My Northern Pacific Butte Montana Layout.


I'm going to continue on with showing photos of my Locomotives. Here is a couple photos of my Walthers 0-8-0 switcher. It is modeled after Northern Pacific's G-1 switchers. The loco came equipped with DCC and Sound. I believe that the Sound Decoder is a Soundtraxx Tsunami decoder. Because of the sound and the fact that the loco is such a good puller, I use it as a road engine.

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Another photo: I don't remember how many iterations Walthers made of this loco. This was the only USRA locomotives that the Northern Pacific ever purchased. So, Walthers could sell these loco to every modeler that modeled roads that used them.

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The two photos where taken in normal and close-up I don't see much difference.
 
Mark you reminded me that I have a locomotive similar to yours and I did purchased it at the Walthers showroom shortly after they became variable. My came without sound and I plan on installing an older SoundTrax system that I have since I purchased the beast.

To bad its a Canadian Pacific, but maybe I should weather the loco and re-paint the tender.

These locomotives were popular with many railroads and handled a variety of jobs other than just switching duties.

Mark, the steamer moving over a wood trestle is a neat photo.

Greg

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Latest Project, this is a MDC Roundhouse Ten Wheeler with added details to make it look like a Northern Pacific S-4 4-6-0. It also has a TCS WOW101-KA sound decoder and Keep Alive capacitor system.
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Thanks! I was confused about which of the two trestles I had used for that photo. The one you mentioned, Shirley, is a Campbells Scale Models Kit.
The kit is for a straight trestel, but, I needed one with a curve. So, I plotted the curve I needed and built my trestel with that curve. I also placed the Fire Barrel Platforms on the outside of the curve, which is a change from the kit. The photo below, is of the Campbell's Scale Model Kit I used to build my trestlle. They are really good kits!

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Very soon, before the sixteenth of April I need to pack up my new Digitrax Zephyr Xtra and ship back to Digitrax for repair. This means I will be closing down my railroad for the season earlier than normal. We are also going to be tearing out the old cabinets in the kitchen and installing new cabinets, so Closing down actually might be this week sometime. I also am going to buy a new Digitrax Express to replace my Zephyr Xtra, some of the new additions to the Express just seem like stuff I want. I will be selling my Digitrax Zephyr Xtra for $100.00 if anyone is interested, after it is returned from Digitrax. because Digitrax had major damage caused by Hurricane Michael, return of my Zephyr might take up to 3 months (per Digitrax).
 
Project for today is to disconnect and package up my Digitrax Zephyr Xtra and send off to Digitrax for warrentee repair. I won't see it back here for 2-3 months as that is the back-log at Digitrax because of the damage caused by Hurricane Michael last October!
 
Mark .... Bad you must wait 2-3 months. I bet they do not send a loaner. .... We were in FL in December and saw some of the damage from the hurricane. .... I like your 4-6-0 .
 
My layout normally shuts down from May through the end of September anyway so, I guess it's not that big of a deal. I do continue working on Projects; but, not here at home.
 
You've done some nice work on both the steam and diesel Northern Pacific power. It really bug me that such a large railroad like the NP has so few locomotives available. I also had to custom paint a number of locomotives. It's a bit of work, but in some cases, it's the only way to have them. I felt like a pig in poop when I finally got my Walthers Mainline F-7 A&B to run at the club.

Great work.
 
Chet, I ended up purchasing Northern Pacific power when it came to market. You snooze, you loose! This is a list of locomotives made as Northern Pacific Locos that I own: Life Like Proto 2000 came out with GP 7s, Their GP-9 and GP-18 and SW-900/1200 are/were to late for my era. Stewart had a Baldwin VO-1000. Atlas made an RS-1, Walthers came out with an N.P. G-1 0-8-0 Switcher, DCC w/Sound, Bachmann has a Alco S-4, and that is it as far as what I own!

I know that Intermountain has had F units: FTs in demonstrator paint and N.P. Freight, F-3s, F-7s and F-9 all in Freight; or, Lowey Paint. I haven't been able to get any of them (COST). Walther's has produced some F-units, lately, again (COSTLY). At one time Stewart had N.P. F-3s in A and B units. It's likely that I have missed out on quite a few N.P. locomotives as I don't always have enough money and will not pre-buy.
 
