A little guilty pleasure that arrived the other day.
SO, YES, I went out on a limb and purchased both Athearn Genesis Penn Central ‘modernised’ F-unit A-B sets! Just a treat to myself for working so hard last year. I had hoped to build some of these up using the Highliners body, but Athearn has made things much easier and quicker with these new ‘out of the box’ models that it seemed crazy not to splash out.
Read the rest of this entry »
The all-new Genesis line MP15AC in pictures.
SO, AFTER MUCH delay, Athearn’s Genesis MP15AC is finally here, but, as the saying goes, it was worth the wait,. The Californian firm has really pushed the boat out with road specific detail, the only thing visually letting the model down being the floppy and warped delrin handrails. So far, I have purchased four of ‘em - CP ‘Beaver’, Milwaukee Road, Soo Line and UP (ex M-K-T) - although I could have easily taken more. The CP and UP versions are illustrated here.
Read the rest of this entry »
The latest ACF hoppers from Atlas show little desire to improve standards.
WHATEVER THE DEBATE about the choice of yet another ACF Centerflow, the new ‘HO’ scale 5,701 cu ft plastic pellet hopper is now available from Atlas in a range of mainly as built colour schemes, with a couple of plain grey vehicles listed which are more suited to contemporary modellers.
Read the rest of this entry »
A look at the prototype for Walthers plastics hopper.
INSPIRED BY THE forthcoming Atlas 5,701cf and 5,800cf plastic hoppers, of which I have a couple of the first batch vehicles winging their way towards me from a shop in the USA, I thought I’d take a look at the real thing behind a slightly older plastics hopper model, the Walthers NSC 6,245cf 4-bay.
Read the rest of this entry »
Just a few Guilford Rail System shots.
The former Norfolk & Western blue of Guilford Rail System hi-nose GP40 No. MEC 374 was obvious on the weatherbeaten exterior of the EMD ‘Geep’ when it was photographed at GRS’ Waterville Yard, Maine, on April 7th, 2002.
EVEN THOUGH MY modelling mind has been on other things of late, everything from US switching layouts and Railfreight Distribution Class 37s and 47s to MP15ACs and modernised ‘F’ units, I haven’t forgotten that the Guilford Rail System is one of my principle modelling interests and that the focus of most of my activities is a somewhat fuzzy long-term aim to build a long US layout set on GRS’ District 4 that will enable me to run 35-foot length trains.
Read the rest of this entry »
