What are you buying this month? (September 2023)

[Maurice]

I went to the first day of English's Model Railroad Shop going out of business 20% off sale. Up early on my day off for an hour and a half drive to be there when they opened at 9:00 A.M. A line at the cash register most of the morning. If you haven't heard of them, they are the brick and mortar side of Bowser Manufacturing and Toy Train Heaven online model railroad sales. The English family has been in the hobby shop business for 53 years. Only the hobby shop is closing, Bowser and Toy Train Heaven will continue. The last day of September will be the last day the shop will be open. The train repair shop will not accept anything for repair after September 9th. Any pre-orders will be handled through Toy Train Heaven. This information all came from what they said today in the shop and their Facebook post. I am not in any way affiliated with them, just a satisfied but sad customer.
My haul was not as much as I hoped. Mainly because I don't really need much right now and what I did need they were mainly out of. I needed Peco Code 55 flex track and they were out. I was also hoping to get the latest book by Mike Bednar but no luck. Here is what I did get:
20230905_124856.jpg The 1:64 scale 1969 Mustang Mach I was for my display cabinet because I had two when I was younger. A 1970 in the color combo of this model and a 1969 in primer. N-scale magazine to see what might be new with them. The Chooch detail for the Air Products fabrication lot on my main layout. The micro-brushes I use a a lot. The HO-scale ladders and water column are for modeling the grain delivery pipe from the grain elevator on my micro layout. The Cal-Scale air horns Details Associates sun shades are for my free-lance diesels. The Tomar Hayes wheel stops are for the Micro layout (Excelsia). Underneath all the details are two Woodland Scenics grass mats in two different shades of green. I like using these for residential lawns or for quick fill ins of an area.
Cheers all and stay safe. Maurice

[MRLdave]

Hopefully nothing.......I went way too crazy last month. A dozen 224S Caboose ground throws plus 8 222S throws, 5 Atlas Warren 30000gal tank cars, 2 8000gal Cities Services tank cars, a 6 car set of the new Trainworks 4427 hoppers, a pair of the old MT 2 bay Christmas hoppers, a pair of the BLI 3 bay Chistmas hoppers, a MT Milw. stock car, a Blair Line Sunset Motel kit, 3 Oxford farm implements, 8 GHQ kits, an Air-eraser kit from Micromark, plus pre-ordered a new Atlas RSD4/5 DCC-sound, and a Rapido caboose.

[Silent1961]

I've been behind on posting my purchases for a couple of months. In this post, I'll show the oldest acquisitions first until I take pictures of the rest.

A third cross over which will allow my 2 stub ends to have run around capability.

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Another turnout which will connect one of the stub ends into the branch for a third continuous run track making the branch a fully independent loop from the main.

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Another Talgo Pendular set for my Amtrak Cascades project.

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Kato 702 couplers to convert the rapido couplers on the Talgo cars to knuckle.

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A Kato SD40-2 with sound which will become an SD38-2 using a long hood I purchased from Mark 4 Designs years ago as he was closing up shop.
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A Kato SD90/43MAC to run with my 2 CP units in a consist.

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7 NARC BC Rail cars.

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[DanB80]

Absolutely ridiculous lot I scored on eBay, might as well have gotten this for free with how little I payed, but was buying virtually blind with a few pictures that basically went along with the description of '5 boxes of train stuff'
Negotiated to cover the full cost of shipping (40lb over 2 large boxes) so It wasn't cheap even using online shipping vendor but here we have it, more than I can show in the pictures but this will keep my layout going for a loooooooooong time. I may end up selling some of the things I don't need but I am pretty happy about everything.

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[donzi]

From LHS; MT Seaboard 40’ Box.
eBay; Walthers NS Ballast Hopper, WoT ACL Baggage Express Heavyweights, Con-Cor ACL Budd Diner and Observation.
yardsaletrains; Kato Mike bottom cover and E8/9 PCB light board. Bought last month.
Train Show; Plastruct Water Tower.

[SteamPower4ever]

Ndetail finally got etched rail anchors back in stock, so I ordered what I need for my last three modules. And look, they added a few ekstra etch sheets in the package. A lenght of fence and some bicycles, tools and plants. That fence looks really nice.

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[Maurice]

Not much of a haul today from a local train show. A couple of Imex single car garages and some trees. The one item I was looking for, an N-scale Pizza Hut restaurant, was no where to be found.
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[Heiko]

I'm waiting for those Rapido Centerbeam cars to arrive at https://www.nscalesupply.com/rap/rap-rs-centerbeam.html - according to Rapido, they are shipping them, but either RMTS is getting them late or they are still in transit / in the process of unpacking... I have a bunch of them on pre-order since mid 2022.