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Yesterday I sent off my Digitrax Zephyr Xtra to Digitrax for repair. Because Digitrax has upgraded the Zephyr line of Starter/Compact Command stations, I put in an order this morning for the new Digitrax Zephyr Express. There are upgraded features in the new Zephyr that I liked and so felt it made sense to order the new Express unit. Once my Zephyr Xtra returns to me in two to three months, I will sell it on Ebay. I will have the latest and greatest version that will only cost me somewhere around $75.00 to $90.00!
 
The Walthers Mainline F-7 A&B units weren't too expensive. They listed for $369 but Greg put me onto a hobby shop in Milwaukee that was excellent. Got the pair, both DCC, powered with sound for $259. The owner was really great. He located the last few that Walthers had, and after I told him that I was a complete DCC dummy, he even programmed them for me. Excellent customer service. It was a bit more than I wanted top spend, but I really wanted something to run at my club that had the power to pull decent size trains on the two and a half percent grades at the club. A big bonus for me is how well they operate on mt DC layout. My grades also max out at two and a half percent and the pair easily pulled a 35 car train up the grades.

I know what you mean about those who snooze lose. Many time I saw NP power advertised, but by the time I found out about the units, they were sold out.
 
I really don't need F-7s I might consider F-3s; or, F-9s in Lowey paint, or maybe even the Pine Tree paint.
 
The Lowey paint scheme would be too new for the period you are modeling as it first came out in 1954. I was quite young when the new paint scheme came out and was used to the pint tree trains. The first time I saw the Lowey paint scheme, I loved it. To this day it is one of my favorite passenger car paint schemes. Too bad I didn't know you were interested in the pine tree scheme. I had these FP-7, the only two FP-7's that the NP owned, 6800 & 6801. They were too new for 1957. They were really nice running Atlas units and had room for a decoder and speaker in them. Got rid of them at our train show last year. I probably would have just given them to you. Took this photo at my club. A mix of both paint schemes.

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The F-7's were produced between 1949 and 1953 so they are just right for my time period. I got the Walthers F-7's mainly to run at the club.
 
Chet: Great photograph of the F-7's. A hard pull up that grade with that many cars in tow.

Greg

Greg, Is that train on a grade? It actually looks fairly flat to me! Hard to tell.

Chet, I would have loved to have converted both those locos to DCC and Sound! Thanks for the very nice "almost" offer, very kind of you! With the Lowey Paint Scheme coming out a year after my 1853 date, I could just jump ahead a year and that wouldn't bother me in the least! I had also looked for information on when the Lowey Scheme came out and was not able to verify, thanks for the clarification Chet! I think if I ever get another set of F-units, they will be an A-B set of F-3s in the Butter Knife/Pine Tree Scheme!
 
In the photo, the train is on the grade. The locomotives have started up the second part of the grade to the summit, which is above the 4th car, the silver sleeper. I don't know if you have seen the cab ride video of the layout, but if you are interested, I can post it and give you a time mark where the locomotives are when the photo was taken.

The F units in the Lowey paint scheme were used almost exclusively for passenger service. There's an old photo taken just before the passenger service from Livingston, MT to Gardner, MT was discontinued. Again, pulling a passenger train.

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Chet: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the F-7's coming up a long grade you speak about on your club's layout?

Thanks.

Greg
 
You are correct. The total length of the grade is probably around 75 feet long. Here's a cab ride video. The beginning of the grade starts about 6:40 into the video. Time is in the lower left of the video which can be seen by holding the pointer on the video. Where the photo was taken is about 8:39 into the video, and is still climbing. the summit is approximately 9:43 into the video. The passenger cars behind the locomotives are on a rather level part of the layout for a few feet. They had to bore a hole through a 24 inch thick concrete wall between rooms and then join the track to the main line. There is a shorter route around the layout which we call the city loop. This route stays in a single room instead of going on the longest route through all three rooms. From the summit, it is all down grade to about 11:10 where the video hits level track and the train diverges into what we call the Gardiner loop where the recreation of the old Gardiner station is.


You can imagine what a mess it was when one of the members coal drags broke a coupler coming in the opposite direction where the ore train was coming up. 40 some cars went careening down the grade into the curve at the bottom.
 



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