The Carolina Sandhills Lines in HO Scale

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Those really are Lookers.

I wish they existed in N!!!

[Point353]

My three B36-7s arrived today.

Didn't those locos get the nickname 'pig boats' - a combination of piggyback and the old GE loco U-boat moniker -  since they were often assigned to power inter-modal trains?

[Ian MacMillan]

Man those -7s look amazing. I was pondering them before I picked up my ol'e favorite GP40-2LW's for the AN recently in its much much more scaled down form.

[davefoxx]

Didn't those locos get the nickname 'pig boats' - a combination of piggyback and the old GE loco U-boat moniker -  since they were often assigned to power inter-modal trains?

I never heard the term,"pig boat," but that certainly doesn't mean that it didn't happen.  I'm no expert, but I have heard B-Boat.  When I think of SBD B36-7s, I definitely think of hot intermodal trains racing up and down the A-Line.

DFF

[davefoxx]

Man those -7s look amazing. I was pondering them before I picked up my ol'e favorite GP40-2LW's for the AN recently in its much much more scaled down form.

@Ian MacMillan,

I love those GP40-2LWs!  The Aberdeen, Carolina & Western Ry. has a few on its roster, and is one of the lines that I model.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1322286

Unfortunately, though, I model the 1983-86 era, which means that the AC&W didn't exist yet.  It was still the Aberdeen & Briar Patch Ry. at that time.  No GP40-2LWs for me. 

DFF

[Ian MacMillan]

@Ian MacMillan,

I love those GP40-2LWs!  The Aberdeen, Carolina & Western Ry. has a few on its roster, and is one of the lines that I model.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1322286

Unfortunately, though, I model the 1983-86 era, which means that the AC&W didn't exist yet.  It was still the Aberdeen & Briar Patch Ry. at that time.  No GP40-2LWs for me. 

DFF

Dave, I'm around 2008 now so I can use River Point trucks. Plenty of 2LWs to go around as beat 2nd hand units.

[davefoxx]

With my new Rapido B36-7s, I JFRTed this holiday weekend:





DFF

[Missaberoad]

You J-Farted? 

Looking good! Those would look sweet with a juice train! 

[davefoxx]

You J-Farted? 

Haha!  I thought the same thing as I typed it.  So, I left it. 

Looking good! Those would look sweet with a juice train! 

Thanks, I've gotta get one of those in HO scale!

DFF

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Dats hot.

[Vince P]

Great looking B-Boats Dave

[John]

Dave .. looking great .. if I could offer a couple of variations for the drop leaf ..

1) Use a re-rerail track across the gag .. expoxied to the cork, or even better, some wood the same thickness as the cork -- you can then cut it in half right at the gap ..

2) instead of #1, consider soldering 3 or 4 PC board ties on each side of the gap .. also epoxied to the cork

[davefoxx]

I've commissioned Jeff at Shawmut Car Shops to create some custom decals for the Seaboard Central, with the approval of David Popp at Model Railroader Video Plus.  As some of you may recall, the original Seaboard Central was a project layout in Model Railroader in the mid-1980s.  They actually created a paint scheme and decorated a few locomotives.  Cody Grivno did a heritage unit several years ago.  The original paint scheme is the middle unit in the photo below, and the heritage unit is at right:



Here's our test sample of the decal size from the artwork put up on Episode 3 of Ask MRVP a few years ago:



I bought an Atlas GP40 in Rock Island bankruptcy blue yesterday with ESU Loksound for a really good price, so my first attempt will be a patched locomotive.  I expect that @RockGp40 will be disappointed with the sacrilege that I commit to a RI piece, but I will also be preserving its heritage since it won't be completely stripped.  The Rock Island Geep is plausible, because that road's assets were sold off in the early 1980s in the bankruptcy.  Who says that the Seaboard Central couldn't have purchased a GP40 for a good price and then needed to merely patch it to get it into service as soon as possible?

This led to a brainstorm.  My layout is called the Seaboard Central 3.0, because it's the third layout that I have built based off of the plan from the original MR track plan.  This third version is extremely modified with the addition of many elements of the MR track plan for the Bedford Valley, which cures some deficiencies in the Seaboard Central plan.  The main roundy-round line is the Seaboard System, which interchanges with two North Carolina short lines in Aberdeen, NC.  In the real world in 1983-86, those two lines were the Aberdeen & Rockfish and the Aberdeen & Briar Patch.  The A&BP failed after a few years.

Here's where I'm going to deviate from history.  I'm going to make the branchline on my layout (the line that runs up the hill and over the trestle, to a small three-track staging yard) the Seaboard Central.  This was the line that represented the A&BP.  By swapping out the owners of the line, this gives me a plausible excuse to run motive power actually decorated for the Seaboard Central and justifies the name of my layout.  At this time, the plan is to do two locomotives: one, as described above, as a patched RI unit, and the second in the full Seaboard Central red and blue scheme.  I'm glad that this is coming to fruition, and this sudden brainstorm feels like the whole plan is coming together nicely.  How exciting! 

DFF

[Dave V]

Hmm...  Custom lettering for a 1980s freelanced Model Railroader Magazine project railroad...  I approve!   

[Philip H]

You and @Dave V are going to make me switch to HO just so I can get rolling stick from the railroads of my youth.

Well done. Now finish the layout, photo the hell out of it, and write an article for MR about the SC 3.0 as a legacy of the original.