Hi philo426,
I hate to be critical, but I can hardly see the locomotive that you are referring to in your picture. There are too many other things in the background and the locomotive is really underexposed.
May I suggest that you set up a track with nothing in the background except white or blue space and use that to photograph your HO scale rolling stock. I'm sure that you are proud of the other various models in your collection, but including them in all your photographs isn't doing your HO modelling justice.
I hope I haven't offended you. That was definitely not my intention. I'm just trying to help you make your photographs more effective.
Cheers!!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Thanks for the tip!there are too many things on the train table!
That's better!
Very cool!
I'm glad your Bachmann Niagra is running well. I bought one about 15-20 years ago and it was total junk. To Bachmann's credit, the quality of their steamers has improved immensely beginning witht their Spectrum line. I have four of their Consolidations on my roster and several others. As I understand, they no longer offer Spectrum as a separate product line but I think the qualifty of all their steamers are now much better based on the few recent purchases I've made.
The primary problem with my Niagra was the front truck would not stay on the track no matter what adjustments I made to it. I had just about given up on it when I got the idea to attach a thick piece of styrene under the pilot to reduce the flopping. That worked reasonably well but it is still not a great runner. I have BLI Niagra which is a much better loco and they are numbered 6015 and 6016. I've staged them doubleheaded for photos but never actually run them that way.
I have a question about the paint scheme on your Niagra. I had never seen that paint scheme either in a model or prototype photo, with the gray band on the tender and the gray elephant ears. Do you know if any prototype Niagras were painted that way?