Winding down

I went to the train show today. As usual I spent more than I intended, but did OK. I did find the two Conrail SD40 locos I mentioned in my last post, along with one of their CP Rail stable mates. These locos are made by Kato, one of the better brands. They cost about 50% more than the cheaper brands, but run like a watch and are very reliable. To my mind they strike a good balance between quality/features and cost. Rick (the guy I buy a lot of my stuff from), somehow managed to get his hands on several brand new Conrail locos even though they haven't made them for at least 3 - 4 years, the boxes look like they came out of the factory yesterday. On the other hand the CP Rail box looks 4 years old, even though the loco inside still new. I also picked up one more BN loco, a GP35 #2521. These are smaller diesels widely used for branch line and yard service. I already have two very similar GP30's made by another company, but am discovering they aren't so reliable. I've had to repair both once so far and am currently working on one for the second time. Hopefully the Kato GP35 will work out better. If so, I will seek out it's sister the #2522 during future shows. I originally intended to buy just the two Conrail's, but decided since the other two Kato's are so hard to find that I should pick them up while the opportunity presents itself. Yes, I more than likely could find them on eBay (where I've purchased about 1/2 my locos to date) at a later date, but this way I could touch and see the product and didn't have to mess around with shipping.

To my surprise I found some very nice Cargill vegetable oil and corn syrup tankers. I also bought an assortment of covered hoppers and a couple flat car kits (w/ real wooden floors! Curious to see how they go together. Kits are becoming less and less common with the availability of cheap labor in China). I saw some container cars I liked, but decided to hold off on buying them, trusting they will still have them in the fall. You may recall, one of the big goals today to try to finish up the grain and coal unit trains I mentioned in my last post. I found one more coal car, so the coal car collection will nicely fill one tub with 16 cars total. All said and done I wound up with 18 of the Canadian grain cars. One vendor had 5 of the cars left and offered a special price if I took them all. This won't pose a problem since I have some American grain cars too, so I'm already using two tubs. Something about reaching these two milestones has helped me to feel more relaxed tonight.

After getting back and making up some dinner I sat down and watched a movie. Something I haven't done for a good month or more. Tonight's pick - Antitrust. I don't suppose it will go down in history as one of the world's greatest movies, but I like the friendship shown between the four guys involved in the startup company at the beginning. How many people do you know who would go out on a limb like that for you?