Last Trip to Local Hobby Shop?

Greetings All,

On June 19th, 2020 I made my final trip to my local Hobby Shop, Trainmaster Models in Buford Georgia. Trainmaster announced it was closing it's doors at the Buford Store effective June 20th. 

The building and property has been for sale for about two years now. Whether it is actually sold is unknown as they are playing their cards very close to their vests.Whether they reopen a brick and mortar location in my general area is undetermined at this time.


I took a good look at the last of the stores used offerings that had a 50% discount on their price and purchased the below items. 

LV 40' boxcar #65050 is a Rail Runner Custom Painted Athearn BB product. 

The car weight and under frame were painted flat black with Kadee underset shank couplers and Proto 2000 metal wheels installed.

The Lehigh Valley 65050 is representative of LV 40' ex 62000 series PS 1 boxcars that were sold to US Railway Equipment for rebuilding from 1969 - 1973 and then leased back by the Lehigh Valley with new reporting marks 65000 - 65069.

All in all a nice looking rugged Athearn model with an opening door. Prototypical modelers of the LV would find that the Youngstown door is better suited for the 66000 series AAR rebuilds by Bethlehem Steel during the same period. The USRE rebuilds had Superior doors. This is not a problem for me, I'll live with it.  

Prototype photos of LV 65050 show an ACI label next to the COTS panels so I added that.

This older Life Like LV 66392 recently shown in P.C.C.M. 74 is a good representative of the Bethlehem Steel rebuilds from 1973 numbered 66380 - 66524.

The LV 66393 had an ACI label adjacent the data under the LV herald so that was added to LV 66392 which also serves as a track cleaning car. Look for it in future virtual ops! 

Next we have an older Athearn Blue Box Soo Line 50' boxcar that has been added to the fleet. After 25 years in the hobby I found this is my first piece of Soo Line rolling stock. The model is a good representative of a prototype Soo Line car. 

Soo Line RBL #177850 is perfect for loading the adhesive backed rolls of printed labels manufactured by Berk Enterprises.  

The under frame of the car and metal weight have been painted with rattle can flat black. The car has received Intermountain metal wheels and Kadee #5 couplers. Note the small screw that fixed the drooping coupler box. 

As an avid fan of T.OF.C. and tractor trailers in general this Athearn Blue Box Navajo tractor trailer kit was a nice find.

The tractor and trailer are fulled assembled parked at Moore & Co with the rear rims painted red like the prototype Navajo trailer .

Here's the Navajo Trailer crossing the Empire City viaduct on an ATSF 10-Pack Fuel Foiler set of spine cars from Athearn.

Last but not least was something I never saw before. HALSAM Skyline kit #93 was manufactured circa 1962. It was discontinued when Plaskool bought out Halsam in January 1962.

HALSAM Products Company

 

Not sure if all the pieces are present but there were a lot of them.

I spent a rainy afternoon building the newest Empire City skyscraper. Assembly was pretty easy once I figured out how the pieces had to go together following the photos in the color pages above.

There is no glue required and the building is very sturdy. The kit comes with blue tinted plastic windows that I did not apply. I'll keep it like this for awhile to make sure I like it and then dismantle it for painting. Or maybe I'll build something else?

While I was very happy with my model railroad finds it was a  bittersweet day of close out shopping at Trainmaster Models. I do hope the reopen a brick and mortar location somewhere near me. Last report was an estate auction that was held the weekend following the store closure.

Thanks for reading!!!

See ya soon!!!