Train thread

Continued from the "Do you play with dolls?" thread since it's OT there:

 

[...]

OT: My interest in model railroading extended to an interest in real trains as well, as I know it does for many. I lived in a small town that had a Sante Fe depot and a very small switching yard--I think, hard to remember the details after so long and everything is long gone now. Back in the 1970s I used to go there and take photos of whatever I found. There'd often be a few cars or a locomotive or two sitting there. Quite often I got to see the rather unique CF7 locomotives:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051217013230/http://www.trainweb.org/indianashortlines/cf7.htm

 

If I recall they had a couple of different paint schemes for them but I know I saw ones with the "war bonnet" paint scheme like the pictures there. Some of them may have gotten the SPSF paint scheme but I don't think I ever saw any of those. I'll have to dig around I probably still have Kodachrome/Ektachrome slides of some of the stuff from back then.

Wow, I never knew about those locomotives. How interesting. And they started out in my favorite SF scheme, the yellow bonnet. Someday I'll get some O gauge locomotives in yellow bonnet, but it'll be a while yet, still need to get a job and finish the layout.

I found a couple of other pages with some information on the CF7:

http://locomotive.wikia.com/wiki/ATSF_CF7

http://trainweb.org/jfuhrtrain/CF7frames/CF7photos.htm

 

Earlier ones had the rounded cab roof as shown in a couple of pictures there, which was, I believe, part of the cab structure kept from the original F7 body. Early ones also had the older paint scheme that didn't have the yellow war bonnet. I believe I saw most of the variations back then. I'll try to dig through things and see if I still have any slides.

 

As you may know, Santa Fe and Southern Pacific attempted to merge but it wasn't approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission. They got ahead of themselves though and painted a lot of locomotives in a new paint scheme which still had the war bonnet but the rest of the body was red instead of blue, and they had either "SP" or "SF" on them depending on which railroad they belonged to, with a space to add the other letters later so they'd say "SPSF"; here's a few pics of those on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe%E2%80%93Southern_Pacific_merger

 

I don't know if any CF7s were painted like this.

 

I learned something now too; I never knew that was referred to as the Kodachrome paint scheme. Odd coincidence since that is the film I used a lot when photographing the trains.

Yup, I knew of the SFSP Kodachrome, several models have been painted in it, as well as I have a book about the SF that gave some info about it.

 

Here's my SP Kodachrome caboose.

 

Oh, that caboose looks nice in that color scheme. Seeing the colors like that I also realized it's sort of related to how SF painted their buildings; the old depot in that town was yellow (reefer yellow maybe, may have been lighter though) with trim in boxcar red or maybe it was darker like tucson red. In both cases not as bright as this Kodachrome scheme but still kind of similar.

 

Edit: To the extent I can remember it, the depot looked something like these two:

 

A little fancier one:

https://yournorthcounty.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/carlsbad-santa-fe-depot.jpg

Yes, SF liked their depots to look pretty similar across the road. An old SF depot is at the McCormick Railroad park here.

 

Also remembered I have a Kodachrome GP40 in N scale.

 

I had this set as a kid (the steam set on top.) Was given to me for Christmas when I was maybe 4 or 5. Still the best Christmas gift I think I have ever gotten, at least from someone else.

 

Last year I gave myself a Miki Hoshi, and she beats the train set. XD

 

When I get a chance I'll post photos of some of the trains and cars I have now.

 

Wow, all that for $50, that's a great deal. I wish trains were still at that price. But is it odd that it bugs me that everything in that set has ATSF marking except the box car which is NH. Those two were no where near each other. If the roads on the other cars were mixed up it wouldn't be a big deal, but the poor odd man out. But I love NH too. I loved looking over those ads growing up and wishing for my own.

I had a Lionel Silver Star train set when I was little. Unlike all my other toys when I was little, I took good care of it. There was no permanent place to set it up, so I'd assemble my track on the garage or kitchen floor and run it for a while, then put everything carefully back in the package.

 

I had a couple of extra cars. I don't really remember what. I think I had some kind of tanker car and another freight car with Alaska on it. I had a good deal of extra track and two switchers. I could make a pretty big track when I'd set up in the garage. It was more than enough that when my mom's giant land barge Buick was in the garage I could set up a train track all the way around it.

