Recently found treasures? Here's mine

[Pruitt]

I always learn something new on these forums. I would never have thought about buying a locomotive to use as a hammer, even at a bargain price! 

Great out-of-the-box thinking, Matt!

I'm glad you found a loco you wanted. Was that the Rocky Mountain train show in Denver yesterday? I was there too. Didn't find any of the locos I was looking for, but I did pick up some other stuff I needed (wanted).

[crossthedog]

Tom, that's a beaut! Do you paint something like that or does that decrease its value?

[tstage]

I already posted these photos in a couple of other threads today but I guess I'll post them here, as well.

I picked up an undecorated PSC NYC F-12e 4-6-0 off eBay last week from a gentleman who resides in an area of New England where my wife & I LOVE visiting & vacationing.  In fact, he gave me his email & phone number to contact him the next time we were in the area.

There is very little overall tarnish on the locomotive and the detailing of the backhead is absolutely amazing.   I haven't run it yet but fully expect it to operate as smoothly as my PSC 0-8-0 switcher.  Once I isolate the motor brushes, I'll install a decoder & speaker in the boiler, as well as LED lighting in the front & rear headlamps.

Doing a little research prior to purchasing the above, I found out the F-12 4-6-0s were "super-heated" and used in dual-service on the NYC.  That will make it a very useful addition to my NYC locomotive roster.  The 5K gal tender, however, means that it won't be making long excursions - freight or passenger.

Tom

[crossthedog]

Hi all,

I'll ask my question first, because my tale is a long'n and many of you probably have neither time nor inclination to sit through it.

What recent gems have you found, either in a swap meet or online, or at your LHS, or while helping an older neighbor clean out her deceased husband's train room?

For steam, I have my old Roundhouse Atlantic -- which I love because it's my old Atlantic -- but for one thing it's noisy and for another, I have a lot of freight I want to move and I recently learned that the 4-4-2 was designed to move passenger trains because of its terrifying speed; it wasn't built for powering freight. I had already bought a beautiful Great Northern 2-8-0, which is absolutely a freight engine, but it's DCC and after about a week I realized that there isn't much about DCC that I need or want. So I've had a hankering to add another DC steamer to my fleet.

For two reasons -- 1) the cost of new steam and 2) a discussion recently about the lack of smaller steam locos being produced by manufacturers, I have been studying up on older steam offerings, particularly Mantuas and Mehanos. The trick with Mehanos, of course, is flange size, since my rail is Code 83. I came to understand that if I purchased a LATER Mehano, it was more likely to have flanges that would get along with my track. But also, I kept hearing how the EARLY Mehanos, made in Slovenia, were so smooth and quiet. And how early or late, they usually lacked satisfying detail. Add to this complexity the fact that these locos might come under the brand of IHC or AHM, and might be made in Slovenia (good) or elsewhere (less good) and it was beginning to make my head spin. On top of it all, even a good deal online meant $15 or $20 of shipping costs added to the price of a 30-year old loco of dubious provenance whose wheels might bounce along my ties when I got it out of the box.

Welp. Yesterday I was at a swap meet looking, as usual, for an RS-1 in the SP&S as-delivered oxide-red-top scheme (everybody's seen one, nobody had one) and after scouring the room in vain, I began to relax and look at what WAS there, even stuff I wasn't really interested in. I was perusing a long table chock full of American Flyer stuff, when I found several purple IHC boxes -- an indicator of potential treasure -- with HO locos in them. The guy saw me pause and said "half off everthing there". From the bottom of a pile of boxes I unearthed a Northern Pacific 2-8-0. The box said Canadian National (uh-oh). I considered, what might happen if I got it home and the flanges were too large. They did not LOOK terribly large, but micrometers mattered in this case. Still, for the price he was asking, it would have been worth buying the loco to use as a hammer.

The vendor encouraged me to take the thing over to the test track by the front entrance, and quickly turned away to help several of the American Flyer enthusiasts that were mobbing his tables. (I could have walked out the door with it -- the trusting nature of model railroad vendors brings tears to my eyes). The engine ran beautifully and was absolutely silent. On the bottom I could see "Made In Slovenia". But the test track was Code 100. I took the loco back and asked if the guy would hold if for me while I tried to find some Code 83 rail -- he was glad to. I spent twenty minutes asking vendors around the room if they had any code 83 rail, even one piece, that I could borrow or buy, when finally one of the vendors cheerfully threw a bag of 9" track pieces at me for two bucks, and threw in another bag of shorter pieces for free so that I could have some rail joiners to go with them. I went back to the AF seller, and we put the loco on two joined pieces of Code 83 rail and... no contact between the flanges and the ties. A slow smile spread across my face and widened so wide that the back of my head fell off.

If you're waiting for the Murphy's Law moment, there wasn't one. I took my Slovenia-made Mehano in its purple IHC Canadian National box home and hooked up a freight to it. I haven't learned to detail and weather my engines yet -- that's "down the line" a ways --  but for a quiet, smooth Mehano Connie, I think it looks pretty good already. Here it is idling next to my still-unpainted-after-45-years Atlantic. (For full size, click open, then close completely and click open again).

What's YOUR story?

-Matt