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Princess Valiant

A.K.A. Rainy Day Auto
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It has been a very big surprise recently for me to find out how many Railfans and model railroaders are on FABO.

this is a surprise bcoz i am starting to think that the genetic DNA strand that appears in a Railfan often overlaps to match that of a car fan.

i say this bcoz model railroading is the only other hobby i have ever had other than the cars. sadly i sold all my model railroad stuff a few years ago to fund a 4 speed swap in one of my darts. However the railfan aspect of me still lingers in my heart.....and i still share the excitement of the rails with many i have met here.

So why post this here? who cares ...right? LOL
Well, the Rails have a lot to do with Chrysler corp.

Few ppl know that in 1949 Chrysler actually built a Locomotive, a full sized one would have made sense bcoz their competitor GM did and still does. The chrysler Locomotive had some very unique "else world" marvel comic styling.

Locomotives have influenced the design of automobiles....lets look at the Chrylser Airflow.

Freight trains have been bringing the latest mopar models from the factory to our local dealers for years

Sadly, like in my own hobby experience ......the rise of the automobile made for the death of a large segment of the rails in the United States through the late 50s to the 70s.

For those who are Railfans come join us in this thread about all things Railroad and for those who not railfans....yet ....maybe we can get you interested.

Dont forget to post your pics on all things regarding the rails , wether its steam, first Gen diesel .....all the way to modern :toothy9:
 

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Yup I have alot of N-gauge, engines, rail cars, buildings etc from 30 yrs ago
 
I was a member of this club for years. You think the car hobby is expensive.
It pales in comparison.


http://www.palivesteamers.org/


wow ...i hear that ...even in the H.O. gauge i used be into ...the pure brass equipment was very very spendy. its a hobby you can definately get involved with.

i was a kid so i used to stick my cheap plastic stuff LOL .....i loved the tyco products from the 80s and i had a lot of Athern and Bachmann .....good stuff for a kid LOL
 
wow ...i hear that ...even in the H.O. gauge i used be into ...the pure brass equipment was very very spendy. its a hobby you can definately get involved with.

i was a kid so i used to stick my cheap plastic stuff LOL .....i loved the tyco products from the 80s and i had a lot of Athern and Bachmann .....good stuff for a kid LOL

A lot of those locomotives start out in the twenty thousand dollar range.
 
:crybaby:I had a whole attic built just for my trains . If I remember right I had like 10 sheets of 2X4's with nothing but tracks , depots , side spurs , tunnels , everything I could buy went into my toys . Sold them when I had to move .
 
:crybaby:I had a whole attic built just for my trains . If I remember right I had like 10 sheets of 2X4's with nothing but tracks , depots , side spurs , tunnels , everything I could buy went into my toys . Sold them when I had to move .


any pics ?
 
Rani... Thanks for starting this thread.. this will be awesome... And I agree with OMR... the train hobby is EXPENSIVE lol.. I am a life long Lionel collector.. (I was born into that as my dad has a HUGE collection) .. and theres nothing cheap about it LOL .. so I have to split my hobby money frequently between the trains and the Dart... My dad also got me into being a rail fan.. I love going and watching trains, and just getting into the history of trains... this thread should be a lot of fun...
 
Great thread, Rani! I've gotta agree with you about the genetic thing with trains. My dad was an Engineer for Union Pacific Railroad so I know I inherited a love of all things railroad from him. Unfortunately, he passed way too young at 44 years of age when I was only 7 years old. But the love of trains was already set at my young age. Both of my kids also have it today.
I still have the Lionel set I got for Christmas shortly after I turned 3 - yeah, sure it was for me! LOL. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad setting up train and us running it around the tracks. I've had a train around the Christmas tree almost every year.
To this day, I enjoy watching the trains go by whenever I get stopped at a road crossing.
And I love to travel by train. I did a lot of train travel when I was younger since one of the benefits of him working for Union Pacific was the entire family could travel for free aboard Union Pacific passenger trains. We still had our UP passes after he died so it was always inexpensive to travel to see relatives in other states. Two consecutive summers my mom and I traveled cross-country from SoCal to the east coast. The first summer we traveled east across the US, up the east coast to Canada, west across Canada and down the west coast back home. The following summer we reversed the route. Great memories.
Today's train travel is still fun but not nearly as elegant as it was back in late '50s and early '60s. If you ever get a chance I highly recommend traveling up the west coast from Los Angeles to Seattle on the Coast Starlight. I did this about 10 years ago and it was great!
 
