All the images below have three things in common. They are the work of a fellow named Greg, they all represent D&H locomotives and they share one other commonality. All these locomotives are built on Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 mechanisms.
Not too long ago, somebody was whining about there being a dearth of Wootten firebox engines on the market. Rather than cry in his beer, Greg went ahead a created some.
I'm in awe of this guy's work, even if it hasn't been "peer reviewed" by some self-appointed and self-annointed Grand Poohbah Of Model Railroading.
Andre
Good Looking Loco's, Thanks for sharing.
Springfield PA
What a beauty, very inspiring! That whining guy you mention might as well have been me - maybe under some old screen name which I forgot. My list of projects here is waaay to long to consider scratchbuilding one, or re-motoring / painting an affordable older brass engine, whereas I WOULD spend my $$$ on something BLI or P2K or Bachmann would come out with. So just let me cry in my beer allright?
FreightTrainBlues What a beauty, very inspiring! That whining guy you mention might as well have been me - maybe under some old screen name which I forgot. My list of projects here is waaay to long to consider scratchbuilding one, or re-motoring / painting an affordable older brass engine, whereas I WOULD spend my $$$ on something BLI or P2K or Bachmann would come out with. So just let me cry in my beer allright?
Pass that man a towel.
I decided several years ago that my JNR locomotive roster wouldn't be complete without a couple or three 9600 class 2-8-0s (fat boilered, short-framed, three-axle tender equipped rail-borne pit bulls.) They ARE commercially available - in Japan, at prices that make MSRP on a DCC-and-sound Big Boy seem like a steal. My solution? Buy Bachmann consolidations (which do have the proper wheel size and frame geometry.) Someday, when I get the (required) Round Tuit, they will be cosmetically modified. In the meantime, I run them as 'foobies,' with appropriate numbers painted on the inappropriate tenders Santa Fe style.
Hey, whatever works.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - eventually)
Very nice work. I have done the same. It was not cost effective but I got what I wanted.
Many older modelers forget the world and this hobby is continually evolving and have trouble dealing with it. The hobby will continue, just not in the way we want it to.
I have been around nearly seventy years and have seen a lot of changes.
I learned about scratch building in the late 1950's. There was no Internet to compare notes with a lot of people. You learned by doing yourself with a lot of error before getting a finished model.
We forget or are not aware that scratch builders have to make a lot of adjustments, mistakes before getting what is very nice. They discarded or re-used a lot of stuff.
What we have for scratch building is a lot different today in 2010.
I built a HO 1900 era flatcar that is not available, scratched for basswood ready to use and plastic details, trucks ready to install, plans in Model Railroader, etc. I did not have to scale from a prototype photo for plans.
I have no problem with shake the box kits or RTR either.
The hobby is what I make it to be for me.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
andrechapelonNot too long ago, somebody was whining about there being a dearth of Wootten firebox engines on the market. Rather than cry in his beer, Greg went ahead a created some.
I don't believe in worrying over things that are out of my control, and I will never understand why some do.
Great modeling.
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
andre, what's up? someone does a great job modeling and you use his work to be utterly sarcastic? talk about self-appointed,mike h.
Very nice modeling! I model anthricite c.1910, in freelance. The worst part is the limited selection of locos and reasonably priced rolling stock, and the best part is... the limited selection of locos and reasonably priced rolling stock!
Yes, it would be nice to be able to pick a coal gondola kit off a tree, but part of the fun is having to be creative; craftsman kits, kitbashing and scatchbuilding are all part of the challange.
We send all those butter-fingered, balloon-footed, need-to-have-RTR modelers to the modern or transition era period!
Jim
Enjoyed the pictures.
For now, I'll skip the trouble you're trying to stir up with the subject line. But if it gets fun later, I may stick an oar in.
Enjoy
Paul
Fantastic Bashing! This is what the hobby is about. If you want it build it youself!
Andre:
Those neat Spectrum 2-8-0's really lend themselves to kit-bashing. That's some beautiful work, IMO. Over on another forum I visit from time to time, another modeler has taken one and turned it into a very nice representation of a Rio Grande 1100 series C-48. Baldwin to ALCO, by golly!
