What’s on the tracks?

I've started to look at the planned refurb of the prewar gunmetal 1664E I picked up from Trainz a few months back. Largely a basket-case, I've decided to take a shortcut and use the mechanicals out of one of the black 1664E's that I have, then rebuild the gunmetal's motor later. I pulled one down off the shelf and gave it a spin around the outer loop; it hadn't been on the track for quite awhile so, after a few minutes of run-time, it ran great and looked good. I'll have to look around for the other two I have in storage (why I have four of these things, I've no idea). Anyway, this one ran like a champ while dragging three 1600-series freights:

 

Of course, anytime you get something out on the pike that hasn't been run for awhile, the railfans show up. This is becoming a bigger problem than it used to be. Up at Heat-Pump Pass, it's not unusual to see as many as a half-dozen, all in the right-of-way. These two are standing on line property just along the table edge. If the railroad police show up, they can just jump over the side. We gotta get this under control.

Bill (seayakbill), nice switcher work. Alfred

Post by Adam on Feb 19, 2024 at 12:20pm

Feb 19, 2024 at 11:40am healey36 said:
@adam, why the bay-window caboose spliced in behind the B&M Hudson ahead of the passenger consist? Not a dig, just curious as to whether this was something done by the B&M in their operations. Looks good regardless, lol.
I think it looks neat. The last passenger car doesn't have a coupler at the end, so I put it there. I have seen, rarely this position for a caboose in real life as well. Maybe in some rare cases they have a buffer or a second caboose for the staff. I'm sure not prototypical at all.

Adam, the caboose placement is a nice touch.
Up into the 1960s the Pennsylvania used cabin cars on some New York - Washington passenger trains that carried mail storage and express cars behind the passenger cars. The conductor and the front brakeman would be ahead in the coaches and the flagman would be in the cabin behind the mail and express cars
Alfred

I apologize for the lateness of my post, as I only now saw this subject while watching the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament game with limited attention!  This is going to take a little background, so be patient with me!

About five years ago, I decided to teach myself how to airbrush after unsuccessfully looking for someone to hire to paint some Missouri Pacific passenger engines in the color scheme that I wanted.  For about two years, I struggled with limited success to paint as I was too cheap to buy an airbrush that cost more than $35 dollars.  I finally realized that to successfully learn a new part of my hobby, I would need to spend some decent money for a good airbrush.  I ended up with a Paasche airbrush, and haven't regretted the purchase since.  My painting became better, with only me seeing it, so maybe it still isn't that great!  Anyway, three years ago, I decided to take on a challenging project.  I bought a set of MTH E8 Railking engines in an ABA consist.  For 4 weeks I labored over trying to strip all of the paint off by continually soaking the engines in 92 percent alcohol and scrubbing off the paint (don't ever do this).  I finally got all of the paint off and began the process of painting MoPac Blue, Off White accent stripes, and a Southern Pacific Daylight gray roof.  The process was lengthy, as I took my time in allowing each color to dry, carefully masking each color and airbrushing the next color.  Upon completion of painting, I decaled each unit, and sprayed Gloss Coat on them, as I wanted to make them look like they were fresh out of the factory.  I was happy with the results, thinking I did a pretty decent job. So much for being self confident, as what happened next is humbling!!!

One night I decided to run my newly painted engines, pulling a consist of MTH Missouri Pacific passenger cars that I had purchased several years prior to painting my engines.  Everything was going well, as the engines looked good, the consist was effortlessly pulled, and I was enjoying watching the engines that I worked so hard to paint.  Also "enjoying" watching the train run was a family cat.  For a couple of years, he had enjoyed watching the trains run while sitting on the side of the train layout.  On this night, however, he was sitting on the layout. I didn't realize that he was sitting with his tail partially on the track.  The train came around the curve, catching his long loose fur in the wheels and gears of the lead engine.  He got scared and jumped off of the layout, the engine following him to the floor.  The cat was okay, but the engine was definitely not.  The nose of the engine was noticeably scratched, the new paint no longer unblemished.  The gears were tangled with cat fur, the axles jammed, and the former smooth-running engine barely running.  No sympathy from my family.  My daughter was concerned about the welfare of her cat and my wife wondering why I wasn't paying better attention to the cat.  In recreating the scene of the crime, I take responsibility as I was looking at my cell phone with one eye instead of paying attention to the trains.  I was able to repair everything well enough to satisfy myself, as the repaired lead engine runs great, and is now the trailing engine since the damaged paint wasn't completely flawlessly repaired.

As I write this post, the cat involved in this drama is chasing a plastic egg around the house, taken out of a glass bowl of Easter eggs!  In closing, I have to laugh at my own lack of attention!  After two years, if I am running my trains, the cat takes off and runs away from the train layout.  I guess he has learned his lesson.  I have attached a picture of one of the painted engines, as evidence that this really happened! Hope you enjoy a bad event that turned into an opportunity to learn from my mistake.

Despite efforts to halt purchases, this little prewar Marklin set found its way to me. Once we sorted out whether it was AC or DC, we got it on the tracks. Here it's seen on the outer loop of the layout mainline, headed north:




Don Carver called yesterday to say the Lionel 1684 and Flyer 1096 I dropped off for service are both ready for pick-up. His repair backlog is massive...nearly a year before he got to them. The 1684 is my daughter's (given to her when she was five or six one Christmas) and the 1096 belonged to my grandfather. I'm looking forward to seeing both back in action.

I love the overhead wires. Neat touch!

Bill, healey36, thanks. Alfred