[8D][:)]WHich RR do you model and where do you get you stuff.[:D]
I’m an N-scale modeler, and I model the E,J & E, Great Northern, Santa Fe, and Kansas City Southern. Most of my stuff I purchase from First Place Hobbies and at train shows.
HO Scale modeler. Chesapeake & Ohio. I get most my stuff from a hobby shop down the street and various places on the internet who have good pricing and free or reasonable shipping. Once and a while I will buy from ebay.
What RR do I model?
Guess!
Where do I buy my stuff?
99% now comes from my LHS. Initially, a much higher percentage came from model rr swaps.
Mostly Santa Fe. Plus freelanced logging rr based on Texas & South-Eastern, Kirby Lumber Co., Moscow Camden and San Augustine and W .T. Carter & Brother Lumber Co.
I have been gathering my N scale equipment for over 30 years from various sources. Recently got a Protex tank car from a well-known auction site. Saw a pix of the model on somebody’s layout pictures on a website, and didn’t realize someone had produced a model I have been wanting for several years. I missed the original run and it seemed not to be available from any hobby dealer. I wanted a Protex tank car on my East Texas railroad because they used lignosulfate byproduct from Texas-Louisiana paper mills and marketed it as a dispersing agent for settling Portland Cement.
I get stuff from train shows, mail order, visits to cities that have train stores. I live in a place with 250,000 population that calls itself a city but has no train store. Lots of decalling and a little kitbashing (more often from ready-to-run that isn’t than from kits!) to get what I want.
Kenneth L. Anthony, Santa Vaca & Santa Fe Rwy, Corpus Christi, Texas
I’m in N-scale, and I model C&O/Chessie, Southern, and Clinchfield prototypes mostly. Out of some 12-15 planned engines and 12 planned cabooses in those road names, there are 3 engines and 3 cabooses that are available factory painted. So, I am painting the rest myself. But since I modify/detail most of my engines anyway, that’s not as inconvenient as it seems at first. Additionally, I can pick up any deal on an engine at my LHS or online, regardless of paint scheme.
—jps
I model in HO and my railroad is a fictional branchline of the B&O. Most of my stuff comes from LHS. I’m fortunate enough to live not too far from Mainline Hobby in Waynesboro PA. It is the greatest LHS that I’ve seen. They have practically the entire Wathers cataloge in stock!
My signature speaks for me. I model the MEC in HO Scale. I buy all of my stuff at my local hobby shop[:)], they love[:D] to see me coming because I’ll buy it if it says Maine Central on it[:D]. They always have lots of MEC stuff, hmmmm… sounds like a conspiracy to me…[:D][:D]
New York Central Hudson Division, transition era. 20x24 room with one level, masonite spline roadbed, Code 100, some handlay, Peco turnouts on 3/4" plywood (notched joints with spline. Great system, buy you need a good table saw, and a separate workshop to prepare the spline. also a serious dust mask. a planer helps too. But the results are great, and the curves just FLOW.
This is a long term project. Into it 15 months, and, as I said, just finishing basics. Now getting ready to mechanize all turnouts.
Use Easy DCC. Started with LENZ. Hated it. Now I use it for my workbench, and the Easy DCC for the layout.
BNSF (see screen name) in Arizona.
I get most of my stuff from LHS (We had 3 for a while but one closed) but have bought at shows and some E-Bay
I model BNSF in N scale with interchanges with UP, Fort Worth & Western, and Wichita Tillman & Jackson. The class 1 stuff is easy to come up with at the LHS or on ebay. The shortline stuff i’m having custom painted (wish I had the skills to do that).
Ron
I model several roads that ran around the Peoria, Illinois area in 1950. My main passion is the Nickel Plate Road, but I’ll also be modeling engines and cabooses for the following roads: P&PU, P&E (NYC), TP&W, PRR, C&IM, CB&Q, C&NW, CRI&P, ATSF, GM&O, IC, IT.
