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


Sorry, I am a week behind. Here is this weeks haul of goodies.

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This came a couple weeks ago, but I just got around to taking the camera downstairs and getting a photo. MTH C44-9W "Dash 9" in HO. I noticed these on clearance at an online shop, so I figured I'd give it a try. DCC + sound, albeit MTH makes it clear it's their version of digital, DCS they call it.

This is the first MTH locomotive I've owned, and I'd say it's pretty good. Detail is nice, runs well, working ditch lights, decent sound. The DCC couplers are interesting, where you can uncouple the train from your controller. I may leave those on, or I might switch to kadees. The ability to uncouple on the fly is fun, but I've found the installed couplers don't seem to like scale head (i.e. smaller) couplers on the following car.

OTOH, I'm a little surprised on the lack of pulling power compared to my other six-axle locomotives. My ruling grade is about 3%, and at roughly a dozen standard freight cars, this needs a helper. I haven't weighed it yet, but it seems light, so I may try some weights in the shell if I get up the energy to open it. But all-in-all, I'm happy with it considering the price I paid.

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Like I said elsewhere, my buying habits tend to be pretty heavy. I got a bushel of new stuff lately, like MILW freight cars and stuff, but one in particular is special.

Milwaukee Road by definition served the city of Milwaukee, which still has a substantial brewery district. I'm not sure what it's like today, but I know in the time of MILW, there were five or more large breweries served by the railroad. "The Beer Line", if anyone is familiar with that name, serving Schlitz, Pabst, and other bigger names.

These boxcars were part of that operation, and perhaps elsewhere. They were made up to haul out the "used" barley and grains from breweries so that it could be taken to animal feed markets for livestock. The base model is a Ribside Cars brand boxcar (now owned by Accurail) which has been modified.

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Besides this unique boxcar, I FINALLY managed to land a couple of Rock Island locos. An Atlas GP40 and an Athearn RTR GP35. They'll serve me well as interchange power. I even found a nice uniquely Minnesotan CRIP caboose to model for these. CRIP had bought some steel center-cupolas from eastern roads which were assigned to Inver Grove yard, and usually showed up on transfer trains.

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Picked these 1959 GM buses up today. One Greyhound PD4104 and one unmarked PD4104. Both from Flagstophobbies.com
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These vintage single axle buses are a proper fit into the mid-sixties layout I'm planning over the winter. All I had up till now was a tandem MC-7, which fits into a 1970's+ layout.
When I was a kid, I'd hop a Greyhound bus like these to go to Edmonton on a Saturday. Two bucks round trip.
 
Had to go to Tennessee for 9 days to help my aunt/uncle move. I stopped in Greenville SC and picked up an estate sale from a widow. I haven't had a chance to go through much of it yet

I do know they is a Walthers complete circus set with steam engine in there. All NIB. Looking forward to getting into it this week.

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