 

Sadly, after my parents divorced in the early 80s, my mom heard that toy trains were worth money. So she declared the train hers. She moved it from it's storage area in the house to a damp shed and forbade me from touching it. Last I saw of the set in the late 80s, it had completely corroded. It broke my heart.

 

I miss my train. I've occasionally considered getting a new one, just something I could set up and run for a while. So if anyone knows of a decent small train set with a locomotive similar in style to the one in the Lionel Silver Star set that I could reasonably set up on a 6' by 3' table or smaller then point me the direction.

Holy cow that's a lot of track!!

 

That is sad. And sadly some people still think they are worth tons of money and end up hording them in bad places rotting while they hold out for someone to actually be willing to pay the price they think it should be worth when it was never and never will be worth very much. But if you want that exact set, here is one on eBay. I understand the value of an old set to someone like you that has fond memories (I luckily still have my 1st train set, but then the ghost of my grandpa would have haunted my dad if he had ever gotten rid of it.), but over the course of almost a decade I would say if you have any desire for a train set, get a new one. They have so many neater things. sadly they don't come with the buildings and signs or tele-poles like sets used to come with, but good ones do come with track and a transformer. And almost all modern sets can also be controlled with your smart phone too. This one from MTH would be a good example. Or if you want to stick with Lionel, this set is nice. You can look to see what the current offerings for Ready-To-Run sets are on this page. Just read the description and make sure they come with track and transformer. I believe most of them do.

 

So if you (Or anyone else.) have more questions about model trains, feel free to ask away. It's my other passion besides our lovely DDs, that I've had my whole life.

I miss my train. I've occasionally considered getting a new one, just something I could set up and run for a while. So if anyone knows of a decent small train set with a locomotive similar in style to the one in the Lionel Silver Star set that I could reasonably set up on a 6' by 3' table or smaller then point me the direction.

 

If space is an issue you could do N Scale. I've heard of people doing that because they don't have a lot of space, or because they move a lot. The detail on the N scale trains is pretty impressive too.

I think it's interesting how many of us have/had an interest in trains. It's a hobby that I'm sure I'll never go back to at this stage of life but I'm still interested in it and it's interesting to see and read the rest of your stories and remember what I had, something I really haven't thought about in a long time.

 

I never had an actual train set but bought individual pieces I wanted. I probably didn't start as young, like age 10-12 or something (I don't really remember) but I know I bought most of my own stuff with allowance or maybe got things I specifically requested at Christmas. I had HO scale, dabbled with N scale for a while and went back to HO later. I never really had a layout but sometimes set up little sections of track to play with or made some little section on a board or something. I think I was more interested in simulating switching than running trains around in circles. With the N stuff I remember I had a just straight track for a while, a piece of plywood maybe a foot wide and probably 8' long that I could just run the train back and forth on. So many years ago the transformers and electronics aren't anything like I'm sure they are now, but I had a MRC (I think) transformer that had "pulse power" (which amounted to a crude version of PWM I believe) which let you run locomotives at very slow in-scale speeds, and I was into that, so running my short train back and forth at slow speeds was entertaining for me up to a point.

 

I don't actually remember what happened to the N stuff, but the HO I still had a lot of into my 20s or 30s; I gave what I had left to a friend who wanted to get into the hobby and share it with his child. By that point I didn't feel I needed what I had and figured I'd never make a layout or have the space for one. Maybe the N stuff "disappeared" along with much of whatever else I had.

 

I had a Lionel Silver Star train set when I was little. Unlike all my other toys when I was little, I took good care of it. [...]

Sadly, after my parents divorced in the early 80s, my mom heard that toy trains were worth money. So she declared the train hers. She moved it from it's storage area in the house to a damp shed and forbade me from touching it. Last I saw of the set in the late 80s, it had completely corroded. It broke my heart.

I took care of everything because I was as anal as a kid as I am now, probably. But I had a related experience. When I left home and went away to college, my parents sold in a garage sale or otherwise disposed of practically everything I owned that I didn't take with me, which still irritates me now when I think about it.

