Well I'll hop on the coal pile! Besides, I carry a fire extinguisher! I would like to see a metal boilered Southern Pacific AC-9 stream lined 2-8-8-4 Yellowstone articulated in HO that is not BRASS, and that did NOT have rubber traction tires anywhere near it! Because that is my favorite engine of all, I would be sorely tempted to buy it in either kit form or ready-to-run and painted. I even have a stall waiting for it in my roundhouse. Another one would be the Virginnian or Santa Fe 2-10-10-2 with or without the turtle back tender. Uncle J.T. had to do with the conversion design of the Santa Fe version of that beast. He tried to tell them there wasn't enough firebox! Another would be a 4 truck shay engine. I have all the others I want. Oh well, that's what happens when you collect steamers all your life then the world goes deezul crazy! Sheesh...
Hey, now you're talking! I'm a big fan of Espee's AC-9s, the "non-cab forward" cab forward - that striped pilot, skyline casing, and that big, powerful look has made me a big fan of those engines from the first time I saw a pic of one. I'd love to get my hands on a good quality one - brass is nice, but too rich for my blood. As much as I love modeling Espee's diesels, I'm more than willing to make room for a nice AC-9 in my fleet. I'll take it in either coal or oil fired configuration - I just want one!
I'll second your C636 and raise you a U30C...(My 70's BN coal fleet is coming along ) preferably with the Athearn chassis. EDIT*I mean Atlas...sorry!* I doubt we'll see one though, I think I should collect the bits to do one from cobbled together Atlas shells In terms of tunnel motors, I think I'd be happy with an Athearn re-run, though a shorter tank chassis to do the DRGW ones would be very useful, and an upgrade to the newer SD40-2 standards would be well received too (coupler pockets and no need to carve grabs!) An SDP45 would be very cool too. There are now quite a few roadnames for them too, more than you would think... I think we'll see a Railpower/Athearn SD45-2 at some point, and maybe a Railpower/Athearn B23-7 or CF7 as well. I'm waiting to see one of their new GP60M's before I buy one though. [ 06. May 2003, 12:52: Message edited by: Martyn Read ]
No problem friscobob.....just have administration delete my access to this forum...there may be other times I disagree with the premise of a thread, and if it is started by a Trainboard staff member, voicing that opinion may well be beyond the bounds of Trainboard forum etiquette. Who knew ? Incidentally, one of the things which has differentiated this forum from , say Atlas, is the refreshing LACK of the gimme-gimme-gotta-have crowd, posting their latest wishlists...over there, there's one every two or three weeks. The manufacturers are lining up to see who can satisfy the must-have lists of 1/10 of 1% of the hobby......not... ..and regards / Mike
Delete, my left hind axle! I was just responding to your comment about the thread- I can understand your frustration (hey, ya wanna talk about being priced out of markets, ask me sometime about the price of real estate in Colorado- another reason I'm back in Texas). In the bluebox thread earlier, we hit on the high price and upper-end market, and to be honest it makes my BP rise a few points, which is why I didn't wanna go there again. Perhaps I should have made the thread "affordable HO locomotives we'd like to see", so as to exclude the high-dollar stuff. Notice I didn't mention brass locomotives, as most of the diesels, steamers & electrics out there are/were made in brass. And, IIRC, collecting brass is a rich man's hobby. Leaves me out, I'll tell ya. Speaking of affordable, give some praise to LifeLike with their Proto 1000 diesels, Walthers with their Trainline offerings, and that old soldier, Athearn. I'd give kudos to Bachmann, but outside of their 44-tonners and 70-tonners, not to mention their Russian Decapods, they have decent-looking but rough-running models. I'm happy with my Walthers Trainline GP15-1s, even if I have to add extra details to make 'em more like proper Frisco diesels. Perhaps we as modelers need to lever a little pressure on the manufacturers to keep the new diesels affordable. If folks can disagree with Natalie Maines' blonde-moment statement by refusing to buy Dixie Chicks CDs (our right as citizens in a free society), perhaps showing our discontent of the high-dollar models and gravitating more toward the more affordable stuff will send a message. Call it economic boycotting, call it freedom of speech, call it personal choice as a consumer in our society- options exist. And of course, saving back our dollars, Euros, pounds, etc., and buying it at a price less that retail also works. Oh boy' I can hear the can opener working on another big can o' worms- sounds like another thread in the works.....
I got a couple of railway cannon we use to break off snow to prevent avalanches up in the high country. In the summer time, we get the address of rabbits, and hunt with them. (There is some really big rabbits down here)! If yew don't like us red necks, whut's yore address? .......
