03-27-2009, 05:55 AM
My apologies for not taking pictures of them all...but I just figured out how to adjust pictures for web posting yesterday, so now that I know how, I'll take some pictures of the engines.
It's kinda funny...most of the engines I've bought were bought for a specific reason, and very few because the price was so great. So it's hard deciding which one to let go as each fills a specific need on the layout. The tie-breaker will be which diesels won't be converted to DCC (or really can't be converted due to frame or space limitations), those engines I'll probably try to part with. It's more accurate to call my roster a "collection" since I bought engines without regard to a particular time period I was modeling, but instead, the qualities the diesel possessed or what they meant to the overall advancement of the technology. I basically cover the diesel years and mostly almost exclusively start from the "transition" years and go to present day. But it's funny, or maybe heartening is a better word, that so many older diesel models are still plying the rails somewhere in the country. So for me to have many older diesels isn't too "unprototypical" as it might seem. Somewhere, somebody is running a GP7 or GP30, an F7 or E8. My railroad staff just rationalizes that those engines are making the trip to my layout for repair or refurbishment. That little bending of reality gives us all the license we need to see some great older engines in older colors ride the rails next to the newest diesels in the latest paint schemes. And the good news is that in real life, once defunct RRs are starting up again...Central of Georgia comes to mind. It makes me wonder just how hard would it be to start a very small regional RR that would feed into the larger mainlines like NS or CSX around my part of the country. Not that I have any operational experience to do that...but it is something to thing about. Wonder just how hard it is to get your license to run a diesel? Hmmmmm.
It's kinda funny...most of the engines I've bought were bought for a specific reason, and very few because the price was so great. So it's hard deciding which one to let go as each fills a specific need on the layout. The tie-breaker will be which diesels won't be converted to DCC (or really can't be converted due to frame or space limitations), those engines I'll probably try to part with. It's more accurate to call my roster a "collection" since I bought engines without regard to a particular time period I was modeling, but instead, the qualities the diesel possessed or what they meant to the overall advancement of the technology. I basically cover the diesel years and mostly almost exclusively start from the "transition" years and go to present day. But it's funny, or maybe heartening is a better word, that so many older diesel models are still plying the rails somewhere in the country. So for me to have many older diesels isn't too "unprototypical" as it might seem. Somewhere, somebody is running a GP7 or GP30, an F7 or E8. My railroad staff just rationalizes that those engines are making the trip to my layout for repair or refurbishment. That little bending of reality gives us all the license we need to see some great older engines in older colors ride the rails next to the newest diesels in the latest paint schemes. And the good news is that in real life, once defunct RRs are starting up again...Central of Georgia comes to mind. It makes me wonder just how hard would it be to start a very small regional RR that would feed into the larger mainlines like NS or CSX around my part of the country. Not that I have any operational experience to do that...but it is something to thing about. Wonder just how hard it is to get your license to run a diesel? Hmmmmm.
Mark
Citation Latitude Captain
--and--
Lt Colonel, USAF (Retired)
Citation Latitude Captain
--and--
Lt Colonel, USAF (Retired)