Life is a series of connections for most of us. We all connect with other people from our birth to the end of life; this seems constant. We connect with family first usually, and as we grow that circle of people expands to our extended family, like aunts, our uncles, great-grandparents, grandparents and a sea of cousins.
By the time we enter school, we start making friends and explore other types of connections. We also begin to experience things, like sports and competition, bike riding, flying kites, music, model building, bullies and authority figures outside the home, pets, and all sorts of wonderful (or not) new things.
Understanding life really does not begin until one has their first loved individual pass away. That is when some inkling of what is up in life starts to coalesce in the youthful noggin, at least it was that way for me. As the years fly by, the list of the dear departed has grown in leaps and bounds. Such was my case last week, I lost a dear friend I'd made back in the mid 1970's. He just dropped dead with, as far as I know, no real warning. This happened just a week before we were going to get together, and I'm still in some form of denial, but his absence at our meeting place was noticed by all that attended. Rest In Peace Charlie, thank you for your service, and thank you for many years of friendship.
The Annual Pilgrimage To GEHAMS
We at the Arizona Southern do not travel to many model train swaps these days. We do attend the G.E.H.A.M.S. show in Bakersfield CA whenever the dates and the weather align (meaning I-5 was open over Ft. Tejon pass). This show, though a smaller show, is well attended and has many vendors and layouts on display. I was taken aback by the Z Scale layout, the level of detail on their equipment was amazing to me. Maybe the pricing of several vendors was a tad high, like retail plus, but if one shopped, there were some real bargains to be had. I picked up one ATSF car from Moloco for a very fair price, saving on shipping and such in the process. Checking my cars when I arrived home, I was joyful to see this was NOT a repeat in the road number department; beautiful car.
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| As delivered Topeka built Bx-94 50' XMLI offset doors. |
I also won a cool 'door prize' and that never happens to me, well almost never. It was a RAPIDO model, a UP 40' boxcar in the "Be Specific" scheme from the early 1960's and into the mid 1970's plus. Perfect for my era. Of course 'free' comes with its own set of issues, the metal roofwalk was damaged, crushed a little bit at one end, causing the roofwalk to dislodge from its supports. I could fix it, but it probably would never lay perfectly flat again without major surgery. Bummer to say the least.
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| Click on this stock Rapido image for a larger view. |
Doing some research on the "Fallen Flags" website, I spied a few of this type of car with their roofwalks removed, "A" end ladders shortened, and the "B" end brake still mounted high. Honestly that is one of my more favorite (early-mid 1970's era) configurations, even if the real 'RAILS' were not all that fond of it. Case in point is this car shown below:
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| Click on image for a larger view of this 1979 era photo. |
I also came across some 1960's thru 1970's reweigh stencil decals for 40' and 50' cars and shaped paint patches in several colors from Smokebox Graphics to go along with them. All in all this should be a fun project. I may need to find some 50T Roller Bearing trucks, maybe Tangent?
Thanks for reading this far, feel free to respond, just say hi, or tell me to go pound sand if the mood strikes you.
Best Wishes and Enjoy Your Trains,
John Huey
CEO Arizona Southern RR
