Is anyone on TPR a Railfan? (Train Watcher)

[Vekoma Fan Boy]

I just can't keep my hands off of anything ATSF...

 

Bachmann ATSF 2-10-4: $200

Soundtraxx Tsunami $99.95

2 1.25" High Bass speakers: $16

The time it will take to save up $316? Too long.

<33

[DarkStitch626]

Yea that steamy is very pretty. I enjoyed steam locomotives for their booming and very many mechanical parts, the electric and all others of today stink, no real photogenic appeal.

 

I mean look at this...

 

 

 

Even when they are dirty they are awesome. Yea I also realize some of my phrasings of words sounded odd.

 

[ebl]

Perhpas as steam locomotives go, nothing is classier than the old Southern Pacific 4449. You can see pictures of it here.

 

Eric

[Vekoma Fan Boy]

Perhpas as steam locomotives go, nothing is classier than the old Southern Pacific 4449. You can see pictures of it here.

 

Eric

 

You and my friend Mark would get along very well!

[1badgmc]

I love the Daylight. My dad bought me an HO scale 4449 in its Freedom Train colors for my birthday last year.

[mcjaco]

I just can't keep my hands off of anything ATSF...

 

Bachmann ATSF 2-10-4: $200

Soundtraxx Tsunami $99.95

2 1.25" High Bass speakers: $16

The time it will take to save up $316? Too long.

 

Get a job at your local hobby shop. I did that through college. Not only do you get to play with toys, you get discounts. My collection of over 100 locos and 300 pieces of HO rolling stock came mostly from those four years.

[haux]

Like I said earlier in this thread, pretty much only Norfolk Southern passes through my town. When I go on walks, I walk by the railroad tracks for maybe a quarter of a mile. Last time I did, a BNSF train passed through, and it had "K" Line and Hanjin shipping containers on it.

 

I find that pretty interesting that stuff from Japan and South Korea is passing through the small town I live in.

 

Sometimes Canadian National Railway comes through. We're so close to Canada, that makes sense.

[Vekoma Fan Boy]

I just can't keep my hands off of anything ATSF...

 

Bachmann ATSF 2-10-4: $200

Soundtraxx Tsunami $99.95

2 1.25" High Bass speakers: $16

The time it will take to save up $316? Too long.

 

Get a job at your local hobby shop. I did that through college. Not only do you get to play with toys, you get discounts. My collection of over 100 locos and 300 pieces of HO rolling stock came mostly from those four years.

 

Do you know how fast I would if the nearest hobby shop was less than 1.5 hours away? So for now I have to try and find a job at a McDonalds or something.

 

How ever I am going to try selling hand laid turnouts. If I can gather up $200 I need to get everything (Ties, rail, solder, assorted files, track spikes, and Homasote roadbed) I can make the turnouts for $10 a piece and sell them for at least $20. So that coupled with weekly allowance for doing chores should hold me over till I get a job.

[mcjaco]

^ I forgot to mention, I was also broke from that job. My paycheck went right back into the store!

[TheRapidsNerd]

I'm partial to 0-4-0 and similar sized steam switchers for some reason. Also like the French TGV trains and Cabooses. Was a fan of Chesse System, Burlington Northern, and Conrail when blue was the main color.

 

My first model train was a transformers set. I went through a whole train phase and the family and I went to a train show and Dad was buying rolling stock I thought was cool....and hiding them in his winter coat! Lol! This would later be for Christmas and birthday gifts.

 

Got rid of most of that stuff a couple years ago to good will. It was sitting in my closet doing nothing and I'd had several years to make a Christmas train for the tree, but just never got around to getting the board put together. Still have a section of HO track and my favorite steam switcher engine on the shelves in the living room.

 

While it was sad to get rid of all that stuff, I kept feeling like there was kid somewhere who really really wanted a train set, but couldn't have one for whatever reason. Hopefully, the stuff I wasn't using got to that kid who'd appreciate it and enjoy it so much more. I like to think so.

 

May yet do a Christmas train, maybe a Thomas something or a mine train. Dunno, but whatever happens, it has to be a steam engine.

[mr_teisco_delrey]

I love trains. I like the Chicago (Pre Metra) commuter rail. I particulary enjoyed riding the Illinois Central Highliners to the South Shore in Chicago. Where I am now, I live by the Norfolk Southern Cincinatti - Chattanooga line. Lots of container freight and intermodal loads. BORING! I guess intermodal is the future, but I loved the variety of cars on old freight trains.

[haux]

As I was out for my walk today, a Canadian National train passed by. The first seven or eight cars were stacked with vehicle frames. They may have been truck frames since I saw a slot for a hitch on the frames. The train also had vehicles already put together, numerous box cars and six or seven cars labeled sulfuric acid. I had no idea such a variety of things would travel on one train.

[sfmmrules!]

Oh yeah. Trains are somewhat like roller coasters to me since they travel on a track & especially our Baby Bullet trains that go whizzing by at about 85 miles an hour. I sometimes like to ride on those fast trains because it makes me feel like I'm on a roller coaster.

[Sparebear75]

I used to be an active railfan but since I work for a railway I'm no more than an armchair railfan these days. I have found a picture of myself at work on the net http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=139196&nseq=2.