 

Anyone else build structures for your railroad? I guess my main hobby as a kid was building model cars so that kind of extended to trains. There were plastic kits such as ones made by Atlas, which I see are still available:

https://shop.atlasrr.com/c-1084-ho-trackside-structure-kits.aspx

I had mostly the smaller stuff; it was cheap and thus easier to buy as a kid lol. I know I had the telephone shanty, trackside shanty, signal tower and elevated gate tower.

 

There were also more elaborate and harder-to-build kits made from wood, pressboard, plastic and metal bits, etc. I had some made by Ed Suydam and I see that some of that company's stuff is still made by some remnants of that company:

http://www.alpinemodels.com/page/page/2762955.htm

I had "Ed's Market" shown there. Also a Bekins storage warehouse which I don't see, and a little corner food joint called the Triangle Cafe. Suydam also had this weird line of corrugated metal buildings that were actually made from metal, tin I think. I had some of those but never built them as it was a daunting thing to consider. You had to solder them together and while I knew how to solder electronics this was quite different. The stuff also rusted if you didn't handle it carefully and paint all of it after building; mine rusted in the boxes. I'm pretty sure the "Black Bart Mine" here was one of the old metal kits, though the one shown here says it is pressboard:

http://www.alpinemodels.com/catalog/item/5258330/8023425.htm

 

I built those kits when I was in junior high or high school I think.

 

There's a picture of the instruction manual for the Bekins kit here and it shows the building:

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/ho-suydam-kit-88-bekins-storage-430943021

These buildings were also lighted; the bit sign on top of the Bekins was as well as some inside lighting and...I can't remember if the side signs were.

Triangle Cafe:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/E-SUYDAM-HO-SCALE-TRIANGLE-CAFE-75-MAT-BOARD-WOOD-MODEL-BUILDING-KIT-NIB-/372312364264

 

There was also Scale Structures Ltd. (or SSLTD) who made limited (numbered?) kits that were very elaborate, very difficult to build, and expensive. Most of the details like windows were cast metal that required a lot of cleanup. I'm pretty sure this company went away at some point, but they exist now and claim to have been in business for 50 straight years so I'm not sure of their whole history. I bought one of their kits which I never built though I worked on it. I actually still have it. It's this one:

http://scale-structures.com/ss1225

Uh, when I said expensive I didn't mean $300(!)...Ijust looked at my box and part of the label printing on it is the price--$47.00

I should see if I can find all of the parts and look at selling mine then. It's in two boxes if I recall because once you opened it it was like nearly impossible to get all the parts back into the box it came in. It's just been sitting here for years.

 

Last year I gave myself a Miki Hoshi, and she beats the train set. XD

Indeed. Awesome gift.

Small addendum:

 

There is some discussion on the soldering and alternate techniques for today on the Suydam metal buildings here; mainly I'm posting the link because there are some pictures of one of the larger buildings being assembled and you can see some of the rusting on it like I mentioned too:

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/112895/2558508.aspx

 

Another; I didn't have this kit but it's one of the ones I remember:

https://www.model-railroad-infoguy.com/suydam-metal-buildings.html

"Day & Night" was an actual company that made water heaters and air conditioners. I believe what was in my parents' house when I was a kid was theirs.

 

As mentioned in the thread of the first link, the main visual shortcoming of these is probably the windows, which were just clear acetate sheet with black frames and dividing lines printed on them; you can sort of see it a bit in the pictures on the second page.

O is my current and main gauge. I would say N is my secondary gauge. I also have HO, S, and 7.5" gauge equipment. One of the 7.5" gauge items is a real coal fired steam locomotive. But it's sat for nearly 20 years, so who knows if it's even pressure worthy anymore. Before my loss of employment my goal was to join a local club and get it looked at and running again in 2019, but even my O gauge layout has stopped work. If you want to get into N I would look at T-Trak modules. It's a great way to have a small portable layout and you can find others locally and match up with theirs to run longer trains. They are made to sit on a table top. My brother has made some, and sometime I'll make a few as my wife and oldest son also have N gauge trains. Here is some of the ones he has made.

