I was very happy to finally get something published in Model Railroader magazine this month.
The best thing was that the first published picture ever of a STRATTON AND GILLETTE piece of equipment was my beloved Athearn Trainmaster.
I really have no reason to love this locomotive like I do. It is not a fancy paint scheme. I really botched some of the custom work. It has the original ancient motor, and smells like ozone when it runs. However, I just love this thing.
I still have not painted “508” on the numberboards!
It was not my first HO locomotive. I think I got it at a train show bargain bin for $10.00 or so 20 years ago.
There is just something about it. I love the way it looks. I love the way it sounds. It just seems like a wonderful toy train every time I get it out.
Does anyone else have an oddball not-really-so-special piece of equipment that is beloved to them?
Yes, I have one and it’s a very old Athearn that runs well. I custom painted it for my ECI railroad. and it is just like I received it in running condition.
I have a number of locomotives I really like. With names of ‘Galloway Princess’ ‘Hadrian’ etc. Locomotives with Regimental names are a fascination. Whenever I saw the real ones it was ‘One day I shall have a model of it’.
I have a model of one locomotive that did not exist, but is ‘Pride of the Line’.
It is Class 55 55023 9th Queen’s Royal Lancers. My father was in that Regiment
Here she is on her way to Crown Point Yard
Only 22 machines were actually built. Hence 55023 was the next. [:)]
Among a few, this one will always top the list. In '86 I wanted to build a heavier 4-4-0 from MDC Mogul and Tyco 4-6-0 components following an article in MR. I dropped a hint to my wife , who’d othewise have no idea how to find the MDC, to an ad in MR.
I didn’t think the hint was taken seriously. For our 5th anniversary, she presented me with a nicely gift wrapped MDC box… The loco got built and has been my fave ever since. Note the road number. I still have the loco, the Wife [:)] and even the box the MDC came in with the original gift wrapping on it.
Having recieved a recent can motor and flywheel, it runs perfectly (even in forward!) Yes, it needs some touching up. It was fortunately not in the shed fire in '97 where I lost over 95% of my train stuff.
Perhaps next in line is an Athearn BB SW (12?) that WAS in that shed fire, the only train item to survive it. The shell melted but the chassis made it through with smoke damage, but runs. It now has the common SP SW shell on it, and seldom leaves the layout.
Edited in. If it’s worth mentioning, it’s worth taking a picture:
For my 8th Christmas my Dad gave me a Lionel 0-27 2-6-0 Train set, that hooked me on trains. The same Christmas my Uncle gave me a Crystal Set Radio Kit and that hooked me on electronics which lead me to a 50 year career in Two-Way Radio Communications.
At 14 I fell in love with an article of John Allen’s Gorre and Daphetid Model Railroad in Model Railroad Handbook.
My Dad wouldn’t help me acquire a HO Scale train, he was very firm in that the "small junk” wouldn’t stay on the track. I had a paper route and saved my money and bought a MDC 0-6-0 Kit ($6.85).
I spent every minute I could at the H&H Hobby Shop in El Paso TX and became very good friends with the owner John Henderson. He gave me a job cleaning up his Hobby Shop and even sold me my goodies at cost.
This is my favorite Locomotive.
It still runs perfect after 70 years, it has been painted many times since 1951 and it will always be my Truly Beloved Model.
I convinced my Dad that HO scale trains will stay on the track but he remained steadfast on Lionel Trains.
I have a AHM C liner SCL and a Model Power PRR Shark nose and a dummy with the same number i had for years and some AHM center flows that came from Woolco’s they were some of the first and they will be the last I get rid of I might have to get out the box to see if their are more.
I love reading stories about models that really had an impact on folks and their love of the hobby. Sometimes it’s a train show find, sometimes it’s a gift, sometimes its a long lost model buried in a box in the attic or basement that is rediscovered.
This post made me think about one of those. Back in 2001, I was 11 years old and my mom surprised me for Christmas with a Hogwarts Express trainset from Bachmann which was technically OO gauge. I ran it on its small oval under my bed for hours and I brought the engine with me everywhere.
I decided to go looking for it yesterday, found it in the closet with its two coaches and tried to run it but even after servicing it doesn’t do so well. That split chassis design doesn’t lend itself to longevitiy IMO. I’ll always keep it, it planted the seed of my interest in OO gauge I think, and it was a special gift from mom. Maybe I can find an updated Hall class from bachmann’s OO gauge line with a better mechanism to transplant the boiler and tender shells onto.
There’s the one that got away that would have contended for favorite with the 4-4-0. I’d had a few Tyco and other cheapo junkers that could barely power themselves around the oval, let alone a train. For the few hours they lasted.
We went into a LHS, the owner pulled a blue box off the shelf behind him and showed me this brand of locomotive I’d never heard of. “Athearn”. He ran it with the shell off. It not only had a big generous motor and thick sturdy gears, but these two “flywheels” that made it run SO smooth! And all wheel current pick up. It looked so exotic to my young eyes.
My mom was with me. We asked how much it was, He said sixteen dollars. I misheard 60, and was willing to earn that for it. “Six-TEEN”. Mom shelled it right out. I credit that sole GP-35 for keeping me from giving up on modeling trains for frusterating poor quality.
Alas, it didn’t survive the shed fire mentioned earlier. But the memory does, and the BB GP-35s I run now do rekindle it. Dan
This is the one that has that special feeling for me. I’ll never part with it.
