I recently purchased 3 GP35 and 1 GP7 bodyshells. Unfortunately I have to wait for Atlas to resell their locomotive chassis.
My GP7 has a cracked roof and broken handrail. I will try to repair it and paint it black for early Conrail. 2 GP35 are going to get painted in G.N.O. Railway scheme. The another GP35 I don't know anymore NYC, early CR, random company.
I would love to decal and scratch build to make the railroad feel unique. When I place a NYC or Chessie on CR or BN theme layout.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
"Old way" and "new way" doesn't really work as categorizations. Many materials are not the same now as they were even back in the 1980's. For example, CA did not even exist back then, and I'll bet a lot of "old way" modeling is done using CA as one of the adhesives.
We may tend towards a modeling approach of earlier decades, bu I doubth there is much opportunity to do purely "old way" modeling anymore.
As Yoda might say, "Only 'your way' modeling there is."
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
When I got back into the hobby after a 40 year absence, I was no longer a teenager with summers off and time on my hands. Instead, I was a middle-aged man with a full-time job and a family, raising a beautiful young girl. As such, I had to choose my battles carefully. That wasn't hard, but even as it was I had too many projects and not enough time. I gradually found my path, and have always been happy with my choices.
I buy rolling stock kits, mostly, and I build and weather them, but I don't kitbash them to be something else. It's the same with motive power. I don't handlay track.
I found out early on that I enjoyed making Hydrocal castings, and I build a lot of plastic structure kits, adding interiors and specifically seeking out kits with large windows so my interiors would actually be visible.
But, even with all the shortcuts and use of RTR, somehow I've never finished the layout. Somewhere along the way, I realized I was a Builder, not an Operator, and that's the way I like it.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
All I can say is that I enjoy working to make Athearn blue box equipment look and run better. I can take an engine apart to where it looks like the exploded parts diagram that was in the box. I can make a power truck, with gears engaged, roll like a Hot Wheels car. That may be tedious for some folk, but it is fun, fun, fun for me.
Lots of things I want to learn. I hand laid some track 40 years ago; I want to do that again. I have several DCC projects, including LED lighting and sound. I have several painting projects; specifically a MKT red GP7 and a SF CE1 caboose. I have a MDC hopper project (replacing roofwalks on 12 cars) that is going on 30 years; it might get done in the next 5 years.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
I remember a conversation between two eight-year-olds once, one said to the other, "do you remember back in the olden days when we ....." Referring to something they had done together.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Thread locked at the OP's request.
--Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editorsotte@kalmbach.com