Side Shot Saturday - New Thread

I assumed a smaller scale but didn’t expect N. Great detail!

Here is my 428, 429, 430, & 431. I had the 431 ( 3rd car to the right 6 wheel trucks. ) With my 400E I just got the others in. Yes I already had a 429 & 430but wanted a 428 and hoped the rest match closely to the 431.

Actually even thou it has been restored, it is how Lionel put it out some where between 1927 - 1932. Dinning cars where separate sale items. The cars where 1928 - 1930. Now the Dinning car came in a few colors as they did it to match the Mauve, Apple Green, Dark green and orange this size passenger car. 

Here is the reason I got into DeadRail.

These are a pair of MTH Premier F7's.  These are not the original Dealer Appreciation F7's (I missed the boat on those... long story).  These are the versions that came out a few years later in ProtoSound 3.0.

Unfortunately, they just never ran well as a pair.  These are both PS3 and were meant to run in a lash-up (Consist).  They seemed to take forever to set up and then were always finicky.  They would stall, swap directions and pull against each other.  Disappointed with their performance, I almost sold them twice.  But these were MY first trains.  They had a special meaning and maybe I'll write that story sometime.

I had heard about BlueRail (1st Gen prior to Blunmai) and decided to get on a waiting list to buy.  I did some more research on DeadRail and jumped in with both feet. I was so pleased with their performance and operation that I made the decision to convert all of my loco's to DeadRail.

I'm never going back to track power... ever.

Neither of these has been on its tracks lately - for the time being they are displayed together as icons of UP diesels. The O scale version is by MTH; so far as I know Lionel has never modelled the DDA40X although I wonder whether Lionel got the tooling for it? This has great smoke and a start-up sequence. The HO version I got during a time when I dabbled in that scale and its DCC sound set is more realistic.



I know that #6396 was donated by UP to the Illinois society that is restoring a couple of former Excursion Train engines as well as some other rolling stock, including the Challenger.

  Well Healey36, as a member in good standing of the ARTCS (Anal Retentive Train Collectors Society) I will commend you on your initial attempt at box building but you will have to do much better before we can consider you for possible membership.

Here's how I do it.



...and since this is side shot Saturday - here's the contents properly displayed

First, one side



and then the other



As you can see this set has to be the first set assembled on a Monday morning after what was probably a very long and relaxing weekend.



  Seriously,  my situation is such that I can't display all the trains so I have to rotate them which means I have to store those not on display in boxes. 

   In those cases where the set box is not available I make it a point to build one.  I always make the box so the trains sit vertically and are not wrapped in tissue paper.  I do this because I've seen too many situations where the trains were stored on their side with some kind of paper wrap and the paper has left indelible marks on the sides of the cars. 

  In order to prevent the cars from moving around in the box I make the partitions as you can see in the picture and I notch the cross piece of carboard which spaces the partitions at the bottom to lock one of the car couplers in place.  To further reduce the movement I take tissue paper, wad it up to match the length of the car and then set the car down on top of the paper.  This locks the car trucks in place, prevents car movement, and does not risk damaging the car finish.