[kalvin]

Well, over the weekend I got a Lionel HO set, The Burlington, which was in like-new condition and had all the boxes except half of the main cover of the box was riped off. For those of you that do not what this set is, it has a Lionel GP-30 in Burlington Northern paint, a steel coil car in PL&E paint, a hopper in BN paint, a boxcar in Grand Trunk paint, a 3-dome tanker, a Gondola in Cheasapeke and Ohio Paint and a Caboose in BN paint. It also had a complete tressel bridge set wich forms a figure-8 setup. I will have pictures of it all set up tommorow.

[Top Thrill Dragster]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe0P4e6_Z4k

 

Its nice to see an Amtrak train running at full speed.

[paintballer]

I don't know much about the companys, but I like to go by the tracks near my house and watch 'em with my dog. Big loud suckers!

[ebl]

^ You'd like living where I do. Right out our back yard, across the highway, is a very busy track with Amtrak, commuter, and freight. (Go to Page 3 of this thread and look at the first post. Those pictures were taken from my yard.)

 

Eric

[FlyingScooter]

I love trains and have been on a couple for sight seeing day-trips.

 

here'a site you might like: http://www.ridingrailkits.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=21_28&osCsid=e6b209b4bde4ff656011b2b1a850f8f1

 

If i had the mone i'd buy one.

 

Living around steel mills my whole life, i've seen many trains. I've seen a ton of Switchers.

love DASH 9's.

[Vekoma Fan Boy]

I'm a particular fan of narrow gauge (and ATSF as I've said before).

 

I used to have a Blackstone D&RGW K-27 #455 pre wreck with DCC & Sound, but unfortunately, she died after about a month due to factory over lubrication, which caused a huge internal short and fried almost everything. I do have some pictures of her though, and as soon as I get a job, I'm buying a new one, but this time, from Mountain Model Imports, and installing a Soundtraxx K-27 Tsunami. (Blackstone Models is a sister company of Soundtraxx) Hopefully Blackstone will correct these motor lube issues.

 

Pardon my shotty photography, at the time I was still just learning how to use my camera.

Black and White Profile view

There she is on some (badly) hand laid track. Next to a penny for scale.

Just the locomotive on my desk.

[kalvin]

Thats a nice locomotive. How can you afford that? Isn't that engine like 400 or $500?

[Vekoma Fan Boy]

^$413. It was a Christmas gift. Which made that deadly short all the more unfortunate.

[coastercrazed49]

I have always enjoyed trains as a kid. But I am going to have start to enjoy them a lot more because this summer I am taking a 21 hour train trip from Massachusetts to Florida.

[Vekoma Fan Boy]

Interesting... Apparently Blackstone Models (the company that manufactured the locomotive above) just announced a C-19 locomotive due in 2010. (They take their time to make these things... They do a CRAPLOAD of research before making something.) http://www.blackstonemodels.com/new/c19/index.php

 

Also, to non railfans, or people who don't know about Denver and Rio Grande Western/Rio Grande Southern narrow gauge locomotives, an example of a C-19 locomotive would be the Rio Grande Southern #41 at Knott's.

[Vekoma Fan Boy]

Sorry to double/necro post, but I'm trying to pull all the details together for my model railroad, (And now that I'm 15, it might be a bit easier to pull together funding ) and I wanted to see what you people thought of what I have. What I know is, I want to model 3' narrow gauge, with the feel of both Colorado (Denver and Rio Grande Western/Rio Grande Southern) and Alaska (White Pass & Yukon) narrow gauge. So far, i have a bit of a backstory for my railroad and I'm working on (yet another...) trackplan for the layout.

 

Anyway, here is the backstory to the line:

 

"The Whitehorse & Southern Railroad started life in 1921 as the Whitehorse & Delhi Railway, a predominantly a coal and ore hauling railroad, making use mostly of old 4-4-0 and 4-6-0 locomotives for power. These locomotive struggled on the steep mountain grades, sometimes requiring 3 locomotives to pull a ten-car train up the 4.2% ruling grade. The poor rail and ties on the railroad often failed under the trains and left the crew stranded in near-freezing temperatures until a work train arrived.

 

The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, seeing potential in the line, bought it up and gave it a large grant of money to help improve line trackwork, including heavier gauge rail, and stronger made of Oak instead of Southern Yellow Pine, and fifteen new locomotives from Baldwin; these locomotives, designated C-19 by the D&RGW classification system, were dubbed A4-19 by the new Whitehorse and Southern Railroad. These locomotives were numbered 1-15.

By 1931, the railroad had boomed, surviving the great depression, the line expanded its services to include general freight and passenger services. In this time the railroad had acquired 12 new locomotives, five A4-21 Class locomotives, numbered 16-20, which were comparable to the small fleet of D&RGW C-21’s, and seven A4A-28 Class locomotives from ALCo, numbered 21-27, these locomotives were nearly identical to the D&RGW K-28s differing only in the fact that they had 40” instead of 44” drivers.

 

In 1932, the railroad bought its last line of locomotives; again, following in the footsteps of the D&RGW, the W&S bought five K-36 class locomotives, dubbed the A4A-36, numbers 28-32. These locomotives would be the largest on the line, and ran until the closing of the line in 1948. While most of the locomotives from the road were sold for scrap, the workers and officials of the lines were able to raise the funds to save four locomotives. While some vouched to preserve the entire A4A-36 line, it was agreed upon that one locomotive of each line be preserved. Today they reside in museums around the country, #19 at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, CO, #30, at Steamtown USA, in Stranton, Pennsylvania, #21 at the Georgetown Loop Railroad, and #7 sees regular service among Denver and Rio Grande Western and Rio Grande Southern stock at Knott’s Berry Farm, in Buena Park, California."