Weekend Acquisitions

Of course I cannot attend a train show without buying something, even if it's something I have absolutely no use for.  The first one of those things is this:

I had the 4-6-4 ConCor Hudson in ATSF livery and it's a pretty good running little locomotive, but when I saw these shells for it I just had to have them. I didn't know they existed, and I think they either were made by a second company or they are of a different run.

The original locomotive shell is held on by a single screw but there is no hole in the Pennsy shell for it. That means when handling the locomotive now it is imperative you pick it up by the cylinders in the front and the trailing truck/tender in the back, or else you just get a handful of shell.

The original tender shell is held on by four clips, two in front and two in back, but the Pennsy shell only has the front clips. I also had to cut out the front of the tender shell to clear the wiring, which is another reason I think they were either second party or a different run. It is held on pretty well in the back by friction alone though, so it doesn't come off like the locomotive shell.

Truth be told though, I'm not sure just how much I like the Pennsy shells. To begin with the PRR never had a Hudson type wheel arrangement so the shells are pure fantasy, but rule number 1 (it's my railroad and I'll run what I want) applies. Added to that is the fact the loco shell either needs a screw hole drilled or will require special handling. Last but not least...I'm just not sold on the looks. If I want a streamlined locomotive I'll just lease one of the N&W Class J's since I have two of them now.

Which brings me to my second purchase of the weekend:

I saw N&W 601 in it's Spectrum jewel case with the tag "does not run" on it for $40 on Friday when I was helping the club set up for the show. Saturday it was still there. I tried really hard to talk myself out of it, but when it was still there on Sunday I finally asked the man about it. He didn't know what was wrong with it, it was a used locomotive that he had gotten in a lot. I bought it and took the shells off the loco and tender only to find the left wire was off the tender plug.

A couple of seconds work with the soldering iron and lo and behold, it runs beautifully! The headlight doesn't work (the backup light does) so it still needs a bit of TLC(EDIT: One wire off the light board, a touch with the soldering iron and everything is fully operational), but $40 for an operational Spectrum J class is a pretty good deal. I'll probably just replace the entire wiring harness like I did with the 611, the original wiring harness are junk in my opinion. I even have a decoder to go into it!

The weekend concluded with a Veterans Day dinner at McCormick and Schmicks with my lovely and generous wife who let me play trains all weekend with nary a complaint. She had other things to do so she wasn't sitting alone at home being a model train widow, so I'm certain that helped. She didn't complain about my purchases, either, although she did remark that I had more things to pull with than I had things to pull.

This is absolutely true, so perhaps I need to invest in some N&W passenger cars...two sets of them now since I have two locomotives to pull them. I also have an Erie PA1 in the mail, the kind her great grandfather drove after the Erie retired his beloved Pacific, so I'll have to find some cars for it to pull as well. When I said as much she agreed, so I have her consent (another reason why she is just so awesome).

Life just doesn't get any better than this.