I, some new containers, and this Walthers G85 flatcar. This hit hobby shops a few weeks ago I think. I like the brake system detail, which is pretty visible since the car is basically just the center sill. Even for a Mainline car, the detail is good. The end grabs are molded, but the corner stirrups look good, not too thick. My favorite part of the car though are the folding container pedestals. They can be raised for loading 20’ containers, and folded down so a 40’ container can go over them. The cars were not used for larger containers like 45’ or 48’. They lasted until the early 2000’s in this configuration, although the model has the older TT logo, not the 1991 TTX speed logo. It would be an easy enough patch job though, but I can imagine some cars lasted longer with the older logo, especially for a more obscure class like this. The model can fit at least Walthers and Athearn containers. The 20’ tank is a Walthers kit, but the 40’ CAI dry box is Athearn. Most of my container fleet is Athearn. They do not stack well with Walthers, so I mostly stick to one brand, but I’m glad that both my container models can fit this car. I know some well cars don’t always fit every brand of container. I don’t have any Atlas containers, so I can’t test them here. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I received this really nice Hornby BR J15 0-6-0 this past weekend. I've have a Oxford Rails BR N7 0-6-2 and a couple of Hornby suburban coaches on order as well. I have an Atlas Tidewater Southern (still in Spokane International paint) coming to keep me grounded in HO.
I'm finding that out. Britain's Rail history is an interesting mix, and I'm just starting to find out about it.
While the better half spent an hour in Hobby Lobby, I spent the time pacing the 4 or 5 isles HL has for stuff we can use on a layout. Not the biggest HL fan but since our actual hobby shop closed it is all Southeast Iowa has left for supply. I did find something I will try on the layout. Bulletin Board cloud prints for $9.99. 12 feet x 4 feet so I cut the roll in half while still in the package and will try to modify it with another print of scenery I already have. If this works then the cost of 24 feet of backdrop just dropped a significantly.
