Buy anything cool lately?

After posting my new to me ABA set of MTH 25th anniversary F3's, a fellow forum member contacted me off line. I now have the 4 car matching passenger set to go with them!

Boy that is a lot of chrome!

This big gal arrived today. Adding to my layout slowly but surely.

Just got the Legacy Station Lionel Legacy USSF SD70ACe. Didn’t get a chance to operate it, just opened the box.

Got 2 MBN 60' Flat Car with Garbage Containers, road numbers 630756 and 630745. Been trying to round out the collection to make a nice garbage train.

@WesternPacific2217 posted:

My layout is western roads and I live in NorCal and grew up in Palo Alto, CA, the home of Stanford University. A quick comment about Silicon Valley: It seems everybody thinks San Jose is the original Silicon Valley is sort of incorrect. The roots are in Palo Alto and Santa Clara. Palo Alto - Fairchild, Hewlett Packard, Varian. Santa Clara, Intel, AMD and many more semiconductor developers .

These cities were serviced by Southern Pacific (SP) Peninsula Commuter Service (San Francisco to San Jose) and then Caltrain began taking over the service in 1980. With all that said, while I was in Junior high school and then high school in Palo Alto, I remember clearly the FM Train Master H24-66's that SP used to pull the commuters trains. They were perfect for commuter service as they had 2400HP and accelerated and stopped very quickly, just what ya want for commuter trains. SP also used EMD GP9's and SDP45 on the peninsula commuter trains, but they were no match for the Train Master acceleration and top speed.

That being the case, I already have the Lionel Legacy SP FM Train Master H24-66 #4809 that I got from a fellow OGR member. I was watching another SP FM Train Master H24-66  on eBay for about 3 months, and it never sold, so I made an reasonable and fair offer to the seller and they accepted. So now I have a second Lionel Legacy SP FM H24-66 Train Master #4803.It was used, but it looks and runs brand new! Here's some photos and a video.

Southern Pacific FM Train Masters #4809 and #4803 new to the stable lash up pulling some freight.

Terrific, Scott. They look and run great together!

During a recent trip back to Long Island I met @RSJB18 for lunch and a trip to Nassau Hobby (NH).  NH has been busy doing custom runs with Lionel and MTH.  These ore cars are by Lionel.

I believe they did 6 road numbers of each so I looked to see if any road number had personal significance.  Nothing on the LIRR cars but 1983 on the NYC Transit car was the year I graduated from Manhattan College and probably the last year I that I used the subway on a fairly regular basis.

The Great South Bay Brewery car is a MTH Premier 36' foot reefer.  It came in two road numbers, 2009 and a two digit number.  Not knowing the significance of the two digit number I opted for 2009, I believe the year it was founded.  Bob chose the same number.

This Weaver James Bay Pullman in NYC 20th Century Limmited attire goes with two other Weaver cars to run behind me Weaver brass 20th Century Hudson.

@coach joe posted:

During a recent trip back to Long Island I met @RSJB18 for lunch and a trip to Nassau Hobby (NH).  NH has been busy doing custom runs with Lionel and MTH.  These ore cars are by Lionel.

It's all my fault guys.....I had to get back to work and left Joe in the store unsupervised.......

Nice selections Joe. I like the LIRR ore cars too but have a couple on order from RMT so I'll wait for them.

Manhattan College? My daughter does their marketing with the company she works for. Go Jaspers!

Bob

Great finds coach but it would appear that Bob is a bad influence on you.😄

Jay

@coach joe posted:

During a recent trip back to Long Island I met @RSJB18 for lunch and a trip to Nassau Hobby (NH).  NH has been busy doing custom runs with Lionel and MTH.  These ore cars are by Lionel.

I believe they did 6 road numbers of each so I looked to see if any road number had personal significance.  Nothing on the LIRR cars but 1983 on the NYC Transit car was the year I graduated from Manhattan College and probably the last year I that I used the subway on a fairly regular basis.

The Great South Bay Brewery car is a MTH Premier 36' foot reefer.  It came in two road numbers, 2009 and a two digit number.  Not knowing the significance of the two digit number I opted for 2009, I believe the year it was founded.  Bob chose the same number.

This Weaver James Bay Pullman in NYC 20th Century Limmited attire goes with two other Weaver cars to run behind me Weaver brass 20th Century Hudson.

Joe, you and Bob @RSJB18 are definitely a bad influence on each other. Reminds me of sitting in my friends basement in the ‘80s when the catalogs came in from Charlie Ro. There were 10-25 of us. So if you flipped a page without marking the order sheet; the guy next to you would say “You’re not going to order that?” Nuff said.

This is my new 262E from Trainz. I snuck this one from the doorstep straight to the train room. I'm only just now getting it to run reliably, and I don't want to make the big after-purchase sales presentation to my wife until I can demonstrate what a wise purchase it was.
This thing is a beauty and now I have something to pull my three pre-war cars that have latch couplers.

Questions/observations:
1. The Trainz description said it features die-cast frame, a die-cast steamchest, metal boiler, and the tender features tinplate construction. Sorry for the dumb question: is this engine considered to be tinplate?

2. When I first tried this on O27 it either stalled in the middle of the turn and I had to push it, or it flew off the track if I let it go fast enough to make it through the turns. Is this not meant for O27?  I've since lubricated it more, and the wheels seem to turn freely as I roll it along the track. The video below is on Fastrack O36.

3. This has a 3-position e-unit. I've had a lot of trouble with it buzzing so I sprayed contact cleaner up into the e-unit from the bottom and down through the slot in the switch above. Now it seems to run pretty reliably if I keep that switch to the right. The direction control on my CW80 or throttling off-on seems to work, but it sometimes slows down and dies, I think after losing contact over a switch when I'm running it on my regular layout.

