![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoGary took me on a whirlwind tour of hobby shops near his mom's house this morning. I hadn't intended to buy anything, but at the third one I found some DT&I rolling stock that I couldn't resist. It seems that Henry Ford's stodgy little railroad had some people with whimsical paintbrushes, at least during the 60s and 70s.
I got two 80 ft. auto parts box cars, with double steel doors. One was painted bright magenta, the other pea green. According to the papers in the box, these cars were actually used and were painted in those two schemes and also in sky blue. Also picked out a rebuilt USRA 40 ft. box car from the World War I era for use with my steam locomotive, a nice C&O caboose, and a kit to build a steam loco service station with coal tipple, water and sand towers. Photos of the cars soon, as the colors are startling.
Then we went and picked up Gary's mom, had lunch, and brought her back to our house for New Year. I remembered to take the turkey out of the freezer and put it in the fridge too.
In the mail I got another caboose, this one already custom painted to match the DT&I scheme for steel cabooses from the 1960s. They had red sides, but yellow on the ends and cupola, and a dark roof. The detail work and lettering on this one are amazing.
And I ordered the air brush through Amazon. They had the model I want in stock, and priced at less than half of list. Couldn't turn that offer down. I'm also getting a bleeder type pressure regulator and some cleaning brushes. The kit includes the air hose, some acrylic paints, and an instruction booklet of some sort. We already have a compressor that should work, though I may need to get a reducer for the outlet connection.
And that's it. Christmas money spent, season of greed ended. ;p
I got two 80 ft. auto parts box cars, with double steel doors. One was painted bright magenta, the other pea green. According to the papers in the box, these cars were actually used and were painted in those two schemes and also in sky blue. Also picked out a rebuilt USRA 40 ft. box car from the World War I era for use with my steam locomotive, a nice C&O caboose, and a kit to build a steam loco service station with coal tipple, water and sand towers. Photos of the cars soon, as the colors are startling.
Then we went and picked up Gary's mom, had lunch, and brought her back to our house for New Year. I remembered to take the turkey out of the freezer and put it in the fridge too.
In the mail I got another caboose, this one already custom painted to match the DT&I scheme for steel cabooses from the 1960s. They had red sides, but yellow on the ends and cupola, and a dark roof. The detail work and lettering on this one are amazing.
And I ordered the air brush through Amazon. They had the model I want in stock, and priced at less than half of list. Couldn't turn that offer down. I'm also getting a bleeder type pressure regulator and some cleaning brushes. The kit includes the air hose, some acrylic paints, and an instruction booklet of some sort. We already have a compressor that should work, though I may need to get a reducer for the outlet connection.
And that's it. Christmas money spent, season of greed ended. ;p
no subject
Date: 2011-12-30 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-30 11:27 am (UTC)Ram Hobbies (West Higgins) -- limited hours, packed with train stuff, kinda dusty, but nice guy.
Grayland Station (Devon Ave.) -- claustrophobia city, boxes and boxes of N scale stock, busy place.
Chicagoland Hobby (Northwest Hwy.) -- lots of train stuff but much of it is large scales (G and O,) what they had in N was well displayed and easy to see though
Grayland is where I bought stuff. Gary got some items at Ram. Chicagoland and Grayland had a lot of books I'd like to browse but we didn't have time for that.
The place we visited on Monday was in Janesville, WI and is called Larry & Phyl's. They have piles (literally) of used train stuff like maybe they buy up estates or something. Also a military surplus store and I found it a little creepy as a result of that. People with camo clothing coming and going asking about guns and "ammo" (which they don't sell,) combined with Wisconsin's new status as an open and concealed carry state and their weird politics... ugh. Not to mention (oops, I'm about to) the couple that brought in a spoiled kid who spent 30 minutes yelling "I want a twain" while they kept trying to remind him that he had one at home.
The one in Loves Park from last Thursday was Midwest Train Exchange. We both liked that. He's heavy into N scale, well organized, and helpful. Good selection of new rolling stock is sorted into plastic bins by type: each kind of box car, tank cars, hoppers, gondolas, etc. When we mentioned DT&I he looked in a database I think and showed us which tubs would have DT&I cars in them.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-30 10:34 pm (UTC)Wisconsin hobby shops sound exactly like that save for a couple in Milwaukee that are normally laid out.
Grayland is odd, but has a good selection, and I hang out nearly every Friday night at Chicagoland Hobbies. As I will tonight.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-01 04:07 pm (UTC)Even so, we did buy some stuff there. The "bargains" were too good to resist, and in fact I did resist one I'm regretting. I'm going to want an old heavyweight passenger car set (ca. 1910 or so) and they had one displayed that was reasonable. I'm thinking of the cars that are shorter than late 20th century standards, typically a baggage/RPO combo, a coach, and a lounge/coach combo with a rear observation deck. Illuminated would be nice but I can probably add that feature myself.
Yesterday we knocked together a temporary table from two folding sewing tables, so we have an actual track space for the moment: double track loop with crossover between them and an additional passing track. The GP-7 with several cars maneuvers it all smoothly and easily. The little switching engines have some difficulties at spots, but they aren't picking up power as steadily as they should. I plan to try overhauling them today to clean wheels and brushes and possibly scrub the commutators.
Oh, and as I had rather suspected, those two long (80 ft.) auto parts boxcars are unstable at higher speeds and tend to derail or uncouple. Adding a little weight may help, but I suspect the real life prototypes had the same problems.