I've been looking at my 'stock' Spectrum lately and thinking about the same thing. They're good little lokies and VERY easy to work on.
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!
IRONROOSTER Enjoyed the pictures. For now, I'll skip the trouble you're trying to stir up with the subject line. But if it gets fun later, I may stick an oar in. Enjoy Paul
I probably should have worded it a bit more mildly, but it seems to me that people are attacking the wrong targets and forgetting that the hobby exists in a larger society which has also undergone significant changes since I was growing up in the 50's.
I just got an update from several Yahoo groups that I belong to, including the Brass Loco Builders (full disclosure, I've never built a brass kit, let alone scratch build a brass locomotive). The update included a link to a file with several pictures demonstrationg the building of a boiler for a D&H 0-8-8-0. On another forum, I've seen several discussions outlining the construction of a B&O S-1 2-10-2 in N scale. Whle the boiler was scratchbuilt, many of the same techniques were used as in the construction of Max Magliaro's Pennsy I1 2-10-0 by starting with a Kato 2-8-2 chassis. The same group had a series by a guy who bashed an N scale Model Power USRA 4-6-2 into a Southern Pacific P-10, complete with skyline casing. Superb modeling, Another guy built a logging 2-6-2 out of an Atlas 2-6-0 in N. Again, nice job with realistic detail. Shoot, I even read about some glutton for punishment scratchbuilding an Erie 2-8-4 in Z scale.
The creativity's out there, although you wouldn't know it sometimes listening to the funeral dirges that seem to be the all rage here. The really funny part is that the vast majority of these projects have been started using RTR items as a base and turning them into models the original manufacturer wouldn't recognize. You don't see that here much, although Dave Vollmer's showed us some of his kitbashed Pennsy steamers and now and then doctorwayne will drop in with a pic of some of his work.
I don't know what it is about this forum. While I occasionally see complaints on other forums about this that or the other, it never approaches the volume you'll see here and I don't recall repeated prognostications of the hobby's imminent demise except here. Maybe it's simply because the forum belongs to Model Railroader and it's a convenient place for spleens to be ventilated.
I have to thank Greg for granting me permission to post pics of his work. I'd have posted links instead, but the pics originally appeared at "The Site That Must Not Be Named Or Linked To Under Penalty Of Death" and I had to copy the photos to my computer and upload them to my Photobucket account.
m horton andre, what's up? someone does a great job modeling and you use his work to be utterly sarcastic? talk about self-appointed,mike h.
Hey--he was saying that to illustrate the point about doing the ding locos on your own. And by the looks of things I'd say the dude did very well thankyouverymuch
Andre--what yahoo group was that in btw?---
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
twhite Andre: Those neat Spectrum 2-8-0's really lend themselves to kit-bashing. That's some beautiful work, IMO. Over on another forum I visit from time to time, another modeler has taken one and turned it into a very nice representation of a Rio Grande 1100 series C-48. Baldwin to ALCO, by golly! I've been looking at my 'stock' Spectrum lately and thinking about the same thing. They're good little lokies and VERY easy to work on. Tom
Yeah, I saw the pics of the C-48. With some work, you could probably also recreate the most famous Consol of all, the Santa Fe 1950 class so beloved of PFM. Tom Dill modified one to look like SP's ex-Cotton Belt engines. It wouldn't surprise me iif the Spectrum 2-8-0 ends up being the most kitbashed engine of all time.
I mentioned in another post about a guy who had taken a Model Power USRA light 4-6-2 and made a Southern Pacific P-10 with skyline casing out of it. If Athearn/Roundhouse ever gets their act together and releases its HO version, a P-10 project could probably be done following some of the same techniques as the N scale counterpart (.e.g. the skyiline casing in the N version is a modifed Con-Cor GS-4 casing, you could use an old Lionel or Bachmann shell fo supply the casing in HO). Nice thing about HO is that it shouldn't be too hard to get a correct tender, especially if Athearn releases the 120C-3 as a separate item.