I built this thing 30-40 years ago using a Life Like N scale 0-6-0. I flipped it around and made a cab-forward out of it. Styrene was used to make the new cab front and some Detail Associates parts (pilot, bell, lights) were used. I built the lead truck using a wooden barrel that I drilled a hole through to mount the axle.
The tender is a cut down tank car on a cut down caboose frame. It has an Atlas passenger car truck and a Kadee coupler on the back. I cut a piece of brass for the drawbar.
I brush painted it green and the lettering is a dry transfer set from an unknown manufacturer.
Yup. I’m one of those ‘collectors’ who only purchases things that are ‘shiny’. I haven’t developed a hankering for a Big Boy, or a Cab Forward, or a Daylight painted 4-8-4. What I do have I really like. So it’s just too fine a call for me. If I were hard pressed, I think I would settle on one of my BLI Hybrids. They’re exceptionally nice, run really well and reliably, and they’re right up tight against the home run line along with my Rivarossi H-8, my PCM Y6b, BLI Pennsy Duplex…it’s just too hard to separate them.
What can I say about the trains that still bring back teenage memories? I guess those truly beloved models would be my old MOW train and my collection of Tyco/Mantua operating clamshell hoppers. These were among the first I rehabbed after their 40 year slumber in attics and basements. Now, they’ve lost the old Talgos and ride on Intermountain wheelsets with body-mounted Kadees.
What a great tribute to your Dad, David - and it’s even plausible had they made more of the prototype!
Don’t have any pictures of them, but the things that mean the most to me are a collection of Tyco billboard reffers and som Rivarossi locos. Those three locos always take me back to having the layout over Christmas and working on it and running it with my Dad. Despite a lot of Tyco class equipment, most of it was older, not Consolidated Foods Tyco, so it didn’t just fall apart. The cars, well, we each had one. Dad’s was the Schlitz Beer, Mom’s was the Heinz 57, mine was the Hershey Chocolate, and my little sister’s was the Baby Ruth. The 4 were always run together, even if there were other cars in the train. I sold off most of the rest of the old stuff, but those cars, and those locos, I kept.
I also have the first loco that was truly mine - a Tyco Santa Fe F unit int he blue and yellow freight scheme. Even though we had the layout up, my parents surprised me on Christmas with a train set. All morning and afternoon I ran it ont he dining room table until it was time to eat, the track got put in the general supply of track and the train got put oin the rails of the layout.
And one other, the old AT&T import of the Stephenson Rocket. My Grandfather had a train layout too - just 3 concentric ovals on a 4x8, no sidings or anything. On the innermost one, he had a Tyco trolley. Next loop was the Rocket set, with tender plus 2 cars, and on the outer one had a Varney SW and some cars. I remember how each power pack had a line marked in pencil on it - that was how far up we were allowed to turn the speed for that particular train.
I’m sorry to say the trains of my youth were very well used indeed, and most did not survive until now. I have one Mantua trolley remaining, but not a good place online that I would like to store images…and it sits unused (lately) on a shelf, to remind me of my youth, and running trains with my Dad, so in that way it is special to me. I can remember like it was just yesterday.
My most beloved model is actually this one I bought not too long ago on Ebay. Since receiving it after ordering it on a whim, I have changed my outlook regarding modeling era and motive power, rolling stock, etc.–pretty much everything. It was the first of many more Bowser SD40-2’s, and I just really like it a lot. I have more CP red units coming in various flavors both early and current-day. Sometimes there is a product or products that just change the game for you.:
Just in case you didn’t know you don’t have to paint the numbers on the number boards. There are decals made for that. You can get either white numbers on black background or black numbers on clear background. The common name for them is bugboard numbers.
For me it is a Rivarossi 0-4-0 Dockside that I got for my birthday in Nov., 1959. It still runs as well as it ever did up to a scale 120 mph. The headlight still works. It cost $7.50 and is in the original box where it slumbered from 1961 until I got back in the hobby in 2005.
Dad had the Lionel and Marx trains. Uncle Bill had Flyer S. At Christmas time we would go and look at Uncle Bill’s trains, and I would beg to put up dad’s. Then came a great opportunity, if I would save a boatload of boxtops from Kelloggs Frosted Flakes, I could get the Spirit of 76 HO train set for only $19.99. Can’t tell you how many boxes I ate, but I wanted that train. It is still in a box in the basement, needs work, probably not worth the work, but someday it will run again. For dad.
This old Tyco is the same model as my very first locomotive. I don’t know what ever happened to the one I had as a kid, but I found the same set at a train show and had to have it. It was what started my love of model rilroading.
Bachmann’s Hogwarts Express was my first HO train too. I got it for Christmas from my wife at about the same time as you got yours. Mind you, I was a little older than 11 at the time [swg][(-D][(-D]. I have put sound and lighting in it. I haven’t run it for a few years so I hope it will still work when I get the track laid on my layout sometime this summer.
Before that I had briefly resurected my brothers’ old Marx O scale tinplate stuff which my mom had kept in storage. They had burned out the motor long before I was old enough to be allowed to play with it as a kid so I had to do some work to get it running again. I did get a temporary layout up and running but I quickly realized that the toy like setup wasn’t for me so I put it away. I casually mentioned that an HO set up would be nice. The next Christmas my wife gave me Hogwarts. Little did she know what she had started!![swg][(-D][(-D][(-D]
