Newest Additions to Locomotive Roster ...


Iron Horseman

Well-Known Member
We have done the post your roster type of threads before where people put huge lists of stuff in that is interesting to read for the first 5-6 posts and then becomes tedious. This thread is not for that. This thread is inspired by Bruette's recent thread on his new GG1. We had a great time discussing the prototype and that also lead to a few side trails on other railroads and locomotives. What I would like everyone to do is post here when you add a new locomotive to the collection or roster. Tell us a little about it. Why you like it. Why you got it. Maybe give it a review. And we can all celebrate the new acquisition together.
 
And I'll be the first. The latest addition to my roster is an EMC E1 in Santa Fe original sunset orange war bonnet. This model is built by Broadway Limited. It is the Paragon 3 so it automatically connects to the sub-woofer. Unfortunately my sound system isn't hooked up just yet so I've not gotten to hear that. I took it into the office to run it on their layout. It is slow. It creeps really nice but I sort of don't want a passenger locomotive that creeps clear up to 1/2 throttle. I'll have to go in and futz around with the CVs and speed curves to get it to behave more like one would expect a passenger loco to run. The detail is really good. This is the as delivered pre-war version. The prototypical units went through change in real life so the models come in pre-war and post-war versions.

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Notice that even on the 28" radius curve the truck is really swinging out past the side of the loco. The headlight is too blue for a locomotive of this age.

Santa Fe ordered 10 more of the units after the first one (#2) proved that it could compete with existing locomotives' time schedules on the Super Chief. #2 was delivered in June of 1937. It was eventually traded in to EMD for an E8 #89L. The trucks were reused on that unit.

I couldn't very well have a complete set of Santa Fe locomotives without this unit. It was a land mark being the first production E unit from EMC. All others before the E1 were custom orders. B&O is the only other railroad that ordered the unit.

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BTW I've been wanting a set of these for three years since they were first announced. I waited and waited for a sale. Finally got the B unit like that, but the sale for the "A"s never came. I saw the inventory drop and drop. Finally with basically no selection for road number I had to buy one at normal price. Had I the choice I would have chosen #7 instead of #2, because I have a blurred picture of it on the point of the El Capitan outside of Las Animas. It had to have been running over the century mark.
 
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BTW I've been wanting a set of these for three years since they were first announced. I waited and waited for a sale. Finally got the B unit like that, but the sale for the "A"s never came. I saw the inventory drop and drop. Finally with basically no selection for road name I had to buy one at normal price

That's the problem now-a-day's. Limited model runs, which may or may not get a re-run and may or may not be the road # you want anyway. The makers and the distributors don't want excess inventory kicking around. No profit in that. I have been lucky to get something from Klein's on inventory reduction clearance (my NCE Pro-Cab-R was an example), but if a new model that I want comes out now, I get it then, too much angst waiting for the possiblity it might come up cheaper somewhere else. I might miss out to someone else anyway (have done that, by prevaricating).
 
Congratulations, it's a beauty!

I do the same as you, trying to get a discount. I missed out on a few things, but in the long run I have saved a fair bit of money. Money that is almost always spent on rolling stock or a new accessory. In my case it's not much "saved", but more stuff is always good!
 
That's a mighty fine looking model of the E1! Glad you were able to actually get one, even if it's not the exact number you originally wanted. Toot has a valid point; much as I loathe the present day "pre-order-and-wait" sales philosophy and many modelers have rebelled against it, if I see an announcement for a model of something I've really wanted for a long time, I'll go ahead and preorder it. I've heard too many stories of limited-run models never even making it onto LHS' shelves because the mfgr's only produced exactly what they knew was already committed.

What I'm sharing is not my most recent roster addition (though it was a few weeks ago), but it has an interesting story. I needed a sound-equipped switcher for my Ford assembly plant yard, so I bought one of these guys from MB Klein:

https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/atlas-master-line-ho-10002460-gold-series-s-2-locomotive-penn-central-9809-dcc-and-sound-equipped/

Really, I'm NOT all that fond of Penn Central; I chose it because the white lettering scraped off easily and the solid single black color was very easy to paint over.

