But…but…but… the hobby’s dying. Ready-to-run is killing craftsmanship. The sainted founding fathers of the hobby are turning over in their graves. Greedy manufacturers are pricing things out of sight and bankrupting the average hobbyist**. [(-D][(-D][(-D]
Andre
P.S. sorry 'bout that. It was a pre-emptive mini-strike to blunt the doom and gloom of the nay sayers.
** I thought it was high oil prices and the credit crisis, BWDIK?
mega cool, model makers turning out some cool stuff. Most passenger diesels had steam generators just for that purpose, but for areas that couldnt, this car is used.
The pic in the MRR, the “secret” with New Haven on the side, that’s the Osgood Bradley. I can dig up the full picture they’re using.
Radius envy: The gen car actually appears to be shorter than an F7B. SO if you have short coaches, you could run it with short cars. Oscar/Piker anyone?
I’d love to see a WP CZ steam generator car. WP used F units without steam generators found in E units, and had steam generator cars built. It would look great on a CZ consist.
NP ordered steam generators in most of their passenger F and FP diesel units but carried two large tanks of water in the baggage car behind the units to have enough steam for long trips on cold northern Rockies nights.
Rapido Trains passenger cars are excellent. Canadian modelers have an excellent source of prototypically correct cars. The lighting system is great too.
As for the Western Pacific passenger F units. All had steam generators but as profits disappeared and the units got older it was more cost effective to use boiler cars instead of repairing the steam generators. The boiler cars came from the GN second hand.
Regarding the Steam Gennies, please send me an email through our web site with your paint scheme requests. I’m in the process of finalizing the first batch of paint schemes now.
Steam Generator Units or Steam Heater Cars (or any one of a dozen different names) are very interesting pieces of equipment, often overlooked by railfans, preservationists and modellers alike. Many railroads used them, and many had their own unique designs for their SGUs. Some were rebuilt from tenders, B units, box cars, etc. I am genuinely concerned that none will be preserved in the long term. Several Steam Gennies are owned by museums and tourist railways, but they are regarded as nothing more than tools to provide steam for preserved passenger cars, and will be scrapped when the passenger cars are converted to HEP. These are an important part of history, and they deserve to be preserved, restored and interpreted.
CN was the only railroad to standardize its steam genny design over a large fleet, so it was the logical choice for the prototype for our car. Er… the fact that I model VIA and CN had nothing to do with it. Really.
Don’t you know you’re not supposed to speak optimisically about the future of model railroading on this forum. This is the place for lamenting the demise of the hobby.[swg]
Now there’s someone who REALLY understands what this forum is all about!!! Besides, all this expensive RTR crap is just making it too easy for the great unwashed with more money than skill to call themselves model railroaders.
[Foghorn Leghorn]
Son, I say, son, you just can’t be a model railroader unless you build everything from scratch, regularly trash MR for its editorial policies, cry in your beer about the imminent demise of the hobby and claim that you are the world’s greatest living authority on the history of the hobby.
Heh…you know this hobby has been dying since Santa bought me my first Lionel set back in 75 (those were the Dark days when Kenner owned Lionel…so it was kinda easy to believe ) Today I’m seeing Engines being produced now that would have required some serious Kitbashing just a few years ago, new techniques for building a layout that saves time, cost less and produces superior results…and don’t even get me started on the incredible things DCC and micro-electrics has given us.