Painting and decorating...........

[rogertra]

Nice modelling Wayne, very nice in fact.   

Cheers

Roger T.

[J3a-614]

Here's a locomotive, two of which I bought by mail-order many years ago (pre-internet era).  Hobbys For Men, in Beacon, NY offered them for, if I recall correctly, six bucks apiece. . . .

A quick test run....well, attempt at a test run, was equally disappointing.  The locos had a pancake-style motor mounted atop one truck, and would move, rocket-like, only an inch or two at a time.  . . .

When LifeLike later released their Proto2000 series of locomotives, I dubbed mine LifeLike proto-no-thousands.

Wayne

What a nostalgia trip to the "goodle days!"  RS-11s for six bucks!  Of course, look what you wound up with--and yet, look what you could eventually get, with persistence and vision.

Made me think of how many people worked around Mantua 4-6-2s (loosely based on a B&O P-7c), Mantua 2-8-2s (freelanced version of a large, modern Mike), the Pennsy steam from Bowser (plus a UP 4-6-6-4 and an NYC 4-6-2), MDC's die cast engines, and of course Athearn Blue Box units, and Rivarossi's various locomotives (including for a long time the only E-units you could get in plastic).  

I do miss some of this, like the Bowser steam power (bullet proof as you could come in model locomotives, and repairable, too), but I won't argue about how much things have improved in the last 30 years or so.

Now, where are those wonderful threads by Jonathan where he was working on a Mantua Mike and that Varney Dockside he inherited from his grandfather, the latter such an iconic part of HO in the past?

EDIT:  Some of the photos are gone and some links might be dead, but here we go:

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,12823.0.html

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,11331.0.html

We are, of course, more than locomotive modelers:

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,12480.0.html

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,20371.0.html

[RAM]

Hobbies for men.  One of my first mail orders.  $39.00 for a ATSF 4-8-4 or 2-10-4. We are sorry but it is out of stock, we will apply the money to your next order.  The next thing I knew was they went belly up. 

[on30gn15]

They look good. Your colorful 4-6-0 brings to mind a photo in a book, somewhere over there on the shelf, where a little short line's little steamer is described as having green cab and bright orange lettering. Also noted was their caboose with a large chimney cap.
That's one of those things where you wonder why that has stuck so strongly in your memory.

Finish on GP20 looks good.

Way back in the 1970s I was doing military models with youthful zeal when my logic realized, "Hey! trains are models that do things!" and I was hooked.
Are no photos of it, and the model is gone, my first locomotive repaint in early 1980s was redoing a Bachmann Santa Fe F-unit for a freelance road in blue with white trim.

Hmm, I wonder if anyone makes lady engineer figures, so the engineer for Doris can be Doris?  

[on30gn15]

"Proto-no-power" dummies, hehehe! Though initially disappointing, that's a cool story and it sounds like there was a lot of fun had in the detailing them.

Looking at those two depots, wonder how many people have how many of that Atlas depot and that Rico depot, which the plastic kit of has changed hands several times, painted in how many different colors?
Last summer I picked up the Bachmann Plasticville switch tower kit in box from one of the second hand stores here in town. Plan is to fix it up with some window sashes cut open, a floor, a figure up there, and a light, and use it on home layout, just because.

[electrical whiz kid]

Wayne;
Very good work; all nicely done!  I have seen 'Novelty iron Works" here and there over the last ten or so years, but never gave it too much thought for one reason or another.  I do a lot with Rail Design Assoc.  kits.  One I picked up not too long ago was the 'Witch Hazel" plant.  The original one is in Essex, Ct; but I think they took the design from the building that sits in Essex Depot (Valley Railroad).  I built it, and am very satisfied with it.  I am wondering how difficult it would be to kit-bash Novelty Iron with say, Delaney Iron Works.  It looks like an interesting kit-bash; or even Novelty and Matthews Machine Works (Looks suspiciously like Mason Locomotive Works, originally in Taunton, Mass.).

Rich C.