Hello all! I am an HO scale modeler in Southern Idaho, and I am beginning the adventure of modeling a railroad that is not local to me... The club I am treasurer of desperately needs some diversity of road names. I am looking forward to learning and participating in this fine forum. Regards, John
Welcome to the forum. Many years ago I did a coast to coast bicycle trip. We traversed the southern portion of Idaho, entering the state from Oregon somewhere around Boise. It was beautiful. Enjoy the forum.
So what does your club layout model? NP, GN, WP, ??? When I was younger and could see N scale, I modeled the WP and NP. They are both really cool railroads.
We run kind of a mix of all the Western Roads. We have a whole mess of BN, SF, BNSF, UP, SP, and Rio Grande folks. No Eastern or Midwest roads. I snagged a NIB, still wrapped set of Proto 2000 Alco FA-1 and FB-1 lettered for the Frisco in B&Y about two months ago. Started doing some research, wound up here, and that was all she wrote. The SLSF is apparently the scrappy underdog of the Class I roads, and I like it.
The Athearn 60044 SD40-2 replacement gears will work fine but need a very little reaming to for without cracking the gears.
Welcome aboard! This forum is a great resource for just about any area and era of the Frisco. If you want to go in the direction of Frisco equipment showing up with those western roads, or more specifically on the UP in Idaho, check out this thread: http://frisco.org/shipit/index.php?threads/frisco-run-through-operations.13399/ Beyond that, that FA/FB set is a good starting point. As your budget allows, I would recommend a locomotive or two in the Frisco's other paint scheme consisting of Mandarin orange and white. There's still some of the new Rapido U25B's available out there.