The N scale P-10 of which I speak was based on SP #2487, seen here: http://www.yesteryeardepot.com/SP2487.JPG The fellow who did it used a modified Spectrum C&0 VC16 tender to portray the 120C-8 tender on #2487. It looked pretty good. Not perfect, but good.
Given the amount of bellyaching about the death of craftsmanship, the hobby and how RTR is ruining everything, it's pretty hard not to be sarcastic with respect to the prophets of doom. I don't see much of the latter on any other forum. They seem to be concentrated here.. Why, I don't know.
Barry, it wasn't a Yahoo group, but "The Site That Must Not Be Named Or Linked To".
Without voicing any sentiments in either direction - this is just an admirable piece of craftsmanship on display here. I wish I could do it, but my dexterity is not sufficient. That lines me up in the R-T-R plus detailing group.
Yep, nice locomotives, but that's simply what traditionally skilled model railroaders do, although you won't find too many of those sorts of folks here. And you can bet that you won't see work of that kind coming from many of those in today's growing RTR crowd.
I've done kitbashes countless times to create something I personally needed. But that doesn't alter the fact, which you are actually responding to in your lead-off post, that virtually the the only thing you can get from the manufacturers these days is huge RTR steam that is largely operationally inappropriate for anyone without a basement-filling empire, ill-suited because of size for kitbashing into anything else otherwise useful, or suitable only for the collector. This even though far smaller camelbacks were very common engines on many roads in the northeastern U.S., to say nothing of countless other small steamers. The fact remains that the last reasonably accurate, non-brass, camelback model offered commercially in HO was issued in about 1980. How many RTR Big Boy runs have been done since then?
Incidentally, being supposedly so long in the hobby yourself, don't you have any craftsman models of your own to illustrate your posts with?
CNJ831
Yep, nice locomotives, but that's simply what traditionally skilled model railroaders do, although you won't find many of those sorts of folks here. And you can bet that you won't see work of that kind coming from many of those in today's growing RTR crowd.
As far as I can tell, the people that I've seen aren't the auld pharts that cut their teeth on Varney, Mantua, Silver Streak, etc., but are younger modelers. And of course you won't see that kind of work here. It would seem that this site has become something of a model railroading "Wailing Wall" where people come to complain about this, that or the other.
BTW, if the crowd's growing, how's the hobby getting smaller? Oh, wait a minute, I know the answer to that one. People are simply defined out of the hobby.
I've done kitbashes countless times to create something I personally needed. But that doesn't alter the fact, which you are actually responding to in your lead-off post, that virtually the the only thing you can get from the manufacturers these days is huge RTR steam that is largely operationally inappropriate for anyone without a basement-filling empire, or simply being a collector.
I wasn't responding to anything. When I used the term RTR, I was not limiting it to locomotives, although I'll grant you that there is too much emphasis on 4-8-4's and larger when it comes to available steam (except for Bachmann). That being said, I'm from the West. Out there a 2-10-2 IS a medium sized engine.
Incidentally, don't you have any such craftsman models of your own to illustrate your posts with?
Most of it's in California. We're in Maine for the summer, although I brought some stuff to work on. Tell you what, you post a pic of your avatar engine with its Elesco feedwater heater correctly piped and I'll post pics of what I'm working on. Deal?
andrechapelon Incidentally, don't you have any such craftsman models of your own to illustrate your posts with? Most of it's in California. We're in Maine for the summer, although I brought some stuff to work on. Tell you what, you post a pic of your avatar engine with its Elesco feedwater heater correctly piped and I'll post pics of what I'm working on. Deal? Andre
Hey, I'll be glad to post pix of anything I do and I have been doing so since this forum began. But you've been posting here 8 years and I've never once seen you offer any visual evidence of being a modeler of any sort, only posting silly threads and posts like this one, or attempting to weasel-word your way out of the statements you've previously made.
P.S. Please, no projects that you are "working on". After decades in the hobby you certainly must have completed something worth showing that excuses can't be made for!
sanduskyWho's lookin' for a fight? Raise your hand!!