1969 Plymouth commercial featuring a train, cars were vulnerable to damage during rail transport in those days. If you watch the video, the song was based on a popular tune of the day called "Sundays will never be the same".

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFBP063uTgQ"]1969 Plymouth Commercial - YouTube[/ame]
 
1969 Plymouth commercial featuring a train, cars were vulnerable to damage during rail transport in those days. If you watch the video, the song was based on a popular tune of the day called "Sundays will never be the same".

how funny that those days, they used a caboose on a freighter .......days long gone. :tongue7:
 
I started an N Scale layout about 18 years ago and unfortunately, I never did finish it. A move from Missouri to Michigan stopped all activity. The layout came with us, but that was about it. If you look close, you will see where I cut it into modules for the move. The first image was in Missouri and the balance in Michigan.

DCC was just coming out and I lost interest because my layout was antiqated... check out all of the switches on the control board.

My layout is gone. I kept the motive power, rolling stock and structures however. Kato, Atlas and Micro-Trains were my favorite.

I will pick up on the hobby again. Good memories with my kids too.
 

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The Engine in the OP looks like a Chrysler. lol

Dilley, your layout looks like one I saw in an old Atlas train layout catalog. It also seems that you've made excellent use of a number of Atlas blocking and turnout switches. Nice stuff. :thumbup:
 
Just to clarify for those who may not know .....

a brief summary to define a term i use a lot: first Gen Diesel

an extremely brief timeline:

1. First was steam locomotives ....often identified by the number of wheels

2. stream liners were still steamers but were dressed up to look more foward....this is mainly bcoz in the 1930s diesels were coming and the writing was on the wall that the "new" diesels could replace steam.

3. First Gen diesel: i would say broadly mid 30s to the mid 50s

4. diesel Locos: they became more boxy and stodgy looking from broadly the early 60s into the late 80s maybe early 90s

5. Modern: early to mid 90s started the wider cabs and are common to what your going to see if you go train watching right now

there were hundreds of variations but this is a very broad timeline for those who didn't know
remember im trying to convert non-rail fans to railfans through awareness LOL :D and anyone can chime in to clarify or add to this. :sign7:
 

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I started an N Scale layout about 18 years ago and unfortunately, I never did finish it. A move from Missouri to Michigan stopped all activity. The layout came with us, but that was about it. If you look close, you will see where I cut it into modules for the move. The first image was in Missouri and the balance in Michigan.

DCC was just coming out and I lost interest because my layout was antiqated... check out all of the switches on the control board.

My layout is gone. I kept the motive power, rolling stock and structures however. Kato, Atlas and Micro-Trains were my favorite.

I will pick up on the hobby again. Good memories with my kids too.


i remember DCC was spendy ....not sure about now but i remember 60-70 bucks a locomotive for H.O. gauge....it was wayyyy more than i could afford at the time.... i was a pup.

i remember the proto-2000s locos that came with a factory DCC module already in place ......that was magical the way you could make them switch the lights on and off and have so much control. LOL

For those who dont know: DCC was a control system for the model locomotives so that you can have multiple units on the same track yet command each one to do something different even from a shared power source through the track itself. :sign7:
 
LOL, very cool thread kid. I work for a rail road. I'm not into modeling them or such collecting of loco's. The best I've had was a set around the Christmas tree. At the job. Our loco's are EMD units from GM and Kawasaki's.
 
how funny that those days, they used a caboose on a freighter .......days long gone. :tongue7:


I always though Caboose's were neat when I was a kid.. in fact in my lionel collection I have made it a point to collect differant PRR cabooses... Luckily I was able to watch trains with Caboose's into my teen years.. They went the way of the dinasour in the 80's when advancements in technology, the advent of the EOT's (End Of Train devices... also known as FRED's).. mixed with railroads attempting to save money by reducing crews on frieght trains, (caboose's were considered non-revenue cars) made the caboose no longer needed.... me though.. I still wish they ran them.. lol
 
1969 Plymouth commercial featuring a train, cars were vulnerable to damage during rail transport in those days.

I can attest to that. I can remember back in the late 70's when I first started driving truck I was on rt 1 in New Jersey near the Skyway bridge near Newark and the airport. There are a ton of rail lines in that area. As I approached one of those lines I saw a string of open auto rack cars, it could have been 7 or 8 cars. What caught my eye was that every car on the top level were convertibles! Whether they were built that way or not! Yup, all that was left were bent back windshields and no roofs! I guess the dispatcher didn't take into account that at that there wasn't as much clearance for triple level cars. That had to be a big bill to pay off.

