This is the very first loco I purchased myself, and my first greasel! Bought it around 1970, when I rebuilt my layout to it's (somewhat) current configuration. It's an old AHM Tempo BL2. It still runs, with the help of some train show parts locos.
Rotor
Jake: How often does the train go by? Elwood: So often you won't even notice ...
This is the other loco I got with my first train set around 1962. Gilbert/AF Industrial Switcher. I literally ran the wheels off this thing!
I need to snag one off ePay to repair the non-geared axle, and a couple other things. The motor still runs, though.
This is one of the the two locos I got with my very first train layout, when I was about 4 years old, back in 1962. It's an HO Gilbert/American Flyer 0-6-0. It does still run!
Three of the oldest locos on my roster---Akane Yellowstones from 1964. They still run like champs and get a lot of mileage in on my Yuba River Sub.
The 4-8-2 is a newer one, a NJ Brass from the late 'seventies.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Back in the 1960's, my mom found a "box o' trains" at a yard sale. Inside was an Athearn F7 in UP colors. I bought a dummy F7 in Milwaukee livery and swapped the shells. Of all the engines I had back then, this is the only one that ran well enough to put on the layout when I unpacked my trains after 40 years in storage. It's even got a decoder, and new couplers by Kadee.
The other F7A is a dummy made from a rubber-band drive Athearn, and the F7B came up on eBay, also a dummy.
This is one of the loudest engines on my layout, and it doesn't even have a sound decoder! Sure, it sounds more like a coffee grinder than a locomotive, but I love it anyway.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I still remember the excitement when I was a boy when I got Lionel's 4-4-0 "The General" for Christmas ....and I hate myself for selling it and the rest of my Lionel and windup tinplate.
As for something I still have, I was a bit older but hardly less excited the Christmas morning when I unwrapped AHM's Y6b 2-8-8-2. I also still have the envelope from a letter I got from my best buddy who wrote "2-8-8-2" all over the outside, out of pure envy. At the time I thought that was just about the smoothest running, best detailed locomotive imaginable. I looked at it again a year or so ago and was surprised at how blunt some of the detail now looks, and how the flanges seem to have gotten deeper over the years. But it is still a wonderful looking engine.
Dave Nelson
It would be nice to see some of your oldest loco's that you all have in your roster. Pictures of them would be great.
Here is my favorite old timer.
Tyco F7A and it runs
4x8 are fun too!!! RussellRail