My Father's H.O. Scale Trains.

[$ally]

Wow, see what happens when you post in FL? You never know who will be an expert in some obscure area.
The photograghs are great too.

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

Most Big Boy models are modified from the factory to work on most HO track. I read somewhere that a totally accurate HO Big Boy model would require a track with turns no tighter than a 40" radius, which is impractical for a home railroad.

Beautiful models! If you don't have a railroad setup, I've seen one fellow who made wall-mounted display cases with the locomotives and cars on short sections of track, and glass or plexi covers to show them off but keep them from getting dusty.

 

[Diamondback]

Wow, see what happens when you post in FL? You never know who will be an expert in some obscure area.

Hope you weren't confusing me with "expert"--I knew of the ML4000 enough to recognize it on sight (ads for it were all over model railroad mags in the '80s/early-'90s, which I've been building a library of for a while), but it still took some quick Googling to come up with the background data.

Dominic positively ID'ed more than I could have hoped to.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

This, from what I'm told, is an H.O. replica of a Los Angeles trolley car. This particular one has had a little history applied to it. . . . Literally! My paternal grandfather was a mechanic on those same trolleys (I have the Waltham pocket watch he used at the time), and this one has been painted with the actual paint that was used on them. My grandfather had brought some of it home and my father hand-painted this car with it.

When my brother and I dug out the trolley for photographing, he found this in the strongbox we keep our father's trains and tools in. Mark noticed that the box has never been opened.

Lee

 

[Diamondback]

Lee, Jordan still makes those trucks.

That streetcar's what's called a PCC car, so called because it was designed by a committee of the presidents of transit agencies from around the country.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCC_streetcar

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Thank you, DB. I did not know that.


Lee

 

[Diamondback]

One of the reasons I dropped TRAINS Magazine was the overcoverage (IMO) of those little things, that's how I know 'em. I can understand a little, since they're railborne and historical, but they ain't trains...

Very cool that your dad used actual prototype paint. I'd give my eyeteeth for a supply of original 1938 NYC Dreyfuss light and dark grays and Opex blue, myself...