Pride Lines Voltamp

You can't tell me that you haven't seen this wonderful bit of innovation from Pride Lines. Man these guys are good!

Every time I look at that Pride Lines Voltamp Trolley I get Goosebumps. It's actually one of the nicest standard gauge items I have seen produced by any manufacturer.

I can't wait to see the Tinplate Times review on this one!

I wonder what these things will be pulling??


Marc

About a Gazzillion Auctions...

Ok, so there aren't gazillions of auctions. Maybe 3 or 4 really good one's. Here's a nice pic of a really nice bit of power for any layout (Christmas included).

I've seen a few posts on the forums about powering layouts. Something you need to remember: not all trains are AC. Some are DC. Quite a few of the really old one's are DC. Most of the newer transformers are AC. So when an old engine just sits there and buzzes at you.... Don't say I didn't warn ya!

On Dec. 17 (my Brother's Birthday) there's the Westchester, NY Train show... That's actually a pretty good show most of the time. it isn't cheap but they do have a decent selection and walking around that big old county center is kind of fun.

I've been frustrated a bit lately. Quite a few folks are reading the blog but almost nobody is contributing. I was reading an old TTOS bulletin with a very long article that was an interview with Louis Hertz. One thing you could say about him; he was knowledgable and he was very giving with the knowledge or thoughts he had.

I need everyone not to hoard their knowledge, thoughts, pictures of layouts, whatever. Send me your Christmas layout pics, your general layout pics. If you have a favorite train, take a digital picture and send it. If you don't have a camera I have about 10 disposable cameras in my basement. I'll send it to you, take the pics, send it back to me, I'll get the pics developed and post them!

Come on folks, I have been at this for two years and I can count the contributors to the blog on two hands. This isn't the old days. Heck, I work for a company that makes digital cameras. Email me and I promise I will get you a discount on them. I just got a great one for 135 bucks! 7 megapixel, really cool.

If Bobby "Bacala" can play with trains, so can you! Contribute! (Yep, he is my favorite Soprano's character).

"It would be a crying shame to see this blog have an "accident" while it is walking across the tracks (if ya know what I mean)"

Hypothetically speaking of course.

M

Long before eBay....

In the days of yore, long before eBay, people went to "meets" where they purchased standard gauge toy trains cars. The cars were "less than perfect". But that was ok.

Because what the cars became was something else. Again, the above is from an old TTOS bulletin from 31 years ago. The interesting thing is that these cars are still affordable and get-able 24 hours a day on our favorite global flea market (eBay).

Heck, these are some damn nice interurbans. I have decided that I am going to peruse some train shows and the like and make myself one of these. I have at least a dozen cars that merit Interurban capability.

You have to admit these are pretty cool. I've been geeking about these since I saw them.

M

PS Definitions are in order - "Geeking" from the Urban Dictionary -

Overly excited about a simple thing; excited about something that most people would not find exciting.

Example: I'm totally geeking that I won that bean grinder on eBay.

Railroad Express - Check them out!

I've been buying stuff from these guys for a couple of years; they consistently have really cool DVD's of old trolleys, Lionel and Flyer and old trains from the New York Central and the like.

This isn't advertising, just a great vendor that has some very interesting train media.

Check out the link above.

Marc

Happy November!!

Happy November! Ok, it's that time of the year again. The tree is going up soon, the track is getting stacked in the living room and den instead of the attic or basement and we're thinking about trains.

There's a ton of great shows, eBay has standard gauge that doesn't suck and the auctions are numerous. The catalogs are out (and definitely not a disappointment I might add).

There's a whole bunch of newbies running wild on the O gauge forums talking about which MTH item they're going to buy first and on and on.

It's a nice time to play with toy trains. I just had the carpet on my stairs cleaned on the way up to my train room and when I tell you it's a mess, I'm not doing the word justice.

My problem is that I have a limited amount of room, I've tried to straddle back how much stuff I buy and I've started to play with the items I have and I still have just made a huge mess.

Oh yes, the picture caught my eye from an old TTOS Bulletin. It's of some scratchbuilt items. With all of the pictures of Clem's "Stomper" going up I thought everyone might get a kick out of these scratchbuilt items from 30 years ago. I'll post some more later; I just thought these were kind of neat.

M