They then still need to cross the pond and our customs, so I guess I won't be taking pictures until November.

Heiko

[silver69]

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This set is on the way, should have it next week
Kato PRR PA-2/PB-1

[Maurice]

Mostly an order from Hatton's in the U.K. for my Excelsia freelance British-style layout.
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First two Gaugemaster/Kestrel kits. Another level crossing gates and Keepers cottage, because it was cheaper to purchase this kit than the gates separately from other sources. The Station kit will be built in low profile. The Metcalfe "Pillbox" kit are a interesting feature of the U.K. The Javis Scenics dry stone walls are for around the pub. They look good to me and go together well. The Peco Buffer Stops are for the end of the line and the Goods siding. That all came from Hatton's. The two Electronic devices are from Amazon. There is a PWM controller and an A.C. power supply. I have a case for the controller on order from Budget Model Railways. Cheers!

[Woody709acy]

Aside from another 6 packs of Kato 702 couplers to continue replacing the Passenger car Rapidos, I impulse bought a Broadway Ltd Paragon 3/Rolling Thunder E-9A prettied up as a SP 6051. Somehow, though, I had completely missed the info that to run on DC, they start with sound first, and that requires 6 to 8 volts to engage (7.88vDC in my case), then speed is applied with what remains available from the power pack up 16V. I had never checked the voltage range available before I was bummed about a 'low idle' engine, and was surprised to find the MRC's I use were between 10.7 to 14.7 volts max. I am now investigating dedicating one (mostly) isolated route to be converted to minimal DCC, but in the mean time, I have a For Sale sign on this one and will begin my hunt for a Daylight Loc all over.

[Jpgale]

So I had wrist surgery at the end of August. This means I have been unable to do any real layout work, and given the layout was not in operable status when I went in (working on fixing some track issues) I have been unable to run trains. Therefore I have had to make do with spending money instead. So far I have picked up a track speed meter so I can speed match locos, an ESU programmer so as I convert my DCC locos to sound I can program the boards.

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But the spending did not stop there. I was in my local train shop in Santa Clara and I saw some Scale Trains Rivet Counter models that just amazed me, I managed to talk my self out of buying all 4 (which the boss had ok'd) and only got these 2 C44-9W's

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I recently got 2 Kato's with factory sound using the ESU decoder, this is what prompted me to start converting to ESU sound decoders (only 2 need it at the moment) 1 of those was a UP heritage Southern Pacific loco. I like the heritage units so much when I was looking at Kato's website I noticed they had a whole range that makes up most of UP heritage loco fleet from what I can find. So I got most of them. The first 6 are SD70ACe's and the last 2 are SD70M, the last one is to have a matched pair of SD70M's and is standard UP livery.

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I can only add 10 pictures to a post so I will post the SD70M's in another post.

[Jpgale]

The SD70M's

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I also got a few micro trains trucks (like 30) to replace the trucks on Athearn running stock the McHenry couplers will not even stay coupled to themselves and a few of the passenger trucks for the Athearn Caltrain cars I have.

Next week a few more locos will arrive that are a SD70ACe spirit of the UP, standard SD70ACe UP livery and SD70M 4015 which is used with 4014 on the excursion train.

All the new Kato's are standard DC which is how I got permission to do this from the boss, I will order the $1000 of ESU decoders in the near future, I believe streamlined backshop gives a discount when you order 10 or more

I also pre ordered a UP SD90 with factory sound from Fifer's and already have the BLI Challenger and the Kato 4014 Big Boy on pre order.

And I did all this with my wives permission.

[GGNInNScale]

Picked up 6 well cars from The Train Shack in LA. Great guys. Converted the trucks to MT Barber by drilling out the bolster with a 0.077 drill, and used the MT pins with a spacer washer. Made 20 foot and 40 foot containers in my new Anycubic Mono 2 resin printer. I got the base files from S. Savard in Canada (great guy), and added an interior brace to keep the sides from bowing. Added aligning magnets, and a bit of weight. The bummer is that most of my tunnel portals will not clear the double stack... rats!. So, the big question is "do I go after the tunnels with a Dremel, or reprint them in the resin printer..."- stay tuned.

[Maurice]

Squeaking this in just under the wire for September. I really didn't need this but the deal was too good to pass up. Mike Fifer over at Fifer Hobby https://www.fiferhobby.com/ has been selling off a collection he bought and this showed up in the listing at a very good price. All the other listings were American prototype. I had been thinking that I could run a steam locomotive as a preserved group on my Excelsia British layout but the prices of British steam in N-gauge kept that as a dream. The label says it is a "Panier". The unit seems brand new and needs a good run-in. I followed the included instructions to lube it in certain places before running. I guess I should buy some older coaches to run with it now. Cheers!
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