Ford had a small fleet of their own Alco switchers like this S-4, but only a single S-2 (#10013) on their roster. No problem, one was all I needed anyway! So I airbrushed it in Ford colors and printed some inkjet decals of the Ford logo, and this is what I wound up with:

20180909_122824_resized.jpg

Unfortunately my cell phone camera didn't do a very good job of showing the weathering, but...it is what it is!

I'm come back later and post about the model I'm currently working on.
 
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What I'm sharing is not my most recent roster addition (though it was a few weeks ago), but it has an interesting story. I needed a sound-equipped switcher for my Ford assembly plant yard, ....Really, I'm NOT all that fond of Penn Central; I chose it because the white lettering scraped off easily and the solid single black color was very easy to paint over.
Yeah I have a hard time not buying the industry owned switchers. Here in Denver it is the Coor's beer railroad. So far I've been able to resist, but I do love orange....

Basic black and basic white locomotives are always good paint shop fodder. I really like the end result of yours.

I wonder if Ford purposely avoided EMC / EMD locos. Don't want to help the competition.
 
I ordered the original orangey red A-B set when they were announced. My LHS cut me a discount. The B is a dummy but since I use the set to pull my heavyweight Super Chief one powered unit is enough. Good looking units and great runners.
 
I ordered the original orangey red A-B set when they were announced. My LHS cut me a discount. The B is a dummy but since I use the set to pull my heavyweight Super Chief one powered unit is enough. Good looking units and great runners.
Other than a good sale, that is why I ordered the B separately. The separate units are powered. But you are right, because of the weight of the unit it seems a single one can easily pull the original 9 car Super Chief consist. Oh, step back, were there also 9 cars in the original heavyweight consist?
 
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Always liked the EMD E's. Many years ago I built my dad a E6 in Southern RY colors. I used the Cary metal body on an Athearn SD45 frame. Pulled ALL 22 of his Heavyweights.
 
7 for the 1937 train. Chief Yellow Bear bag/barbershop/smoker, Forward lightweight 8-2-2, General Hancock lounge, Diner, Glen Frazier 6-3, Clover Knoll 8-5, and Crystal View 3-2 Obs Lounge. My train has two brass cars, a Lambert lounge, and a Soho 8-2-2 that was a bitch to find. The bag smoker is a Rivvy, and the rest are Walthers cars. It should be pulled by Amos & Andy but they are waaaay to rich for my blood so I took a little artistic license!
 
I wonder if Ford purposely avoided EMC / EMD locos. Don't want to help the competition.
I would think that a highly likely conclusion. Doubt they would want the public to see their cars etc being moved around by Chevrolet's cousin's product line.
 
FWIW, the Paragon 2 and Paragon 3 decoders default to a mid-range setting of something like 50. I always set cv6 to 128, and cv5 to 255, instead of the slower defaults. It still won't be blazing fast, but unless you are modeling the North East Corridor or some of the Milwaukee Road where the speed limit is 120, with room to reach that speed, the model's top end of around 70-80 should be acceptable.
 
OK so lets get back on track since we seem to be wandering a bit (partly my fault). Here's my latest add, and an unintentional one. It's sort of famous. If any of you happen to watch Trainmasters TV this is one of three steamers I weathered for the show. They happened to have two Athearn Challengers for me to weather, and I did one of my own. I did a light, medium and heavily weathered locomotive. This was the medium weathering project, done off of a photo. Some months after the episodes aired, they offered me one of the Challengers and I chose this one. I don't do much D&RGW, but it is a Western road, and I can always find something for it to do at the club! It's a good runner, but a little delicate. I'm also not nuts about the double articulation, but that's because I'm kind of crotchety when it comes to radii. If you don't have the radius for it don't force it around too tight curves IMNSHO, but that's just me :)
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