Hey, verbal kung fu matches sometimes get the ol' blood apumpin!!
LMAO this is funny stuff. At least I learned something, and that's I'm not a "modeler" because I don't make my own stuff. Even though I and everyone here built their layout and most added scenery etc. Using that thinking modern railroads aren't real "railroads" because they use RTR equipment. They could probably do a comedy skit about it on this stuff for late night tv. Just picturing the overweight post middle age genius at the keyboard with his little choo choo hat on talking down to the lowly RTR using "non modelers".
I think if you want to cry in your beer, go ahead-it's your beer. However, don't for one minute, think that craftsmanship is dead-it is not! In about five days, the Collinsville Prototype show will open for several days; this consists of some pretty good clinics, the usual hawkers, and some really well-built efforts-craftsman quality.
In November, there is another Craftsman hobby Show in Mansfield Mass, which is pretty well on the level of the serious craftsman-some good upper-level clinics with the likes of top line builders and producers like George Sellios, et al. These shows are, in their capacity, both very well attended, which says iniquivocably, that craftsmanship is not dead.
Yellowjackets are really 4-6-6-4s with a pantograph...
Guys,Building a craftsmen kit,adding detail parts or kitbashing does not the craftsmen make-the true craftsmen died with my Dad's generation.
I don't see anybody taking brass or tin stock with Kemtron parts and building a steam locomotive..I don't see anybody taking balsa wood and making a freight car,passenger car or caboose these days..Some may thump their chest and crow like a banty roster because they scratchbuilt a structure..Well that's all well and fine but,any simiskilled modeler can do that if they choose.
The point being we are all model railroaders regardless if we perfer RTR,kitbash,scratch build, build plastic or craftsmen kits.
I fully believe the last thing we need is more splintering of the hobby into smaller groups..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
BRAKIEThe point being we are all model railroaders, regardless if we prefer RTR,kit bash, scratch build, build plastic or craftsmen kits. I fully believe, the last thing we need, is more splintering of the hobby into smaller groups..
I fully believe, the last thing we need, is more splintering of the hobby into smaller groups..
Amen to that!
Sigh... Why do I even bother to come here? I left the 5th grade long ago.
Sir MadogBRAKIEThe point being we are all model railroaders, regardless if we prefer RTR,kit bash, scratch build, build plastic or craftsmen kits. I fully believe, the last thing we need, is more splintering of the hobby into smaller groups.. Amen to that!
I agree.
Sean
HO Scale CSX Modeler
Sir Madog - this is just an admirable piece of craftsmanship on display here. I wish I could do it, but my dexterity is not sufficient. That lines me up in the R-T-R plus detailing group.
- this is just an admirable piece of craftsmanship on display here. I wish I could do it, but my dexterity is not sufficient. That lines me up in the R-T-R plus detailing group.
"RTR Is The Devil's Work, Craftsmanship's Dead And The Hobby Is Drawing Its Last Breath"
I'm in madogs boat but I couldn't let the title of this topic go by without comment - it is over-the-top melodramatic prose even if it was tongue in cheek! Ok, it was shameless "bait" to get people to read the topic. As seen, there are still a few raw craftsman out there and I think there always will be. Many of us are greatful for HQ RTR products which reduce the long "to-do" list needed for a major model RR in a basement. Hobby drawing to a close? Poppycock! With all the amazing products of the past 10-15 years, we are in the golden age of the hobby. As always, anyone is free to find their guru and chant ohmmmm and get out the tools of the trade and go at it. This hobby has a wide range of folks, and there is still the old school hobbiests who love steam built from raw materials and the "manly-man" ways of the hobby. I think we can all agree, this its an admirable piece of work for sure!
But you've been posting here 8 years and I've never once seen you offer any visual evidence of being a modeler of any sort...
Raises hand. I don't offer evidence of being a modeler because I'm not! I do have dreams of building another layout and I've been a train nut all my life. If only "true modelers" are allowed here, this forum should suddenly hear a sucking sound as the majority of us high tail it out of here.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983