 

 

That is 7 modules, and he has finished 3 of them. Here is a closer view of a couple of them.

 

I think I was more interested in simulating switching than running trains around in circles. With the N stuff I remember I had a just straight track for a while, a piece of plywood maybe a foot wide and probably 8' long that I could just run the train back and forth on.

 

 

Anyone else build structures for your railroad? I guess my main hobby as a kid was building model cars so that kind of extended to trains.

 

I think these things are central to model railroading as a hobby. I like steam, so I'm far more interested in doing something centered around coal mining like this:

 

 

 

 

Maybe with a yard as well:

 

 

A loop around the layout is more like the icing on the cake than the main attraction, and computer controls make so much more stuff possible than when I was a kid.

 

No space in my place for any of that. XD

I prefer diesels but love seeing pictures like that. I used to see stuff like that in Model Railroader or Railroad Model Craftsman magazines and dream of having something like it one day. Of course it remained a dream and I never got there.

 

But since many train sets just give you an oval or maybe one with a bypass or such, I assume most younger kids are pretty content to just run them around in loops, and more realistic operations like switching are more interesting to those who get more into the hobby. While sets are touted as a starter point you add onto, as Gabriel did with his with extra track and such, I wonder what perecentage really do that as opposed to just sticking with what they get initially. I always seemed to be interested in the more realistic aspects of train modeling though. I remember that while I never managed to buy a lot of rolling stock, I made a point of buying three or four of one specific boxcar model so I could make a train that looked more like what you'd see in the real world instead of the usual train set train of 3-6 or so cars each of a different type, and I was always trying to have them go slowly at something like realistic speeds rather than see how fast they'd go.

 

A point I wanted to add about my own stuff back then. I liked the buildings as their own thing so while I never had any kind of complete track layout to use them with, I had them displayed somewhere as I did with model cars.

 

It seems like my hobbies have always been about potential and the future, like right now I've got a pile of doll clothing, two not-yet-completed dolls, and Sheryl in her box waiting for a place to put her. I need to fix this.

 

Edit: I only had a single locomotive, and made a bad choice for it. I didn't live anywhere near a hobby shop so all my train stuff was mail order, usually from the Walthers catalog or occasionally from AHC (which I believe stood for "America's Hobby Choice" who I assume are long out of business. I bought an Athearn U33B painted in a weird Bicentennial scheme that SCL had. I don't know why I chose that; perhaps because it was something different. When I received it I was disappointed; it wasn't painted very well and it just looked more toy-like than like an accurate model, and the paint scheme seemed more tacky in person. As a kid locomotives were expensive though so I was stuck with my choice and never got another. I think that's one thing that led to me starting to lose interest in the hobby looking back on it now. I can't find good pictures of it online but here's a couple of auction links with some pictures:

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/seaboard-coast-line-u33-scl-1776-149755018

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ATHEARN-HO-SCALE-U33B-1776-SEABOARD-COAST-LINE-NON-POWERED-DUMMY-LOCOMOTIVE/202510574061

That is an odd scheme, perhaps you were feeling patriotic at the time. Maybe it was the lowest price of entry to get motive power as, like you said, kids have a limited budget. If you like modeling, I'd say get an N gauge locomotive and some freight cars, then look at building a T-Trak compatible switching puzzle, either the Inglenook or the Timesaver. I'm not a fan of the Timesaver as it's too convoluted IMHO, but it does allow the modeler a lot to work with for industry buildings and such. I like the Inglenook and incorporated it in my layout as it's easy to hide it as just a group of spurs. Then you can have something small that sits on the shelf where you can use it there, or place it on the kitchen table when you run. These are meant for slow speed so you get that. And you can go about doing all the scenery you want.

I think it was maybe the idea of having something that was limited too as if I recall they only made that model for some specific period of time. Budget was certainly part of it as when I had the N scale stuff I had a little tiny switching engine which I remember I got because it was inexpensive; I can't remember what the designation was but it was just the little single truck type (four or maybe six wheels). ... I searched and amazingly found it; it was this one:

https://www.trovestar.com/generic/zoom.php?id=116328

The description says these were originally from Atlas; I'm sure that's what mine was and I think all my N rolling stock was as well. This was when N was pretty new and as far as I recall Atlas was one of the main companies doing it. That SCL engine aside, I usually got Santa Fe stuff.

