After many years of buying locomotives, here is my HO scale roster. First we have the pride of the road.
B&M class P-4 Pacific. ALCO built about a dozen of these in the late 1930’s. The B&M was so proud of them they ran a contest to name them all. Every school child in Massachusetts sent in suggestions and the lucky winners got their names painted on the side of the locomotive. I try to restrict their assignments to passenger trains, but upon occasion this one gets to pull freight too. The model started out as a Mantua pacific. It now sports a cast brass pilot and air pumps on the front deck, and a can motor. Slow speed performance is outstanding.
Then we have a famous old model from Athearn of the P-4. This was Athearn’s first and nearly their last steamer. It would be nearly 50 years until Athearn did another steamer. But it’s likeness graced the covers of blue boxes for years and years. Unfortunately it runs like junk, and even after weeks of tinkering, it has been demoted to a static display model (aka shelf queen). The kitbashed Mantua does all the running, this guy just sets on a shelf looking cool
Then what would a B&M layout be without some Moguls? This one is an old Pacific Fast Mail brass model.
And here is another B-15, this one is an IHC RTR model I bought new for $50 from my LHS years ago,
Then we have diesel power. The traditional EMD F7’s in