The opinions of a Curmudgeon:


Oh, yes, there are plenty of small roads without manufacturer's support. There wasn't much available for the N.P. when I started, so, I knew I'd have to repaint many locomotives. I'm just biching about the fact that many prototypes are missed by the Mfgers!
 
If we're going to get hung up on obscure railroads, hows about the MNS, Minneapolis Northfield and Southern.
 
NP2626 said:
If we're going to get hung up on obscure railroads, hows about the MNS, Minneapolis Northfield and Southern.
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They do, do some occasionally, I've come across them while looking for a type of loco and looked up the prototype out of curiosity. Some from quite small RRDd's (don't ask me now, what they were), But it's the old story of whether it's worthwhile. MRL's sister Canadian RRd, SRY, far as I've seen has only had 2 MP15DC's done by Atlas and a couple or 3 of those unusual London, Ontario EMD GMDI's #'d 1202-1205, that Rapido Trains have made in HO. That road has several other of the more usual prototypes that have been ignored.
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NP2626 said:
If we're going to get hung up on obscure railroads, hows about the MNS, Minneapolis Northfield and Southern.
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I don't wanna sound like some kind of kiss-butt, but there is a hell of a lot of HO rolling stock available for MNS. I'm always surprised by how many MNS freight cars I can find.

Locomotives on the other hand are a different story. Right now the only factory ones I know of are Athearn RTR SD39's, of which the MNS had two or three. Athearn also has SD39's available in the MNS' successor paint scheme, Progressive Rail (incidentally PGR's two SD39's are former MNS).

MNS had a modest steam roster, including a bunch of 2-10-0's that I wish some factory would offer. Same for PGR's eight SW1500's switchers.
 
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NP2626 said:
If we're going to get hung up on obscure railroads, hows about the MNS, Minneapolis Northfield and Southern.
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Funny (not ha! ha! funny, but interesting funny) you would mention that one. It is on my short list of railroads I might choose to model if I were starting over from scratch today.
 
There's one thing about this thread, Mark. It's earned a book titled "The Portable Curmudgeon" in the Amazon.com ads at the page's bottom. Seems to feature a number of the more ascerbically witty on the cover. I should get one ;)
 
I feel my point is sort of being missed: "If we're going to get hung up on obscure railroads, hows about the MNS, Minneapolis Northfield and Southern". The point wasn't specifically about the MNS, it was about all the obscure railroads! There are many, many obscure railroads that are totally worth modeling, we just need to make a commitment to model them if that's what we want to do. It makes me wonder how the manufacturers determine what paint job they will put on a batch of locomotives? Yes, of course, they are hopping to "Knock-it-out-of-the-Park" with sales! Possibly they are always successful, I doubt it, though. This thread has demonstrated that even if you model the more popular lines, people will feel they aren't getting a fair shake! I'm one of them!! The fact that many of the larger lines (Northern Pacific is one of them) have simply become obscure, because we (the modeling public) don't model them!
 
You wait Mark, you'll go ahead and custom make some and they'll bring it out 6 months later.
 
It's amazing how much stuff is actually out there for my little obscure railroad - a good portion of the fleet is actually available out there!

But there's always all sorts of unique and unusual equipment that is completely different from anything else that will never get done in a million years by any major manufacturer, so lots of interesting projects to do...
 
NP2626 said:
I feel my point is sort of being missed: "If we're going to get hung up on obscure railroads, hows about the MNS, Minneapolis Northfield and Southern". The point wasn't specifically about the MNS, it was about all the obscure railroads!
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No it wasn't lost. It was a good point. My side observation was simply it was curious out of all the obscure little railroads out there, the one mentioned in the example was one, not only that I have actually heard of, but also one I've considered modeling.
 
I grew up along side the MNS in Bloomington, MN. If I can be of service, let me know.
 
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cv_acr said:
It's amazing how much stuff is actually out there for my little obscure railroad - a good portion of the fleet is actually available out there!