 

Oh wow. I found that little locomotive just browsing google for pictures of N scale switching locomotives. Via that I started looking at other things, and what's available now is far more detailed than anything I had back then; N stuff now looks as good or better than HO did back then. I was impressed by these pictures on the Kato website:

https://www.katousa.com/N/SD40-2/176-8207.jpg

https://www.katousa.com/N/SD45/176-3122.jpg

https://www.katousa.com/N/SD70ACe/old/176-8419.jpg

 

Assuming those aren't overly retouched, I'm very impressed. If I didn't know they were N scale based on my previous experience I'd have assumed they were HO, and very nice-looking HO at that.

 

Thanks for the links. For now I'm going to concentrate on the doll hobby, but I might want to do that in the future especially after getting a hint of all the cool stuff that's available now that wasn't when I was a kid lol. Timesaver is kind of funny; I understand the idea but it also looks a bit like a track layout someone designed while drunk.

 

Edit: Thanks very much sinclair for mentioning those layouts. I had some search results that were mixed in when I attempted to find that switching engine, a couple of N scale switching layouts done in 1 x 6 feet and 1.5 x 6 feet:

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/195425.aspx?page=1

http://www.layoutvision.com/gallery/id25.html

 

I never really thought about that you could do something that interesting in such a small space with N scale; not only a decent track layout but some room for a few buildings and landscaping too. The first one mounted like a shelf on the wall is really cool I think. Something like that might be a good project for me whenever I can finally retire and I'm going to keep it in mind. Not that I need another hobby to spend money on.

Those are some nice compact switching layouts. And I bow to anyone that hand lays track, that's crazy skillz I don't have, nor have the patience for. Sectional track gives me enough to fuss over.

 

As for KATO, they are kind of the gold standard, so anything they make is going to be top notch. Atlas stuff is decent too, I'd have no problems buying their stuff in any gauge. I think if you get started in N now you can include the dolls in it, have them 'help' you. It'd be about S scale to them.

Those are some nice compact switching layouts. And I bow to anyone that hand lays track, that's crazy skillz I don't have, nor have the patience for. Sectional track gives me enough to fuss over.

 

As for KATO, they are kind of the gold standard, so anything they make is going to be top notch. Atlas stuff is decent too, I'd have no problems buying their stuff in any gauge.

I remember long ago hand-laid track was the way to get it to look most realistic, but I'm sure it's not as true as it used to be.

 

KATO came along after I wasn't in the hobby I think as I'm only slightly aware of them. Back then it was Athearn, Atlas was pretty new in locomotives, Bachman who were kind of low-end and toy-like, Tyco who didn't have a whole lot, a few other brands with a few things like Con-cor, and the really high end was locomotives made from brass. PFM (Pacific Fast Mail) was an importer or distributor for a few companies; it appears that stuff no longer exists. They were mostly steam engines. So far I didn't notice brass at all in current stuff, though I'd also guess it would be incredibly expensive now, as it was back then relatively speaking.

 

[...]

Ok that made me check. Tenshodo was one of the lines PFM imported. They do still exist in Japan:

http://www.tenshodo.co.jp/models/tabid/114/Default.aspx

I'm guessing ~$4000 steam engines aren't a feasible thing to sell in the US market and that's why I don't see such things here now, and the quality of the plastic is so good now too. Those Tenshido also aren't quite HO scale? 1/80 it says instead of 1/87.

 

I like that KATO has a number of locomotives in Santa Fe blue/yellow war bonnet, SF Kodachrome, and the newer BNSF, as well as the other lines that made that up, Burlington Northern and I saw at least one from the earlier Great Northern.

 

There was some kind of irony that one of the first pages I looked at on the KATO website showed me this:

http://katousa.com/N/U30C/index.html

 

I think if you get started in N now you can include the dolls in it, have them 'help' you. It'd be about S scale to them.

I like that. I could also have a more extreme version of the Godzilla thing you had going on with Miku "helping" you. Or kinda like Attack of the 50ft. Woman.