Needless to say, virtually everything I’m planning on modeling will have to be hand painted, and most of my steam engines will need extensive superdetailing before they look like the real thing. When I’m buying engines, I’m looking for the correct type of engine, and don’t usually bother with looking for the right road name ('cause I ain’t gonna find it!). Painting, rebuilding, and superdetailing I can do, and actually LIKE to do, so it’s no big deal that I can rarely find an engine off the shelf that fits my needs.
I’ll have to scratchbuild, kitbash or build craftsman kits for all but ONE of my cabooses (an Athearn caboose that will work for the ATSF). Paint 'em all, too.
Thankfully, freight car models are pretty well covered by the hobby manufacturers. Since I’m all about detail, my manufacturers of choice are Red Caboose, Intermountain, Branchline, P2K, and Atlas. I supplement the fleet with Accurail and Bowser, and Athearn for twin hoppers. I’ve been buying lots of resin freight cars (60+ so far) but have only built three so far. They’ll eventually become a major portion of my fleet, since you can’t successfully capture the feel of 1950s railroading without them. I really wi***hey were made in plastic though.
Passenger car selection sucks, especially considering I won’t have a single streamliner on my layout (all heavyweights, baby!). Thankfully, manufacturers are FINALLY starting to address that problem. Branchline’s new coaches are very nice, their Pullmans will hopefully be as nice, Walthers just announced a line of RTR heavyweights (which I’ll probably have to disassemble and repaint), and even the new Rivarossi shorty heavyweights have their uses (especially their 60’ baggage, which is
CB&Q and Wabash, transisiton era. I buy from the internet Tom’s trains in CT, from my local hobby shop, from GATS shows and quite a bit from Ebay. I also travel alot for work and try and visit LHS wherever I am travelling. It is amazing how high some of these places are.
I model a real mix of prototypes as my layout depicts a (fictional) museum line. At the moment, an SD40T-2 in SP livery is parked in the refuelling track while a CSX Dash 8 switches a few cars (CSX appears on freight services to industries along the line).
I buy US-outline stock from various places. I visit Totally Trains in Ross on Wye fairly regularly, and have also dealt with Mac’s Model Railroading and M. G. Sharp by mail order. eBay is also very handy for finding out-of-production items (recently bought an Athearn PA in SF Warbonnet livery from there).
I model BN and UP - which gives me a great excuse to run equipment from all the other roads they’ve swallowed up as well LOL! (GN, NP, SP&S, SLSF, CBQ, ATSF, CNW, MP, WP, SP, SSW, DRGW, etc etc.)
I get my stuff from all over - LHS, eBay, swap meets, internet, mail order, you name it.
If I like the paint schme, Ill buy it. Right now i’m into the B&M, and the MEC, but last month I was buying rolling stock for the Wisconsin Central and the CNW. Whatever suits my fancy. I get most of my stuff from Walthers of a Mail-order company in Brooklyn.
I’m an N scaler modelling the Union Pacific of the mid 60’s in northern Utah.
I saw a scene in a video on turbines that I’ve loosely duplicated and the rest of the layout is freelance.
I have one brass 8500HP turbine and two 4500HP Verandas from Con Cor. I have enough space and staging to run forty car freights.
I model the Virginia & East Tennessee Railway, a ficticious branch line of the N&W set in the early '50s. HO scale. There are numerous N&W steam locos available from various manufacturers that I can’t afford. I pick up first gen diesels to repaint for the V&ET. Most of my supplies come from the LHS, but I have been known to mailorder.
I model the Northeast Corridor
im currenty expanding and adding the a new New York City scene. I’m going to add an “underground” layout under the main level to simulate the subway. I am also, going to create many skyscrapers and Penn Station. If anybody has any suggestions, i could use all the advice i can get.[8D]
CB&Q and Wabash in Hannibal, MO, late 1940’s, HO scale starter layout coming soon.
Almost all of what I buy comes from my LHS, the Green Caboose.