4. An article at www.tcatrains.org showed a photo of this with the copper piping and mentioned this was the 1933 version. Then it showed the 1935 version with black wheels, nickel instead of copper, and a different arrangement of piping. It didn't mention a 1934 version, if any. Is this then the 1933 version?

Starting to get a little more modern diesel in my collection. Scored a what looked to be new Chessie System sd40-2 made by Weaver. Heck the snow plows were still sealed. And found some right of way intermodal cars. These were rough and needed tlc and trucks for one car. But, the good folks at Trainz had all of the above priced right. Then I found a new in the box Atlas Chessie caboose on the Bay to go along with this consist.

@RSJB18 posted:

It's all my fault guys.....I had to get back to work and left Joe in the store unsupervised.......

Nice selections Joe. I like the LIRR ore cars too but have a couple on order from RMT so I'll wait for them.

Bob

And the most amazing part… I had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it

@coach joe posted:

During a recent trip back to Long Island I met @RSJB18 for lunch and a trip to Nassau Hobby (NH).  NH has been busy doing custom runs with Lionel and MTH.  These ore cars are by Lionel.

That is quite the haul, Joe, but it will teach you to break bread with bad influences like Bob

I have picked up a couple of Nassau’s custom runs. They did a nice pair of LIRR fish belly hoppers a few years ago. At some point, if I can find replacement coal loads, I think I will change the load to ballast (I regularly saw hoppers full of ballast when I was riding Metro North).

P.S. I must say, I didn’t know they did much mining on Lawn-guy-lind!!!

@Apples55 posted:

And the most amazing part… I had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it

That is quite the haul, Joe, but it will teach you to break bread with bad influences like Bob

I have picked up a couple of Nassau’s custom runs. They did a nice pair of LIRR fish belly hoppers a few years ago. At some point, if I can find replacement coal loads, I think I will change the load to ballast (I regularly saw hoppers full of ballast when I was riding Metro North).

P.S. I must say, I didn’t know they did much mining on Lawn-guy-lind!!!

Don't think for one minute that your name didn't come up during lunch....All good things of course......🤪🤪🤪🤪

And as far as mining goes....one of the largest sand mines was in Port Washingon for many years. Much of the concrete in NYC skyscrapers was made with this sand.

It's a golf course now....⛳️⛳️

Plenty of mining on Lawn Guy Land, sand mining that is.  Colonial Sand and Stone hauled quite a bit of the north shore into the city to make the concrete that built Manhattan.  There's even a Sand Mining Monument in Port Washington.

After Bob left Nassau Hobby I swear I heard a Brooklyn accent.

The James Bay Pullman is all Donnie's fault no help from Paul on that one either.

Wow some wonderful finds guys! I like them all and would love to share some with you, but it will have to wait until we get settled.

I have coming a Millhouse TT coming along with some TTX well cars, and yesterday I fallowed coach Joe's lead and went to the dollar store and picked up a couple autos for $5 each.

Oh by the way Coach I agree 1983 is a great year! Thats the year I graduated from High School!

I hope you all have a great week!

@coach joe posted:

The James Bay Pullman is all Donnie's fault no help from Paul on that one either.

Hey,hey. I'm just innocently over here building my train empire. I'll take FULL responsibility for my last purchase. But ..I'm sure if I dig deep it was somehow Paul or Coach Joe's influence and fault. 😂

Here is my contribution. I bought these garage tools from the "GMP Parts Dept" line. I found these on eBay from Sabes Hobby House out of Austrailia. This is an alternative to the hard to find Snap On set.

These went into my speed shop located in an abandoned engine house. A bit of a stretch but it could happen.

This overview pic from left to right. The 1st Mercedes is getting a new high performance engine installed. The 2nd Mercedes is on jacks and getting new racing tires. The Corvette is getting the mufflers cut off to be replaced by Glasspacks. Finally the Cobra is getting an oil change and new battery.

Here is the view inside the engine house.

@RSJB18 posted:

Don't think for one minute that your name didn't come up during lunch....All good things of course......🤪🤪🤪🤪

Well, if my name was the only thing that came up at lunch, that’s probably a good thing!!!

@coach joe posted:

After Bob left Nassau Hobby I swear I heard a Brooklyn accent.

The James Bay Pullman is all Donnie's fault no help from Paul on that one either.

Really, Joe… you’ve been down south too long. You must be very mistaken about the Brooklyn accent - your wallet couldn’t afford my voices long distance rates (not to mention the additional Lawn-guy-lind taxes and surcharges ).

@Donnie Kennedy posted:

Hey,hey. I'm just innocently over here building my train empire. I'll take FULL responsibility for my last purchase. But ..I'm sure if I dig deep it was somehow Paul or Coach Joe's influence and fault. 😂

Dear Donnie;

And what, may I ask, have I done to you (well, recently anyway)???

@Apples55 posted:

Dear Donnie;

And what, may I ask, have I done to you (well, recently anyway)???

Guilty by association? 😂

@Donnie Kennedy posted:

Guilty by association? 😂

@ChiTown Steve posted:

Here is my contribution. I bought these garage tools from the "GMP Parts Dept" line. I found these on eBay from Sabes Hobby House out of Austrailia. This is an alternative to the hard to find Snap On set.

These went into my speed shop located in an abandoned engine house. A bit of a stretch but it could happen.

This overview pic from left to right. The 1st Mercedes is getting a new high performance engine installed. The 2nd Mercedes is on jacks and getting new racing tires. The Corvette is getting the mufflers cut off to be replaced by Glasspacks. Finally the Cobra is getting an oil change and new battery.

Here is the view inside the engine house.

Steve, that is a great way to use a engine house! I took one of mine and turned it into a bar! LOL