Killing a Railway

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Railroading is railroading; we change with it. Being born in Poland during steam era slowly coming to an end i was enfatuated with steam locomotives. Coming to the US in 1986 saw an AEM7 with airliner like Amfleet under triangular wires of former New Haven-word "exotic" can only come to my mind. Then traveling out west and seeing 100 plus car trains with multiple diesels up front, middle and rear (especially on Espee). Got really into modeling early Conrail electric locomotives under wires-something i did not even get to see-explain this one ;D The only thing that saves me from going bankrupt is the fact that being raised poor has inprinted certain frugality in my character, some call it cheap:D CSX is deffinitely not very varied today or colorful. But just by going trackside to the middle of nowhere and spending some time catching fresh mountain air can be very rewarding. Witness this eastbound tank train at Magnolia Cutoff just two days ago:
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Second unit was a major surprise as i don't ever remember seeing CN unit on CSX
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It probably doesn't get more colorful on CSX.
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Covered hopper acting as a buffer car in case of derailment.
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And that rear helper was deffinitely earning its keep:
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To quote a great author- Don Ball, Jr. "No, railroading is still exciting, and I have a feeling that as long as we're talking steel-flanged wheels on steel rails, it will remain so."
 
Maybe this could change to 'justifying a railway'. In my case, I lived in the Spokane area which had NP, GN, SP&S, UP, Milw and SI back in the 50's and 60's. Despite that I started collecting what ever I could find train related. Fast forward to the here and now. Since steam was a must and I had to have GP's and F units, I settled on a time frame of the late 60's to early 70's. Sure steam was pretty much gone in the 1:1, but needed to live on. So, the collection got trimmed keeping up to and including SD40's and E7's.

So then I had to justify steam in the mix. In my mind, I did the justification by creating the Coastal Overland Railroad ( CORR ) which came about by Coastal Oil ( COIL ). Since big oil was on the table, the steam could be retro-fitted with oil burners and could run right along with the early diesels. I am now weeding out rolling stock newer than the early 70's; dang I still love those 5 unit well cars though. Guess that I will have to trade them for Gundersen Twin Stacks? I do not have many of those huge oil cars so that should not be a problem although I do need a bunch of those single dome 50 footers. At today's prices acquiring 100 or so would be spendy, so I am probably looking at building them. You can read more about this - hit my site ( below ) then choose About, then Genesis.

Then I threw a wrench in the works. About 95 I got a hair up and took a vacation loop into Canada. Went up hiway 93 into Golden and did the Mt McDonald tunnel and looped around and down back through the Frazer River canyon and Kamloops. So now I wanted CN and PGE in the mix. BC Rail had/has an electrified short line for coal. So I need to do more on the history of BC Rail ( PGE is the pre-cursor ) and figure a way to incorporate that into a branch line off the current main. I wanted the GN box cabs ( Skykomish to Wenatchee ) but did not like the idea of really messing up the main line.

Funny thing is that I have no idea how oil got involved as there are only terminals and tank farms in Spokane.

It is amazing what you can dream up isn't it?

Later
 


Yup. Great views all around. I suppose i can't really call CSX 'boring' looking while having NS running around (i mean, it usually doesn't get much less colorful than all black), but i do so love the horse-heads. And my CPs are all Pac Mans. Not the current (and i will say this) ugly plain reds that never get cleaned. Ever. But i guess i do also have too many C,B&Qs and Southerns running around that don't match the BNs and NSs. So it's really a horse apiece. Maybe i'll just trim the CSXs a little. Keep some, lose some. Truthfully speaking, the only loco i currently have is not really a loco. It's the Bachmann B23-7 shell i can interchange. Just enough.
 
ctclibby said:
Maybe this could change to 'justifying a railway'. In my case, I lived in the Spokane area which had NP, GN, SP&S, UP, Milw and SI back in the 50's and 60's. Despite that I started collecting what ever I could find train related. Fast forward to the here and now. Since steam was a must and I had to have GP's and F units, I settled on a time frame of the late 60's to early 70's. Sure steam was pretty much gone in the 1:1, but needed to live on. So, the collection got trimmed keeping up to and including SD40's and E7's.

So then I had to justify steam in the mix. In my mind, I did the justification by creating the Coastal Overland Railroad ( CORR ) which came about by Coastal Oil ( COIL ). Since big oil was on the table, the steam could be retro-fitted with oil burners and could run right along with the early diesels. I am now weeding out rolling stock newer than the early 70's; dang I still love those 5 unit well cars though. Guess that I will have to trade them for Gundersen Twin Stacks? I do not have many of those huge oil cars so that should not be a problem although I do need a bunch of those single dome 50 footers. At today's prices acquiring 100 or so would be spendy, so I am probably looking at building them. You can read more about this - hit my site ( below ) then choose About, then Genesis.

Then I threw a wrench in the works. About 95 I got a hair up and took a vacation loop into Canada. Went up hiway 93 into Golden and did the Mt McDonald tunnel and looped around and down back through the Frazer River canyon and Kamloops. So now I wanted CN and PGE in the mix. BC Rail had/has an electrified short line for coal. So I need to do more on the history of BC Rail.
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Being an American electric locomotive nut i find especially Milwaukee and GN electric operations interesting. Without the complicated catenary system like that on Eastern railroads it would be fairly straight forward to model. So my own interests are stretched thin sometimes. I even contemplated building few more E44s and painting them in Milwaukee orange and black (is that called "Omaha Orange?), hey i saw someone did "Paint brush" on Deviant art with E44 in Milwaukee; so tempting :D Knowing that General Electric offered to modernize Milwaukee electric district back in the sixties including closing up the gap between Avery and Othello, it would make interesting "alternate history" layout. There is someone who does modern CB&Q complete with DASH9s no less, saw his work on the net once. And vermilion red "Q" paint scheme is so cool looking:D
 
NorthBrit said:
Oh my! 'A can of worms thread'. :)

To be honest I have far too many locomotives; close on 100. Realistically I should reduce the number, but they are all favourites. Therefore they all wait there turn to 'run the rails'.
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Lets just hope that is a can of worms that won't come home to roost.

Close on 100. Hmmm I can't even remember those days all those decades ago. Since we are here, i just have to relate this story. We had a new fellow join the club. He had an old tyco 0-6-0 that he wanted to know if he could fit a decoder into it to run on the club layout (this is 1984 so 10 years before DCC when decoders were the size of Rhode Island), Any way we got it running. He showed up with more. A while goes buy and his wife came up to me somewhere and asked if it was normal to have so many locomotives. He already had 5 and wanted to buy another one. It was all I could do to laugh. Told her, "Yes model railroads need lots of locomotives. In fact, I had just been counting for insurance purposes and gave up at 350.... So he has a long way to go."
 


Iron Horseman said:
I am waiting for the day I will get a layout and let mine cease to be expensive.
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With the way prices are going, you and I will be ahead of the game. We purchased what we wanted at a cheaper price. This spreads out our overall cost over time. Imagine starting out now with what you already have. I purchased 3 NOS locomotives for $100. Spend at least double to triple that amount now.
 
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