A Stroll Down Memory Lane...

Discussion in 'General' started by Coonskin, Aug 20, 2019.

  1. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Excellent Patrick!

    What brand is that caboose? I don't recognize the model.

    Andre
     
  2. gna

    gna Member Frisco.org Supporter

  3. gna

    gna Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Last edited: Aug 23, 2019
  4. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Hi Gary!

    Yup, you're right, it's a Revell caboose. Kind of neat.

    The MDC is a nice looking car, but I didn't own one when I was a lot younger, hence the reason I'm watching for the Athearn 50' double door yellow "Ship It" box.

    I do have an MDC that I'd like to have because I can definitely remember having that one when I was but a lad: The 50' plug door UP "Automated Railway" box.

    EDIT: Like this one...

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/B7-Roundho...687269?hash=item33faa8a0a5:g:VEYAAOSwXWhb-Il2

    However, I'm not willing to spend $23.50 for an older boxcar.

    All fer now.

    Andre
     
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  5. gna

    gna Member Frisco.org Supporter

    I went digging through my old stuff tonight. I have some cars from my first set, but they're somewhat the worse for wear:
    IMG_0889.jpg
    It was an AHM set. Some of the cars say Roco, others Mehano.

    I have one of those Athearn 40 foot cars, different number. Here it is with a metal Varney car:

    IMG_0887.jpg
    Unusual striping on the bottom. One of my friends found them at a estate sale and picked them up for me.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2019
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  6. William Jackson

    William Jackson Bill Jackson

  7. patrick flory

    patrick flory Member

    That’s a Revell caboose. It’s an early UP wood prototype. Walthers in recent years offered a less crude model of it. Some of the prototypes had passenger looking trucks. I wish I’d gotten one.

    My own Revell model died a horrible death just like almost all my stuff back then did. When I first had the caboose, at age 12, I loved it because it somewhat resembled the wood cupola hacks still out on the T&NO back home. It was a lot better than the Rivarossi/Lionel bobber that came with the train set.
    But, one day I saw one out on the line painted in grey for MOW service. I had no idea what that was but I had to have it on the layout. So out came the Pactra grey gloss enamel that got brushed on 1/16” thick, so thick you almost couldn’t make out the wood siding lines. Even then I knew I’d done something terribly wrong, but that car lived on for a couple of years until finally, as a somewhat better modeler, I sawed the cupola out for a drovers caboose project that fared a little better.
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2019
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  8. pensive

    pensive Member Frisco.org Supporter

    On page 79 of Nicolas Molo's Frisco/Katy Color Guide to Freight Equipment provides a description of this series of boxcars: "Frisco leased eight-five insulated boxcars from North American Car Corporation, which also built the cars. It was common at the time for the leasee to have their own paint scheme applied to the cars....Initially the cars came with NIRX reporting marks but they eventually received SL-SF marks and retained the original numbers."

    Rich
     
  9. William Jackson

    William Jackson Bill Jackson

    Thank You Rich, I've been wondering about that for many years. Right at our fingers, dummy me !
     
  10. patrick flory

    patrick flory Member

    The MCRR gon arrived and is in service with another stand-in memorabilia car, a black Athearn 40’ pulpwood rack like I had in 1962 and traded away like an idiot early on.

    But I do have two actual veterans from those days. Actually only one that operated back then, a Roundhouse ATSF outside braced wood boxcar with the World’s Worst Weathering Job. It survived only by being separated from the 10 or so other early 60’s surviving cars that , after 40 years of waiting for a layout, died in a fire only a year before I finally started a layout after oh so many years. The ATSF car went through 40 Deep South summers in a 140F attic, but in 2008 was accidentally found in an obscure storage location. I put Intermountain wheels on it, but the original wheels that rolled on the hallowed rail of the original Midland Western over 50 years ago are forever enshrined inside the car and will ride forever on whatever rail I run.

    The other surviving car never ran back then, actually being a hulk I had saved for return to operation but never did ..... until 2012. It was a dayglow yellow 40’ Tyco flatcar with fire engine red UP lettering, from a train set, that someone now forgotten had given to me. I couldn’t stand the color and decoration but I painted it flat black, put on good trucks and Kadee couplers, added scale stirrups and brakewheel, decaled for the Midland Western, and placed in service where it remains to this very day.

    I also have from 1960 a plasticville interlocking tower that survived with the ATSF boxcar. Not the best model, but with a good paint job it too will always hold a place of honor on whatever layout I may have.

    But the longest survivor is not a railroad item at all. It is a little stuffed toy dog I had at age 5 that was there with the first Lionel train and rode in the train set gon. Somehow Ole Red survived all these years and is now the proud watchdog of the Midland Western , watching over the Midland Yard as faithfully as he did the Lionel Lines almost 70 years ago.
     
  11. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

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  12. patrick flory

    patrick flory Member

    0FAFC522-A7F3-4712-A833-1CBEDC50EAF1.jpeg Ole Red - Railroad Watchdog since 1953.
     
  13. Joe Lovett

    Joe Lovett Member

    My daughter has a stuffed puppy that I won at the Tulsa State Fair in the mid 80's. She treasured it for several years. One time we were at a fabric store and she had hidden it in a stack of fabric and started crying when she couldn't find it. We looked everywhere for about a hour until it finally was found. All was right in the world after that.

    Joe
     
  14. patrick flory

    patrick flory Member

    ATSF heritage boxcar from the 1965 Midland Western :

    1. Original 1965 “weathering” job, allowed to remain on one side of the car.:LOL:

    EA4AE4D0-841E-416E-8878-EEDB40EF1EC5.jpeg

    2. Opposite side toned down and reddened with an art pencil to better match new rolling stock. Might yet add some grey with another pencil.

    077CB658-BB90-4B66-88C9-B0242F03AAD6.jpeg
     
  15. patrick flory

    patrick flory Member

    1965 dayglo yellow Tyco survivor. Repainted, decaled, New brakewheel and stirrups.

    60A732F7-2674-44E7-AA84-054009F0BB46.jpeg
     
  16. patrick flory

    patrick flory Member

    Plasticville tower from 1960, repainted a couple of years ago in Iron Mountain colors.

    721DC314-07C5-4DAE-9F4B-FE5EE305C4C1.jpeg
     
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  17. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    So I just scored one of my "nostalgia" cars I've been watching for. Had one like this back in my basement layout in KC in the mid-60s:


    MDC_UP_AutomatedRwy_50ftXM.jpg
    Now I'm down to finding three more Lindberg cars one of each:

    LindbergWantedList.jpg

    Why not use those that I have? Because they're part of that set I purchased (pictured earlier) and they will remain OEM and not modified with Kadee's.

    I haven't decided to whether to find/purchase the yellow "Ship It" double door Athearn 50' box yet. It's build date on the side is stamped 1-65, so it's "iffy" for my era. I didn't own that model back in my KC days, but instead very early-on after my move to Arkansas in '69.

    We shall see!

    Andre
     
  18. rcmck

    rcmck Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Karl and Andre, those trips to Spotlight were wonderful - I relished several of these "blue box" kits.
     

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