Category: Motive Power

One of the ways in which I’m preparing for a future model railroad is by practicing weathering techniques, which is an aspect of modeling that I had always admired but never attempted. Over the past couple of years, I’ve purchased several low-price, old models to practice on. They’re copies of some of the models made in the 1970s that my dad had when I first became interested in model railroads. Depending on how they turn out, I might end up using some of them on a future layout, but since they’re models of locomotives built at from around 1915 through the late 60s, and my next layout will certainly model some time from the mid-30s to mid-40s, I certainly won’t use all of them. At the very least, the steam engines might be useful just sitting on the track somewhere as scenery, to help fill out a yard or engine house until I have enough higher-quality models to replace them with. Most importantly, they’re cheap models to practice on.

Practice Models:

• Life-Like B&O Pacfic
• AHM Norfolk & Western GP-18
• AHM Santa Fe GP-18
• AHM Pennsylvania C-Liner
• Athearn Burlington Northern SD-9
• Model Power Shifter with Smoke
• Mantua B&O Pacific(s)

The first …

Continue Reading →

After obtaining my dad’s 70s-era Mantua steam engine from his B&O passenger train in the summer of 2017, I began watching eBay for others like it, to purchase for parts to make repairs to the engine, which has a cracked plastic cab, a broken tender step, and a broken coupler mount on the tender shell. Fixing the problems on the tender would require replacing its shell. Fixing the plastic cab would require replacing the cab.

I’ve since purchased two copies of this model, but both of them turned out to be two different shades of blue, neither of them matching the blue of my dad’s model, making them useless for those two replacement parts. So, I’ve decided to scrap the plan to replace those broken parts on my dad’s model. I had considered repainting it black before finally finding examples of prototype B&O Pacifics being painted blue, such as 5315 and 5309. Now that I have two more copies of this model, I’ve decided to keep dad’s model as-is and work on overhauling the two copies.

Overhauling will include the following:

• Remove all paint (99% complete on one model as of 2/21/19)
• File down the mold separation line visible on

Continue Reading →

After watching eBay for over a year for one of these in good condition at a reasonable price, I finally lucked out.

I took a new approach to bidding on this one. My old approach was the way eBay recommends, which is to determine the most you’re willing to pay, then bid that amount, and let their automatic bidding handle the rest. But that method favors sellers and eBay, not buyers (It jacks up the price as bidders fight all week long.). This time, I determined early on that I was willing to pay no more than about $70. But I didn’t bid on it until five seconds before the auction ended. I also didn’t add it to my Watch List. Auctions that have more bids and people watching tend to get more views, and potentially more bids, and I didn’t want to encourage that. The bidding gradually reached $28 over the week, and after I won, I could see that two others placed bids in the last eight seconds, but at $34.00 and $36.99, they were too low to beat my $72.37 max bid, and they didn’t have enough time to bid again, so I won it for $37.99. …

Continue Reading →