Hello everyone, I hope I find you all in a good state. Well, it's Spring Break finally (as I mentioned in my last post) and what a weekend I've had.
On Friday I went to a minor hockey league game, which was my first hockey game I ever saw. It was a pretty fun experience. I won't get into too much detail here, (since I don't feel I have anything to really say, other than I got a cool bobble head), but if you are interested, me and my friend Zack did a Podcast episode on our series "Patrick Badly Explains. Link right here.
Saturday was definitely a highlight for me. On Saturday I went to the 10th Annual Essenhaus Model Train show, which's held every February. I hung out with my best friend Jefrey and his brother Al (getting the trio back together again). I haven't seen them in a while, so it was nice to see them and their parents again. (Jefrey's Mom, shout out to her, always spoils me with items. I got a book, a shirt and cup from her. I may share photos of those later on the social medias).
All right, for this post I want to quickly show what I bought at the train show. The items cost me $30, which I paid with Christmas money ("Pro" tip for people getting into model railways: go to train shows, that's the best way to buy model train rolling stock, track, accessories and locomotives at good prices).
The first item I bought was a caboose, labelled for the Detroit & Toledo Shore Line, a company I am not familiar with. I saw that it was only $5, and decided "Why not?" (Train Show purchases in a nut shell 😜). I try to buy an item from as many vendors as I can, and this seemed too nice to turn down.
The items I purchased are all HO scale, for reference, here is a photo of my hand, so you can see how big the first caboose is. The scale of HO refers to the size compared to their real life counterpart, in the case of HO: 1:87. In terms of model railways it's a medium size, there's even smaller forms such as N and Z scales. Unfortunately, I looked underneath the caboose and it doesn't have the manufacturer underneath. I did a quick eBay search and I believe it was made by Atheran, who I bought a newer caboose from.
For reference, here is a modern caboose by Atheran, with metal wheels. It really shows how far model trains have c
Now, key word in that last paragraph was first caboose. Yeah, I'm a bit of an addict for cabooses.
So I ran into Jefrey's Mom again when we went to the second building. And she told me about a great bargain: a vendor had a deal of 7 cabooses for just $1. $1?! Surely that wasn't right! I was intrigued, and made my way over. I spoke to the vendor, who said that the deal was in did 7 for $1. Or rather, 6 for $1. When he looked down he realized one was missing. Which means two things:
A) Someone stole a caboose, or
B) Someone purchased just one caboose.
I hope it was the latter, because I'd hate for a vendor to get stolen from, it's not good for the hobby. In any case, I got a pretty good bargain. Below are the cabooses I bought (some put together to not clog this post with photos.
So here we have a Union Pacific Caboose (on the left) made by Bachmann and Chesapeake & Ohio on the right, no manufacturer . I figured it would be nice to put the two yellow cabooses together. Little fun fact: I have another Union Pacific caboose I bought on eBay (I got it for $1+ shipping) which is numbered 207. So these will look really nice together.
This caboose is in a fictional livery, made by Cox (all right, get it out of your system). According to this model train thread (you can read here) the caboose was built in either 1975 or '76 as part of a train set, which had a locomotive in the same livery. Sadly for this poor caboose, it's been separated from its set and fellow locomotive. Maybe I'll buy a used Championship locomotive to complete the set (partly). In any case, I'm very happy to own this historic caboose.
Now this Burlington Northern Bay window caboose (named for where the windows are placed so you could see out). This' my first piece of rolling stock owned by Lima, an Italian company that got purchased by British based Hornby. As you can see in the second and third photos, the caboose is going to be a fixer upper.
I believe (see image 2) that it's missing roof details where the holes are, and at the front it's missing the handrails. Also somewhat annoying is that the caboose is missing its couplings. But again, 6 cabooses for $1, I can't really complain. Plus, this gives me an advantage, where I can decide what couplings to put on it. I might make this a converter car (ie. have two different couplings so I can have different couplings in the same train).
All right, this' the Crown Jewel of my Train Show loot. This boxcar, built by Tyco, is a special DC painted boxcar, made in 1977 according to the Copyright information underneath Shazam/Captain Marvel. Don't you love it when your hobbies cross over?
Once I saw this, I knew I had to buy it. It's in pretty good condition, some of the paint is chipped, asy ou can see on the left and the ladder on the right, but for a boxcar around 40+ years old, this' pretty nice. According to a quick search on eBay, there was a whole series of boxcars like Shazam, including: Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman. You'll have to spend a pretty penny to buy all of these (link if interested here).
I decided to put these two special cabooses together. On the left we have a Lifelike caboose, which seems really ironic, because it's in a fictional Campbell Soup Company livery! On the right is something I've wanted for a long time: A Tyco Silver Streak caboose. The Silver Streak caboose is similar to the Cox Championship Caboose, this caboose originally came in a set where it shared the livery with the locomotive, but not the rolling stock in between.
I almost bought a Silver Streak locomotive and Caboose on eBay, but I decided not to to save my $$, which was the right decision. In any case, the platinum caboose looks amazing. Even still it screams speed. (which's ironic, again, because the locomotive it's paired with was built for freight traffic). I might pair the Silver Streak caboose with the purchases below.
The last two pieces of rolling stock I bought are these coaches from Lifelike, which I found at the last building (which my friend Jefrey calls the "leftovers," with no offense to any vendors who are in the building).
Now throughout the train show, I had a goal: find some coaches for a good price. I realized at the beginning that there's a lot of freight cars on sale, but not a lot of coaches. I asked Jefrey about why this was, and he explained that coaches are more expensive because of the details. After hearing this, I was determined to find at least SOME coaches to buy.
My main reason is that I purchased two British HO steam locomotives on eBay for my birthday. Both of them are passenger locomotives, one of which has an American coupler on the back. So when I saw these two together, I knew it was a match made in heaven. The coach in the top photo is named Dana, and is a later steel Pullman coach labelled for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, in the days when the big freight railroads still hauled passengers, before the dark times, before.... the Interstate Highways.
Now these weren't the first coaches I saw. I saw someone selling a set of coaches for $10 per coach, which would've been around $40 for a whole set. I considered buying just a few, but Jefrey advised against it. He said it wasn't right to separate sets, which I had to agree with. As pointed out with the Cox Championship caboose, it's sad when they're separated.
So when I saw the second coach, Starlight, I knew I wanted to keep these two together. Starlight is a dome car, which mean it has a second mini layer with extra seats and a glass dome for looking at the skyline above as passengers rolled along. I've never been in a dome car before, but I figured that if regular coaches were expensive, than dome cars would be more expensive!!
The prices were pretty nice. Dana cost $5, and Starlight $7, so only $12 for two coaches. Not a bad deal. Another thing I like about the coaches is the silhouettes of passengers. While it may not be the most realistic, I like it. The silhouettes remind me of Thomas Wooden Railway coaches that had a similar effect.
So overall, 10 pieces of rolling stock for $30. I'm pretty pleased with my haul, though it would've been nice to get some more coaches. But there's always more model train shows to attend, so I'll wait for my chance. Now, all I have to do is build a layout to run all my collection on. 😝 In all seriousness, I do want to build a model layout, but it will probably be a long time before I can, since I'm in college. But never say never, right?
I hope you all enjoyed exploring my Model Train Show Loot Haul with me. Do you have any bargains you got on your hobbies? Let me know on my social media, @ConductorPat on Twitter, and @PatrickWebb and @TugTramWay on Facebook.
Thanks once again for reading, and I'll see you on the Tramway!
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