Recent content by skyliner

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  1. skyliner

    Front End Friday

    I'll break the trend, but with similar colors. SP GP9 #2873, at Portola CA. Entered service in 1956 with the T&NO, preserved today in operating condition at the Western Pacific RR Museum.
  2. skyliner

    Western Wednesday

    The ones up top are the Athearn Genesis C-50 caboose series, I found them on sale online about a year ago. The Cotton Belt one is an Athearn RTR.
  3. skyliner

    Western Wednesday

    Geez, is it Wednesday already? Hopefully there's enough western in here to meet the threshold. 😁
  4. skyliner

    TOFC Tuesday

    I don't have any layout pictures handy that I haven't posted before, so here's a 1:1 scale one. Westbound BNSF intermodal in Kingman Canyon, AZ, October 2017. Two C44-9Ws and an SD70ACe. I drove from Las Vegas to Kingman because there was supposed to be lots of trains out there, only to find the...
  5. skyliner

    Need help with ID

    I'm not going to be much help either, but what you have appears to be a live steam locomotive. It's a functioning miniature locomotive that would run on track laid outdoors. Steam is generated in an actual boiler, and fuel could be coal, oil, or propane. I'm going to guess coal in your case...
  6. skyliner

    Front End Friday

    Here's DGNO 3496 at their locomotive facility in Carrollton, TX in March of last year. The SD40-2 entered service in 1979 with BN as #8072. In the back is CFNR 111, a GP15-1 built in 1976 for the CNW.
  7. skyliner

    Western Wednesday

    I'll do you one of each. CFNR 108, a Proto 1000 that I converted to DCC some years ago. I remember seeing these back in the 1990s where I grew up in northern CA. And the real thing. I stumbled across #111 parked in a yard outside Dallas, TX just last year.
  8. skyliner

    Mail Call! Railway Post Office, commonly abbreviated as RPO has rolled in!

    Last weekend I finished a work trip and ended up driving straight from the airport to a local show I knew was happening in town. Not a whole lot caught my eye, but that didn't prevent me from not walking out empty handed. I had been thinking about the recent run of Athearn tri-clops SD60s, so I...
  9. skyliner

    Mail Call! Railway Post Office, commonly abbreviated as RPO has rolled in!

    These are factory-assembled cars, which cost a little bit more than their kits. It ain't like what it used to be, but new production car packs from Athearn or Intermountain cost even more these days. This particular shop has lots of new old stock, including Branchline and Roundhouse kits...
  10. skyliner

    Mail Call! Railway Post Office, commonly abbreviated as RPO has rolled in!

    From what I can find, that's not actually a "Desert Storm" commemorative paint scheme-- that's the tan primer underneath the regular SP paint. Supposedly a handful of units sat outside for a while after being primed, then were painted with a new "environmentally friendly" (possibly water-based)...
  11. skyliner

    Mail Call! Railway Post Office, commonly abbreviated as RPO has rolled in!

    One of the LHS' around here still has a fair selection of LL P2K cars, and the other day I noticed they recently got in a bunch of multi-packs, including some 4- and 6-packs of gondolas, boxcars, and stock cars, and a whole bunch of 2-packs of gondola kits: I couldn't resist, I grabbed one...
  12. skyliner

    Bridge Rails on a Grade

    I can't remember where I read this, but I swear some years ago I read that Southern Pacific's massive Benicia-Martinez Bridge, completed in 1930 in the northern part of San Francisco Bay, is on a slight grade. I don't know if it's humped in the middle or an overall grade, but the article...
  13. skyliner

    Currently available freight car kits?

    I'm not a big kit person anymore, but I do enjoy the occasional Accurail kit. Detail is decent and paint pretty sharp for the price. Wheelsets and couplers are plastic, however, so I do replace those. It's not as high quality as a Genesis or P2K, but they're a great and easy kit to work on the...
  14. skyliner

    Mail Call! Railway Post Office, commonly abbreviated as RPO has rolled in!

    Just a quick addition, I was out in the Portland OR area for a couple days last week so I hit up a couple of the local stores I'm familiar with. No rolling stock jumped out at me (which is fine since I really need to pause adding equipment right now), but I always try to get something to support...
  15. skyliner

    Repairing a Life Like E8 Cow Catcher

    Those are called "pilots" or in some cases "snowplows" depending on shape. If you have Proto 2000 locomotives, many of their E-units came with two sets of pilots to provide some customization depending on the railroad. I think my CNW E8 from them came with two slightly different shaped pilots...
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