After being in the hobby for decades, seeing the comparatively enormous variety of prototypes being turned into models, everything from two foot Maine narrow gauge to the huge Baldwin Centipedes, I still can't find any reasonable priced steeplecab or arch-typical interurban except for the do-it yourself variety (buy a shell-buy detail parts-buy motor dives-buy truck frames). We have subways, generic brill like"trolley cars", but oddly, no heavy interurbans...unless you count the K-Line sort of one size fits all models...am I the only one who despairs over this? The reason for this is that one can remain "prototypical" and have loops, passing sidings, a variety of street and private right of way, country and cityscape's in a compact space..even lcl frieght and switching...I waited and waited and just gave up and did the usual steam\diesel transition bit, which is fine..I have one loop that could be "electrified" but I have no interest in building a steeplecab from scratch or spending the bank...why the dearth of interurban models?
Even a steeplecab shell that would fit on a small GE centercab diesel would seem to be marketable..I don't get it.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Nice. I saw the Paoli interurban in the new Lionel catalog. Isn't there a Bullet from MTH on the horizon?
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
wallyworld...why the dearth of interurban models? Even a steeplecab shell that would fit on a small GE centercab diesel would seem to be marketable..I don't get it.
I suspect it's because there are so few people these days who've actually seen the prototype.
I suspect you are right on the money..perhaps there are not a lot of us around who grew up around them.I lived a good portion of my spare time around the CNS&M in Mundelein where clanging bells and flying switches, trolley tenders hanging on the sides of a four steeplecab powered freight was a sight to behold..where they interchanged almost daily with the then Soo Line. I didn't realize it then and perhaps the same applies now, I dont "get" how much of an anachronism they were....
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