The GP9 Model That Lured Me Back to the Hobby


IronBeltKen

Lazy Daydreamer
As I was working to de-clutter my trainroom the other night, one of the containers I relocated had a long-misplaced Front Range GP9 that I’d decommissioned decades ago because, even though it looked pretty, it ran like crap. It got me reminiscing about a random event that ultimately led me back to the model railroading hobby, 15 years after I had abandoned it.

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It all started one Sunday afternoon during February 1988 in Catonsville, MD, as I was having a late lunch at the Burger King on Frederick Rd. This was right up the street from the old location of the legendary Pro Custom Hobbies where I remembered spending lots of time [and quite a bit of cash too] during my late teens; that storefront was now occupied by another business (a used-record exchange, IIRC?). Then I noticed that Pro Custom had relocated right across the street from the Burger King. I had a few hours to kill since my wife was at a luncheon with a few of her friends, so I figured I’d just stop over there and explore the new place – maybe get a magazine or two.

No other customers were at the store, so I chatted for awhile with the clerk about how I missed the “glory days” of the B&O when first-generation EMD power still roamed the rails. At some point I mentioned that one of the reasons I had left the hobby was because one of my favorite loco models, the Athearn “blue box” "GP9" (actually a GP7), had a hood that was way too wide, and it just wouldn't look right being consisted with the Altas Roco-powered GP40’s and GP38’s [whose hoods were correctly proportioned]. “Lemme show you something" the Pro Custom guy said, then reached into the cabinet and brought out 2 HO scale Front Range GP9’s. OMG!! – not only did they have scale-width hoods, but they were also available in different variations and did NOT have the molded-on winterization hatch like the Athearn geeps did!

Once I saw that decent-looking* models were available for the GP7/9’s and GP30’s of the B&O during my era (1969-72) – and knowing that my wife and I both were gainfully employed with disposable income – I could pick up the hobby where I’d left off 15 years earlier! She didn’t know yet about my earlier-life involvement in the hobby, so to play it safe, I only bought one of the Front Range geeps – the Phase III model with the 48” radiator fans (pictured above) – along with a B&O-decorated Athearn bay window caboose, a Champ decal set for B&O hood diesels, Floquil Dark Blue paint, and a Badger beginners’ spray kit that included air-in-a-can. When I told my wife later that evening about my rediscovered hobby, she thought it was a great idea since it would give me something to focus on besides TV. I now had the green light to continue buying more mrr stuff! 👍 👍

Feel free to share your own memories of returning to, or discovering, the world of scale-model trains!

* It wasn't until two years later, after I'd built a layout, that I discovered how poorly the Front Range Models ran in spite of their good looks. Luckily the LifeLike Proto-2000 geeps came onto the market within a few years and enabled me to replace and retire all the Front Ranger's.
 
Great story Ken, I’m pretty sure a lot of us got pulled back in that way!
Similarly this is what rekindled my love/hate for the hobby...

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I was at my cousins house helping clean out the garage when we came across a box full of miscellaneous junk. At the bottom were two Athearn blue box “coffee grinder” GP9’s, a powered and a dummy. I was in love!
A quick trip to the local hobby shop yielded a Roundhouse caboose kit and two BevBel boxcars with different road numbers. DIFFERENT ROAD NUMBERS!!
This was unheard of at the time so of course they wound up following me home as well!

After a few short lived HO switching layouts I stumbled across a couple N scale Atlas GP40’s in CN stripes and fell in love! This however served as a gateway drug into other scales including O, On30, G, and finally 1/1 scale!
Yes I actually owned a small Plymouth switcher and various other railway equipment at one time! Here's one survivor from that chapter of my life as the thinning of the herd continues.

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This is about the 4th or 5th round for me , I had a couple of Marx when I was 3-4 , and got my first HO (athearn B&O F7 and 4 passenger cars) at about 8 . I had a shelf layout at about 14 and decided to build about an 8 X 11 at 17 , ( got a Canon Rebel at around 19 ) MR is what got me into 35mm photography . I built another layout at about 27 , things lay dormant for quite a while and here recently in the last year decided to have another go.

I have aquired a bit of stuff over the years and want to get some use out of it. I have several old Athearn Fs all of which have been repowered with Hollands ( I bought Hollands at surplus electronics place in Houston about 40 years ago to cram in Fs PAs F45 what ever I could find, I paid about $1 ea).
 



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