When I first entered the HO scale side of the hobby 9 years ago, I bought locomotives and rolling stock that were available without any thought to a specific prototype road name.
However,over the past few years, I have become interested in specific road names to match the prototype that I would like to model. In my case, I am trying to model Dearborn Station in Chicago. The road names that used Dearborn Station included C&WI, Santa Fe, C&EI, Wabash, GTW, Erie and Monon.
I have been successful in acquiring both the locos and the passenger cars for all seven of these road names, but it was no small feat. Most of the road names are not currently available in the form of locos or passenger cars from LHS or on line retail stores. To find them, you have to search sites such as eBay. Sometimes, they are out there. Sometimes, they are not.
I understand the reasons why, but still that is one of the most frustrating aspects of the hobby - - - trying to find locos and rolling stock in the specific road names that you are looking for.
Sorry for the rant, but thanks for listening. [banghead]
I know your problem very well, lol. I model the ONR, a very small Railway up in Northern Ontario. When I first got into the hobby I was constantly searching for items. Over the years though I’ve been lucky and new stuff has or will be produced. I’ve got most of the ONR’s roster now. Intermountain is going to make some SD40’s in the spring and that will finish off my ONR roster. I can then honestly say I have at least 4 of every locomotive they ever run in the era I’m modeling.
I have been modeling Maine Central and Boston & Maine for years, and have the same problem. I used to be able to buy undecorated kits to paint & decal, but those have mostly disappeared from the market as well. I have had to strip the paint off a number of perfectly good models to get to the starting point, i.e undecorated model, to get to the final product I want - a model of MEC, B&M or another road name that is not in the top 10 or 20 road names in popularity.
Hey Rich: I hear you. But on the other hand, the lack of substantial rolling stock and locos in New York Ontario and Western livery forced me to learn to paint with an airbrush and decal.
Two skill sets that I would not otherwise have spent as much time on, so for me, it was a positve thing.
Fact check: I don’t paint the loco’s for NYOW (the three color job is still beyond me), I send them out.
I am going to model central illinois railroads as they are very diverse i cant find a C&IM for the life of me i have found the TP&Ws in the green and yellow wich i like better then the orange one found some iowa interstate i paid alot for some of these but to me it was worth it
I’ve been working through the Wabash passenger car problem, myself. At the moment, I really need a couple of 450-series mail-baggage cars for the Detroit trains, but nobody’s done them. The good news is that a guy in the Detroit area is working on etched brass sides that should do the trick for those, plus a couple of C&O versions.
The Walthers “modernized” Wabash coaches have been a good stand-in for the '64-era cars, as has their modernized baggage-express car. 'gotta work out some arch roofs for those baggage cars, though.
As hard as the passenger cars are to get, getting reasonably accurate cabooses for the Wabash and the Monon has been an ongoing, expensive nuisance.
Until fairly recently, when some resin kits were offered for both lines, the choice was a heavy kitbash job that kinda, sorta ended up looking like the desired caboose, or you had to buy brass. When we put together the caboose fleet for the Operations Road Show layout, we pretty much depleted the available second-hand Overland and Hallmark Wabash caboose supply for about two years.
I’m still working on the Monon cabooses. We have a couple of old transfer-style wood cabooses that aren’t quite right for our Monon locals, but the right cabooses just haven’t shown up on the second-hand market and I haven’t had the time to tackle a resin kit for this.
On some DVD’s they call it Marigold, but UP Armour Yellow is a great decal accident ‘fixer’…
These are stock DM&E decals by MicroScale, applied to my Atlas GP40.
As you said, they do represent very well, they look good once on the model, but weird/off on the sheet…
These guys are under the ownership of CPRail now, so you may still see their schemes along those lines, as I do not predict any repaint’s anytime soon, & i do not hope to see any repaints.
When I worked in Suburban Chicago, these guys showed me, & reminded me of Home, so naturally I am modelling them!
Although I don’t have a rail line near me, I have their DVD’s, I watch, & then I model.
Thank you for commenting positively on my model, I do appreciate it!!!
I will share an older pic of another unit for you…
Chad, I’ve often seen those locos in my former hometown of Hamilton, Ontario. The tracks formerly belonged to the TH&B, which was at one time jointly controlled by the CPR and NYC. It’s now all CP track, and consists like this aren’t uncommon:
Doc,
That is awesome!!! Glad they are visiting our northern neighbors!!!
the last pic of 6090, was a CP loco, judging from the piping over the radaitors on the long hood, & the wide style pilot grabs on top of the Canadian pilot Plate… I learned about those when researching B.C.Rail units!
I would lke to know more about where that ‘Over Radiator Piping’ goes, but have never seen a top view of one in action! It is also a later Repaint as the DM&E is spelled out , the real old ones had it spelled in just “DME” in the tail. It also has the Louvers in the rear for their air compressor (i’m told) a feature I placed on a couple of my models thanks to Archer Fine Transfer Decals.
NittanyLion,
Those cars are out there, I recently got the one with the larger logo, as there are a couple versions of the car. Try some online retailers or the auction sites, they will turn up.
I have been doing the onezy - twozy thing with some grain hoppers, & have a suprizingly large collection now.
Best of luck!
Your paint jobs are really amazing. Everything is so crisp and clear. May I ask what you use to mask your models when you are applying the second colour?
I’m modeling two lines, both circa early/mid 1950’s: The Bangor & Aroostook and The Aroostook Valley Line. I’ve run into a similar situation. A variety of BAR rolling stock is available enough, but the availability of locos in the 1950’s colors of blue, gray & yellow striping is another story. You can find Baldwin BL-2 easy enough and the occasional GP-7, but little else. Try to find an EMD F-3 in 1950’s BAR colors. Just about impossible. There was a Proto 1000 one on Ebay awhile back. I put in a very healthy bid, but still didn’t get it. Have yet to see a single RS-3 in 1950’s BAR colors. There’s a fair supply of BAR diesels out there, but 90% of them are in either late 1960’s solid blue or the even later Red/Gray/Black scheme with the later style logo.
BAR steam locos seem to be virtually non-existent on the market. I ended up buying a Bachman Classic Series Consolidation 2-8-0 in ATSF markings & will redo her as BAR #400, the only BAR steam loco to actively survive in the fleet until 1956.
Aroostook Valley line stuff is non-existent. Fortunately this shortline only ran GE 44 Toners & I bought a Spectrum un-decorated example to paint up in their Blue and yellow striped colors. AVR rolling stock is virtually non-existent on the market, so I’ve had to buy un-decorated kits.
And all of those are fairly well known roads. I have always felt sorry for the people modeling a bit more obscure roads like M&StL, T&P, Great Northern International (GNI), Central of Georgia, and the like.
In getting all that equipment for the Dearborn Station have you watched the video of Railroads of Chicago? There are some great shots in there. Also Santa Fe Odessy Part 1 has a section on Dearborn.
Also by the way did you get some Pennsy and NYC transfer sleepers to add to the Santa Fe Chiefs’ for service to the Pacific coast?
Whether available or not I have found and enjoyable part of the hobby is to buy a cheap car off of Ebay, strip it, repaint and decal it for the line I desire. I don’t know if the lines you listed are readily available from decal providers but this would be one option. Painting two or three color bodies is a challenge I have not tackled yet but with good masking should be feasible.