On another note, has anyone heard that the UP is looking into the psooibility of restoring a Bigboy to steam? There are several articles on this on Trains magazine website. This would definitely make me take a trip out west to see this thing run. I'm already a fan of UP's steam program and the other big power they had like the Centennials. I'm an N-scaler and most of my stuff is centered around the UP and also the Pennsy.
Here's a link to the Bigboy story

http://trn.trains.com/Railroad News...to restore Big Boy for excursion service.aspx
 
1969 Plymouth commercial featuring a train, cars were vulnerable to damage during rail transport in those days.

I can attest to that. I can remember back in the late 70's when I first started driving truck I was on rt 1 in New Jersey near the Skyway bridge near Newark and the airport. There are a ton of rail lines in that area. As I approached one of those lines I saw a string of open auto rack cars, it could have been 7 or 8 cars. What caught my eye was that every car on the top level were convertibles! Whether they were built that way or not! Yup, all that was left were bent back windshields and no roofs! I guess the dispatcher didn't take into account that at that there wasn't as much clearance for triple level cars. That had to be a big bill to pay off.

On another note, has anyone heard that the UP is looking into the psooibility of restoring a Bigboy to steam? There are several articles on this on Trains magazine website. This would definitely make me take a trip out west to see this thing run. I'm already a fan of UP's steam program and the other big power they had like the Centennials. I'm an N-scaler and most of my stuff is centered around the UP and also the Pennsy.
Here's a link to the Bigboy story

http://trn.trains.com/Railroad News...to restore Big Boy for excursion service.aspx


As far as roadnames, the Pennsy will always be my favorite railroad.. Though the UP had (has) some cool stuff.. i got to stand next to a big boy when I was a little kid at Steam Town (they used to be in New England.. Vermont if I remember right.. before they moved to North Eastern Pa..) ... I just remember being completely blown away at how MASSIVE that locomotive is.. I hope the rumors are true.. That would be something to see a Big Boy Steaming again...
 
When I was a kid my dad had some really nice N scale stuff. Now its all in boxes in his garage. :( We really did a lot with it as father and son. I got so hooked on that I couldnt pay attention in 4th grade because my classroom window faced the train tracks and there were always trains passing by. That was in Biloxi in the early 70's, when we moved to England in 1973 we used British Rail for lots of travel and saw a lot of Europe from a train. We were also in an English model RR club there and used to love watching them move and switch all the cars.

Later in life I spent a lot of time riding trains across Russia to jobs, its always been a great way to sight-see for me.
 
when i was in the hobby one of the things that was huge for me and as important as the trains themselves, is actually the stations.
One day it will be worth a trip across the country just to see the remains of the great stations.

the one station that is the Grand Daddy King Station in my books is the Penn Station. This station had me captivated for years. a true testament to American opulance and general "shoot for the stars" attitude.

even if i would have modeled this station it would have only been a portion ...a correct scale version in H.O. gauge would prolly fill an average bedroom ....thats how grand spectacular this was.

Sadly Penn Station was torn down in the early 60s to be completely gone by 1965. This structure raised awarness in the US that a need is present to preserve original Architecture and Heritage.

Now all that remains of the original structure is a few original platforms still used by AMTRAK under the current day Madison Square Gardens in New York city.

what had me soooooo Captivated was the magic of this structure and the times ....now we can only imagine ...but WOW what a imaginary thought.

the original floor had a gold toned glisten so imagine walking in there to catch your train to the west and seeing this opulance that surely looked beyond anything earthly. Honestly for me.....this is how i imagine heaven will look for me. :D
 

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I'd be afraid to step into a place like that . I'd feel that I had to take off my shoes , or more !
 
Speaking of Diesels... Here are some model RR Live Diesels!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC2o335FFUg"]World First 3 Live Diesel Locomotives Running Together at RailExpo 2011 - YouTube[/ame]
 
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