You guys all know that I desire to model Montana Rail Link mixed with BNSF and I hope to create a nice layout of the Mullan Pass in Montana one day. BUT I have collected a few of Athearn’s Bombardier Passenger cars that are Coaster. I also have an F59PHI and a F40PH in Coaster. I grew up around these commuter trains and I will forever keep them around. And when the time comes, I’m sure that I will be running them on my layout here and there. But San Diego trains don’t run in Montana.
So who else has this problem like I do? Something that doesn’t match your layout theme or era, but you just love having it to play with or look at.
Don’t feel bad. I moved an entire coal-originating flatlands branch line more than a thousand kilometers, changed its ownership (from JNR to Tomikawa Tani Tetsudo) and plopped it into a ruggedly mountainous area which, as far as I know, never had a workable coal seam. Then I equipped it with locomotives and hopper cars (including hopper-brakes) that would cause a Japanese prototype purist to run screaming into the night.
The nice thing about protolancing (freelancing around a prototype concept) is that you can tell itinerant rivet counters that you are the only one who knows how many rivets were used to assemble those cars of no known parentage. You should. You drove them all yourself.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - JNR to prototype, TTT freelanced)
No problem, I sometimes run my brass Little Joe on my logging / mining layout, looks peculiar going past some log buggies, Shays and Heislers. Doesn’t really like the 18" curves for some reason [:o)][:D]
I know that feeling - the SP Daylight never ran in New Mexico, on the Santa Fe lines, but it just looks so good. If anyone asks, the SP’s diverted the train over ATSF trackage due to some sort of obstruction on their line.
Layout themes are for rivet counters. My layout is eclectic.
Within my miniature world you will find Lackawanna’s Phoebe Snow (one with F3s and heavyweight cars and one with E8s and smooth side cars), Delaware and Hudson Diesel, Southern Diesel, PRR Steam, Atlantic Coast Line Diesel, Amtrak, Hogwart’s Express, Thomas the Tank Engine, and NYC Subway R17s.
Just come up with a back story. Maybe some Montana politician wants commuter service and Arnie sent a train set for them to test?I remember switching RailRunner cars in Galesburg Il. They were coming from the builder on their way to New Mexico,but we only got one at a time.
Anything is possible this day and age.Iowa Northern picked up a few bilevels and a F40 and now run the Hawkeye express ( on Iowa Interstate rails no less) for Hawkeye games.So sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Yes, just like the fleet of 72’ passenger cars the ATLANTIC CENTRAL had Pullman and ACF build so they could run at higher speeds through their curvy routes over the Allegheny Mountains.
Model Railroading is FUN, if your having fun, your doing it right1
I’ve got a couple of Y3’s that “ol’ Fred Thompson” at the Williston Rail Hysterical Society ‘acquired’-----he just never said where he ‘found’ them----[:-^]
She-ee-esh where do I begin… My P.B.& J is a freelance that might connect the C.C.C.& St.L to the B&LE, but it might as well connect the san diego subway to the Allegheny Mining Corporation…
I have a Pensy Heavyweight passenger set that I run with a Pensy E8, A Riogrand southern PA 1a&b set that pull freight and a set of Empire Builder passenger cars, a mallet that pulls a line of pretty modern freight cars I don’t own a Geep or anything ultra modern, a set of Rio Grande Southern rail cars, an 060, a 440, and a very stubborn F7, I’d like a pair of Alco RS2s- my first set had a pair of OD green Pensy Alcos…
very few of my locos are what you would call “the good stuff”, less of my rolling stock, mostly its stuff that I got at discount when one store or another was closing or getting out of trains… I’ve run it all together and separately and had a lot of fun with it… some of the locos will get painted and lettered with the masthead or logo of the PB&J, some of the rolling stock will get it too, while others will get tthe logo of the business they serve… I have to learn how to do this stuff some time.
I say they are your trains, run 'em any way you please…
I have to admit that is a good idea since I do recall an article somewhere (I think I saw it on the Trains Forum) that Montana was thinking of running some kind of commuter service between the towns.
So there I have it. They are testing the idea with loaners from the San Diego Coaster. I love it! Now I just have to figure in my SP engines
I’ve got an unpatched ATSF U23B. and I’ll, probably get an unpatched WP U23B too. And I’ve got an excuse to run them, but it is EXTREMELY flimsy. They were bought second-hand by my RR company. And my RR company is in South Carolina, lol.
My area of modeling interest confines me to one road operating in one place during a specific time period. I have no interest in modeling or collecting out side of these three interests. Not because I am closed minded, I just need to ring fence those things that are of direct interest to me because I want to do the best job I can in representing the SAL, Gulf Coast Florida, 1949. The constraints that I have place upon myself allow me to stay focused on my plan - my specialization. If I don’t maintain this discipline then I am sure I would wander about the place with dreams in my head and buying models used by the SCL, ACL, FEC, CSX N&W, L&N and others. But this is not really what I want to do.
I don’t take a rivet counters approach to modeling but I do like to create a general feel of accuracy of time and place. This means that I don’t run models that are representative of prototypes more modern than 1949 or not used by the SAL in the geographical location I have chosen to also model.
Having this self imposed discipline helps me to manage costs and to resist temptations offered through the pages of the hobby press. It also allows me to peruse historical research about my areas of interest - and that’s part of the fun, or perhaps more correctly, the satisfaction, of our hobby.
What ever other, fellow modelers do, is entirely there own affair and should be seen as a kind of celebration of diversity of interests within our hobby.
We all do our best to achieve our modeling goals and achieve what we can and as we can. Nobody is doing it wrong if that’s the way they want things done and they don’t see any need to do it differently.
I don’t like to think of myself as a rivit counter too but as I draw up my plans for my future layout it kills me that I have to reverse one of my industries and put a river on the other side of the tracks to make it all flow. But I feel that I have gotten anal about the way that this layout has to be geographicly sound. My desire to create it as a mushroom shape but I can only get a double deck to work with the way that the tracks run the mountain. So would that be rivit counting? Along with that I plan on only using MRL and BNSF trains but one thing I really like about this route is when I lived up there I photographed an all NS engines pulling a BNSF train. I’ve seen photos of an All CSX engine train too. There isn’t a different road name engine that I haven’t seen up there running through the MRL, and that was one of the reasons that I was attracted to creating this as a layout but a SD Coaster, come on! Still I’m going with Montana testing out commuter service. I still like that one.
Maybe if I have ops sessions then we’ll stick to MRL and BNSF, how about that?
I do want to do retro days where I can run old NP steam engines, 1st and 2nd generation NP diesels, and all BN or BN merger (not painted in BN yet) and BN only with MRL. By doing that it can really make modeling a lot of fun.
