Loathar, the Silverton RR did have a Shay, one of the first in Colorado, and I’m planning to run at least one, and I might sneak a Climax in there too, when nobody’s looking.
Bachman and a few brass manufacturers make an old time 2-8-0 Baldwin that seemed to be the mainstay of the line. They rented most of their equipment from the DRG, which had a lot of Model 50’s and 60’s. Most consists were only a combo and one or two boxcars, because of the 5% prototype grade, so they won’t have to pull much weight up the grade, and images of helper engines abound, so we’ll just have to see how what’s out there performs and go from there.
Bruce, still no derailments, except when backing through one particular 40 year old turnout at full speed, and then it’s only an unweighted tintype caboose with truck mounted couplers. It does derail spectacularly, though. I did a lot of trim carpentry back in my younger days and was very careful laying the roadbed. Having the right tools helps too. Nialguns, a Kreg jig, and a headlamp are tools that really made the job go easy.
You and Tom should appreciate my son’s reaction to it. He asked earlier if I had finished it and I put him off by changing the subject. He assumed it wasn’t done, because the work we did together went pretty slow. He’s only 11, so most of that time was spent showing him how to use the tools safely.
When he saw it his jaw dropped and he said "WOW! It’s DONE!
Then I brought the train out of the lower deck area and said something like "I’m not really comfortable running it at these speeds, because with the still open benchwork if there’s a problem, it will fall a long way to the floor.
He sort of gave me a sideways look and said, “well then, just don’t run it that fast.” The “well, DUH” was unspoken but there none-the-less. He’s more into diesels, military trains and models, and the protective stance was a bit of a surprise, but welcome.
This weekend we’re going to replace some co