But there's always all sorts of unique and unusual equipment that is completely different from anything else that will never get done in a million years by any major manufacturer, so lots of interesting projects to do...
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What railroad do you model as your findings do not parrot my own. To have modeled the Northern Pacific, I have had to paint many of my locomotives with N.P. paint schemes and even buy some brass locos, because even though the N.P. was one of the big railroads, the manufacturers chose not to offer much in their product lines in N.P. livery!
 
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I model the Algoma Central, a fallen flag regional in northern Ontario (Canada).

A quick look at what is or has been available in HO scale for this road, in no particular order:

FP9A locomotives - Rapido Trains (full road/unit specific detail)
FP9A locomotives - Intermountain (generic detail)
Steam generator car (CN version) - Rapido Trains
Baggage Car (CN version) - Rapido Trains
Coach (CN version) - Rapido Trains
SW8 - Life-Like Proto2000
GP7 - Life-Like Proto2000
52' Gondola - Life-Like Proto2000/Canadian Hobbycraft (stand in)
52' Gondola - Rapido Trains (Canadian version)
GP38-2 locomotive - Life-LifeProto2000/Canadian Hobbycraft (generic detail)
52' bulkhead flatcar (multiple runs, 2 paint schemes) - Walthers
"Ortner" rapid discharge hopper - Walthers (minor detail differences as the real ones were clones built by NSC)
90-ton triple hopper - TrueLine Trains/Canadian Hobbycraft (stand-in - special runs of custom decorated Atlas hoppers)
GP38-2 locomotive - Atlas (generic detail)
SD40 locomotive - Kato (generic detail)
SD40-2 locomotive - Bowser Trains (full road-specific detail)
SD40 locomotive (announced/upcoming) - Bowser Trains (full road-specific detail)
Steel caboose (CN version) - True Line Trains
Steel caboose (CP version) - Rapido Trains
Steel caboose - Atlas Trainman (totally inaccurate and stand-in, but offered in this road's colours)
40' gondola - Atlas Trainman (totally inaccurate and stand-in, but offered in this road's colours)
Steel caboose (CN version) - Overland (brass)

http://vanderheide.ca/blog/2016/05/12/an-rtr-algoma-central-more-or-less/

Canadian modelers are in a bit of a golden age with companies like Rapido and Bowser. True Line Trains was also a player but seems to have faded away.

This is all fairly modern stuff - to model the steam era would require a lot more work. As noted there's a varying amount of detail work to do in some cases. And there's still all sorts of weird stuff like the older wood cabooses, cylindrical body open hoppers, bulkhead gondolas and 40' pulpwood flatcars that are totally unique to this railway.

NP related - have you seen the new wood boxcars from Rapido which are an NP prototype?
 
I have a Minneapolis Northfield and Southern locomotive and if I'm correct, the SOO purchased the MN&S in 1992 prior to the departure of the SOO.

The MN&S was a bridge line of only 87 miles, so no wonder not many people are aware of this line.

1540304777737.png


I'll add to Steve's comments above about the amount of rollings available for the MN&S railroad. I have several different BB box cars for the MN&S.

IMG_0253 (1).JPG

Greg
 
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Greg@mnrr said:
The MN&S was a bridge line of only 87 miles, so no wonder not many people are aware of this line.
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That's actually really quite sad. The MN&S was very important to this area, and successor Progressive Rail is a huge boost for Airlake Industrial park. PGR's equipment in Lakeville has a regular weekday schedule for a reason.
 
DakotaLove39 said:
That's actually really quite sad. The MN&S was very important to this area, and successor Progressive Rail is a huge boost for Airlake Industrial park. PGR's equipment in Lakeville has a regular weekday schedule for a reason.
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Most railways are (or were at one time) important to their areas.

But you're talking one small area out of 50 states and 10 provinces between the US and Canada.

(That said, I was already aware of this particular road.)
 
I suppose I'm allowing my Dakota County thinking to obscure actual reason.

Oh well. MNS is nationally important! Come on.
 
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