Here's a list of some potential locomotive power. I've decided that each of the two 4x8s will be two separate Ruritanian Territorial Railroads; a Lamar Mountains Branch on the first Davis Mountains type 4x8 of terrain, and a Grizzly Range on the more Rocky Mountains type 4x8 railroad. They'll have neighboring offices on the 2x6 connector, and they are somewhat partnered, somewhat rivals; they will share locomotive and yard services. There will also be a third office of a third company; the Ruritanian Territorial Passenger Service, who manage and maintain their own passenger/baggage combination cars that are managed by both the Lamar and Grizzly branches of the greater Ruritanian Territorial Railroad system. Freight can obviously be switched from one to another, depending on where it's going, but passenger cars will also be frequently switched between the two railroads. But the two owners are business partners and sometimes rivals. Secretly, the son of the Lamar Mountains Branch chief and the daughter of the Grizzly Range Branch boss have started dating, however. They are afraid to take their relationship out in the open, fearing the reaction of their fathers, but actually, secretly, both fathers have been wishing that they could marry the two of them together, merge their two little empires, and then retire knowing that their life's work is in good hands. Oh, the irony.
https://www.hobbylinc.com/preiser-couple-walking-model-railroad-figure-ho-scale-28111
Of course, if the Lamar Mountains and Grizzly Ranger Branches combine into a single Ruritanian Territorial Railroad, little would change other than the even more open combination of routes, engines and cars between the two pikes... but realistically, of course, I'd probably most like to run long trains that do a big loop across both of them, if I'm just sitting there running trains. But in the meantime, it gives me the opportunity to do things a bit differently between them. One of them will probably be the standard black locomotives with a silvery front, but in many other countries, and on a few lines in America, painted locomotives weren't necessarily uncommon. In America, they mostly changed to black in the late 1880s because coal became commonplace, which created a lot of black soot and grime. But, perhaps not ironically, the Texas State Railroad
still ran some colored locos; one that has an olive green boiler and red roof on the cab is particularly striking to me. Maybe that can be the Grizzly Range colors.
For whatever reason, probably because so few modelers are into the very smaller stuff, getting good small steam locomotives in HO scale isn't very easy. I hope that it's not too hard to convert older engines to DCC, because that would be the best way to do this. But we'll see.
First off, here's a USRA 0-6-0 that is DCC already. There are actually quite a few available, but most of them have sloping tenders. That was a design specifically so these could run switching operations, because it was easier to see around the tender, and its lower capacity wasn't a big deal when you don't leave the yard. But if I'm using small locos like this to haul short run loads, I don't want any slope-backed tenders. Here's one that's got a short run tender.
The image below isn't quite right; it's marked for a different railroad and has a slightly different tender, but it's close enough. Better yet, click on the link, of course.
The one below is a Vanderbilt tender, which I'd love to use even more, but it isn't DCC enabled. Like I said; I don't know how hard or expensive it would be to convert it, though. I could have one 0-6-0 with a different tender and different paint job for each of the two RRs.
This one is an old wood-burning affair, but I think it'd be fun to have one between the two.
https://www.amazon.com/Bachmann-51007-STEAM-American-Santa/dp/B097WR9G32?sr=8-8
I also want two Heislers, because there's a Rivarossi 2-truck DCC model available right now. I don't care quite as much about the line, because I'll paint over that and add custom decals, but one has a bonnet stack and one as stovepipe stack. One will belong to each of the lines.
https://www.amazon.com/Rivarossi-Heisler-Locomotive-Railroad-HR2946/dp/B0CBQWCFY1?sr=8-6&ufe=INHOUSE_INSTALLMENTS%3AUS_IHI_5M_HARDLINES_AUTOMATED
https://www.amazon.com/Rivarossi-Heisler-Locomotive-Company-HR2947/dp/B0CBQXD5DT?sr=8-3&ufe=INHOUSE_INSTALLMENTS%3AUS_IHI_5M_HARDLINES_AUTOMATED
The real trick is these older brass models, however. Not only are they really expensive, but they're old; they'll need DCC conversion, if it's even doable. I'd love to give one camelback to each railroad, and there's an 0-4-0 and an 0-6-0 option (actually, others too, but those are what I'd focus on.)
https://www.brasstrains.com/Classic/Product/Detail/180121/HO-Brass-Model-OMI-1511-RDG-Philadelphia-Reading-0-4-0-Camelback-Switcher-Unpainted-1989-Run-M-S-Models
https://www.brasstrains.com/Classic/Product/Detail/180763/HO-Brass-Model-OMI-1500-CNJ-Jersey-Central-B-3a-0-6-0-Camelback-Switcher-9-23-Unpainted-1989-Run-M-S-Models
And finally, two other small geared steam; a Climax and a Shay; I'd love to have one for each.
I've made my locomotive power into quite the expensive endeavor, though; I'd easily spend $3-4,000 on engines alone, plus whatever time (and additional money) needed to convert some of them to DCC by adding decoders, painting, weathering and getting them actually ready to run. Yikes. But when I'm done, both lines have four locomotives each, plus an extra old-fashioned 4-4-0 floating around between them. If I could get a JW Bowker I'd almost like that even better; a bit smaller than the old late 1800s 4-4-0s, but similar look and vintage. I could also go with a foreign loco; something like Britain's City of Truro built in 1903, so it doesn't look so old-fashioned, but repainted to look more American might be interesting. After all, this is the Ruritanian railroad system; they're not necessarily any more American than Canada is, because it's a territorial extension of an independent Republic of Texas. They'd be culturally probably even more American than the Canadians, because they do have the history of having their ancestors fight for America in the Revolutionary War, but politically, economically and socially and most importantly technologically they can go their own way in any way that I presume to want them to.
Of course, that assumes that I can find an HO scale City of Truro. That may be easier said than done given that the loco was a very specifically British affair, and Britain is a heavy user of the OO scale rather than HO scale. The track gauge might be the same, but the models are not.
Anyway, that's enough for now. When I come back, maybe some discussion on rolling stock...
No comments:
Post a Comment