Well, since I model Rio Grande and SP steam, all I can say is that I saw a lot of the SP steam I’ve got on my layout, and as a kid I rode some, too. But when it comes to Rio Grande, by the time I got to Colorado in the 1960’s, all was diseasel, and Rio Grande didn’t preserve any of their standard gauge steamers, except for little #538. But since I just got a brass model of #538 a couple of weeks ago, I suppose that I can say I’ve seen Rio Grande standard-gauge steam, huh?
Tom[:D]
PS: Oh, yah, saw the above at a museum in Minnesota about ten years ago. It’s wheels were turning. Does that count?
Tom
I’ve got NKP 587 and 765 in my collection, and have been lucky enough to have cab rides in both steamers. 765 never ran on the NKP line I’m modelling, but I don’t think anyone will really care!
I wish I had seen real Southern locomotives in action. So no, I have not seen any of the locomotives that I model in real life.
soumodeler
The Southern Serves the South!
They were a sight: and I saw them only in the Seventies and Eighties, when they were museum pieces on fan trips. If you like Southern steam (and only my affection for the Colorado Rockies seduced me away from my lifelong affection for the SRR), there’s always the railroad museum in Chattanooga (where 4501 still runs), and, if you’re in Asheville, a dilapidated 722 sits down by the Biltmore under an open shed. If you get to DC, you can see and hear 1401 in the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History, too. There’s also quite a bit of interesting stuff at the railroad museum in Spencer, NC - an old Southern division point.
The SRR in its day was a great railroad, and I can’t see an NS train without missing “Southern Gives A Green Light to Progress” or “Southern Serves the South.” It was a very personable operation: I even met Graham Claytor once, the only man I’ve ever seen in a suit on a fan trip, every bit the gentlemen he was reputed to be.
all my SP locomotives are #r’ed after the prototypes…I take pictures of them and model the outcome…they are modeled after SP prototypes from the East Yard in San Antonio Texas…well …when SP was still around…my UP locos are modeled after pictures but haven’t seen the prototype yet
Step 1: See prototype
Step 2: Buy undec model
Step 3: Paint and decal undec model to resemble prototype
I’ve never been lucky enough to buy a factory-painted model and then spot the big 'un…
My model railroad is 100% freelance…So that kind of makes it the proto-type…so from that point of view I see it everyday[(-D]
Trevor[8D]
There’s one preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum, and just before they got bought out by IC&E, Illinois Rail Link had at least one running, usually stationed at Davis Junction. The last time I saw it was 2003.
CN SW900s 7239 and 7214
CP S-2s 7020 and 7053
CP S-3 6568
I Proto Type Mine ,i went to work everyday on the freeway before i got back into the hobby ,and at a crossing bridge i always seen a C&NW AC4400 at the bridge ,i always looked forward to seeing ,it! SO here we are!!!
CNW JAY should love this …
I am born too late for a lot of my prototypes, have to visit museums to check them out.
A lot of books helps and just some railroad smartness how to handle things.
I have a Bachmann GS4 4449.I have chased and ridden behind this engine several times[:D]!
I got to see a lot of the real N&W and Virginian steam back in the '50’s. I even got to blow the whistle on 608. I still miss it.
I seem to recall SP bought the first SD7 (former demostrator) and that it was going to a museum. Is that it?
When I was about seven years old I got my first true HO locomotive which was an Athearn Blue Box Soo Line GP38-2 #4434. When I was about twelve I saw it in the Wisconsin Dells. Two years ago I saw Union Pacific SD90MAC #8038 close to my home right after I had purchased one of the Kato models. I even managed to take a few pictures since it had been stopped waiting to let off coal cars at the local powerplant.
I was disappointed when I opened this topic and saw it specified prototype ENGINE. While I was opening it, I thought of all the aspects of the prototype railroading of the middle 1950s I model in bits and pieces.
I am modeling the Santa Fe Texas Chief traveling to and from Galveston over a long causeway over the water, and through Houston.
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/abz.jpg
I have “seen” the prototype in bits and pieces. When I was 9, 10, 11 years old, I would be with my family going home from I thought of as a late evening and see the silver train backing into Houston Union Station. I could read it was Santa Fe but didn’t know it was called the Texas Chief. It just looked like my Lionel set with the long stainless steel cars.
I rode the “Texas Chief” north from Houston in one of the first years of Amtrak, the last month the Santa Fe warbonnet F-units were used. Later I experienced riding a tourist train from Houston over the causeway into Galveston over part of the route of the mid-1950s Texas Chief.
I didn’t ride the classic accomodation mail train but when I was without a car and had to ride the intercity bus, I thought how much the operation, stopping in each little town to drop off packages was like the operation (not the rolling stock) of the old local.
I have found bits and pieces of the operations and cars and industries I model in photos, museums and in actual use of one sort or another.
I have walked through stations that have been turned into local history museums or restaurants or chambers of commerce or tourist information centers to experience the buildings.
While researching a model of a blimp base as a destination for helium railcars, I visited the ruins of a blimp base where the main signs of what had been called equivalent to the world’s largest wooden building was the concrete corner posts of the
blimp doors…concrete posts 20 stories tall outlining a space 200 feet across the doorway and 900 feet
I model Swiss 1/45th O meter gauge (Om) and have 5 locomotives all of which I have seen and except for the shunter (switcher) have ridden behind in scheduled passenger service.
Yep. IRM’s also got the first GP7, a C&NW unit. Both still run, and occasionally pull trains (especially during diesel days)
Having grown up in the 40’s, I’ve seen quite a lot of the steam engines we model that ran through the western NY area along Lake Erie and south of Buffalo. Particularly the Erie, NYC, PRR, Nickleplate and Reading. However as much as I love those old and now gone steamers, I can’t say I saw any particular engine I model. Having said that, my models represent what I remember of that era and nothing else. Also, I’m not one to do much research either. In other words, my Erie “mike” from Rivarossi represents what I remember, but I don’t know if the engine number is one that Erie had, nor do I really care.I only care that my layout is representative of those times and what I remember of them. Thanks, Ken
I find I enjoy modeling the train’s of an era I actually rode on:
SP San Juaquin and Coast 'Daylight’s
AT&SF El Capitan, Super Chief, Golden Gate, and San Diegan (with E-1’s and E-3’s).
WP/D&RGW Cal.Zephyr.
Most fun was clocking mile post’s at 110MPH on the 16 car combined Super & El Cap. between La Junta and Dodge City.
With 85’ passenger car’s I narrowed my layout to 3’ and created 46"r curves by pushing the layout into 3 corners, with a new return loop behind me. Surprisingly, I used up only a little more floor space.