I would like to see some more decent good running, not highly detailed locomotives but still somewhat prototypical in paint. This would be along the line of Proto 1000. I belong to a club with a large layout and my locomotives get a good work-out. What I find frustrating, is finding your locomotive missing a detail part after a few laps around the layout. This is sometime the case after a public open house, or the locomotive has been running a lot in the day. Some of the parts that have come up missing: brake cylinder handles off a Stewart C-628, handrails off an Atlas C30-7 (because a piece of scenery may have snagged them or someone's fingers got to close as it went around) Also I have had air tanks come off Atlas SD-35's, sunshades come off Proto2000 GP18's and Atlas GP40's. I don't mind detail parts, but I wish manufacturers would pay more attention on how they stay on. That is why I wouldn't mind locomotives along the Proto 1000 line. They have good mechanisms and decent detail, without the worry of detail parts falling off. I like good detail as much as anyone else, but you have to balance this with the work-out your locomotive is going to get. I don't have the need for any "show queen" locomotives.
Apologies again for the rant, friscobob. Most of my colleagues in this part of the country, in model railroading, [ and we're the 60+ crowd], are indeed voting with their wallets. regards / Mike
Railway cannons.....just the thing to hunt jackalopes (must be what you're seeing there in Ft. Worth)
As a member of the mid-40s crowd, and running with a crew in the same age or younger, I get kinda grumpy too. And if this WERE the Atlas forum (or another forum whose name I can't mention), I'd have to borrow Watash's railway cannons to shoot me some whiny so-called experts! 108mm- great for clearing up acne.
As far as steam goes, I'd love to see anything run by a southeastern railroad besides another green P4 pacific. Thankfully, Athearn and Bachmann have recently made strides in that direction. (Hint to any manufactures - Seaboard had 2-6-6-4 articulateds, now talk about attention getting) On the internal combustion end, I wish somebody would make a Baldwin centipede. Even a kit with just the nose and cab, but I digress. Realisticly wishing for something that might actually get produced and sell, I want to see some SD-24s. Southern had 'em, UP and C,B&Q as well. I think they would be great sellers. It's hard to find an old Con-cor SD-24 in good shape these days. Imagine a lashup of some Atlas SD-35s and a SD-24 in tuxedos pulling a coal drag. That matches anything west of the Mississippi to me. Of course this brings up the affordability issue. While we are on the subject of locomotives, I'd like to know what people think of the Proto 1000 line. I think that it is a smart move by Lifelike to make the rarer locos in a form that encourages people to buy them and gives a good starting platform for those who want more precise models. I'm looking forward to the RS-2s. They'd be on my wish list if they weren't coming out.
Steam?????? Then let me repeat myself: <font size=6>NP A3 Northerns!!!</font> (After all, SP&S E-1 Northerns were NP A3s with oil tenders....) Also, NP Z6 and Z8 mallets. I'm tired of the only Challengers being UP!
I love the look of RS-1'S and RS-2's...but the B&O didn't have any, so me ting them would be WRONG.....[ ] Mike
Yes they did- scale-width hood, Roco drive (like the GP38s, GP40s and SD35s). All were built with high hoods. Downside: clunky details, no low hood, fuel tank not quite configured right Upside: easy to modify (unless you were chopping the nose, and that took a little work), ran decently, good price. Con-Cor got the old Atlas line and released 'em for a while. Atlas has gone on to a new Chinese drive on their diesels (after a stint with Kato drives in the Alcos, and a new Roco drive in the S2s and S4). The fuel tank can either be milled or ignored, no problem- depends on whether or not you let the small stuff bother you (or how much of an "expert" you become ).
Atlas is pretty likely to come out with a new version of the SD24, they have already done a new SD35 and the two share running gear. I think it's a fairly likely prospect. Oh, the big road you missed with SD24's was the Santa Fe! The Santa Fe is good for four different paint schemes (by my count) on the SD24... If you're not into the higher price loco market, the good news is that the announcement of these usually makes the old ones plummet in value on the second hand market, so if you want a chance for some really cheap ones, wait for an announcement, wait a couple of weeks and check Ebay... I've watched this happen so far with the GP38/40 and the SD35, so I'm assuming the same will happen here.
Atlas is pretty likely to come out with a new version of the SD24, they have already done a new SD35 and the two share running gear. I think it's a fairly likely prospect. Oh, the big road you missed with SD24's was the Santa Fe! The Santa Fe is good for four different paint schemes (by my count) on the SD24... If you're not into the higher price loco market, the good news is that the announcement of these usually makes the old ones plummet in value on the second hand market, so if you want a chance for some really cheap ones, wait for an announcement, wait a couple of weeks and check Ebay... I've watched this happen so far with the GP38/40 and the SD35, so I'm assuming the same will happen here.
I picked up a couple of Athearn SD45s that way, for about 20 bucks from a friend of mine. They run well, and are the "wide-body" shell. I'll most likely paint & decal them for a connecting road Frisco ran with (like Seaboard Coast Line). If you look hard enough at swap meets, you'll find some excellent bargains on just about any model loco you can think of.
Well, I would like to see the following: 1. Pioneer Zephyr/FLying Yankee. 2. Milwaukee Road Bi-Polar 3. Milwaukee Road Little Joe 4. A nice Y6b 5. Pennsy H9 or H10 2-8-0 6. Pennsy I1sa Eric
