down below is the Sd60M by Railking /MTH (always makes me thing mythical when i relate MTH. mostly cause its like a mythical journy from a kid starting out with HO to a adult with multipul guages then you finally get to O and G.)
seems only yesterday i was a kid running a F3 on a HO layout moving slag ore i found on the side of the gravel road next to my house i could easily pull it from the gravel with a magnet and it was rural country in illinois so plains land your parents could see you a mile off.
i still have some trains and track from that railroad the plastic bedding has perminate brown rusty looking marks from all the ore moved over the years. the layout had a custom made roundhouse out of plywood with 3 tracks in it made by my great grandpa himself.
we had the turntable you all know the one with the plastic handle by atlas. and the rectanguler hopper that comes with a free (weightless no metal at all and pretty much unusable from derailments) 2 bay UP hopper. and also a lil boxcab.
it was funny we had no idea the power of that box cab well we ran it at full power it jumped the track and actually hit me in the chest and because of the weight and me being a kid it sent me stumbling into the wall behind me. lol i still have it i just need to know how to sodor the wires back on it right.
my very first engine though i chose out and bought back then was a lil 0-4-0 well hell for 5$ it only lasted a week before the engine died for good. couldn’t take it back either.
The dealer was a Vendor at the Great American Train Show at the local convention center where later on in life i got a job at. so he already left town. in our area
at the time Ken opened up K10 Model trains in maryville. i remember 1$ donation and you can drive the train they would hand you the dcc controller and let you be off to the races that was how grandpa got the idea to make me a train.
i was at K10 as much as i could to drive them anytime a family member had time to take me. so we started buying from there. also i had the walters catalog mailed to me too.
i remember also my grandma and grandpa(not the one i lived with) gave me a beautiful steamer too(so sorry guys i cant remember the name for the life of me steamers are not my forte unless its well known like daylight or big boy or challanger) so i could have a nice steam engine. well its on its last life and i refuse to run til it stops rather see her retire with a lil bit of life to her still same as im doing with the F3.
i think the main reason i stopped was because i was too busy with school at the time and my neighbor working me as a farmhand.
that was years ago a kid with his HO. now the HO is just the start with the candles im taking my journey into Mining with the O-Guage. banded chert rock is on ebay at 15$ for 4lbs and 30$ for 6lbs roughly.
i can get this rock cause i live on a hill of it.
With the rock needing to be broken down to sell on ebay in such small quantitys itll be no problem to fit it in hoppers and porters and move it from the backyard to the house with the SD60M roughly 500FT-1.0 square acer length run (estimated roughly more foliage and bushes need clearing)
our neighbor cut a spot with his brushhog where the mine will go its gonna be a circle open pit(if we get that far) and hopefully the track will follow the circle and keep doing the merry-go-round til it gets to the mine floor(by this time hopefully well have 2 powered units)
this is all ideas for now though its getting the sd60m running that im focused on.
plus for ongoing inspections we tarpped the F3 Dummy vehicle
sorry putting it in as a edit the DCRU on/off switch is whats missing on the sd60M hopefully its not too much to get fixed
yeah anytime u need a recommendation to a place in the area let me know i can tell u all the good spots and some places to avoid too