2026 Rolling Stock Additions

 Greetings All,

2026 Rolling Stock Additions

What happens when you know you have more trains than you need? Train stores and online vendors have end of year or beginning of year sales! I recently added a new interchange partner, the DJS Railway after my nephew sent over his HO Scale Walthers Southern Railway FA1 for me to run for him so I started looking to add some Southern Railway equipment to my fleet for running trains and sending videos of them to my nephew. With that said here we go!!

Trainz.com

Trainz.com sucked me in first with a 40% off sale that included a Walthers Mainline Southern Railway 60' Auto Parts Boxcar. While considering making the purchase and scrolling thru the rest of the sale items I came across a pair of auto racks that sealed the deal.

Here they are fresh out of the box.

The Penn Central bi-level was a must purchase.

The Erie-Lackawanna bi-level was another must have.

And here is the troublemaker, the 60' Southern Railway auto parts boxcar.

This Atlas Master Line Vermont Railway 50' boxcar also came from Trainz.com. I had a digital refund credit from another company that I could only use online so I found this car that was the closest to the refund amount with the shipping costs.

This model came with semi scale two part Accurail couplers. The couplers parts are very thin and the standard Kadees or Accurails for that matter would not fit.

The model comes with instructions on how to attach an end of train device to the coupler box itself but there is no EOT included in the box. 

Trainmaster Models

Just when I thought it was safe to look at my email inbox Trainmaster Models, my not so local hobby shop, located in Auburn, GA sent notice of a 50% sale on used merchandise. Here we go...

A P-2000 Western Pacific drop end mill gondola for the man who has more gondolas than he can load!! An Athearn RTR Southern 40' double door boxcar as part of my search for Southern Railway equipment. An Athearn RTR D&H 60' flatcar with loads was a good find. Note the Kadee overset couplers on this model. They perfectly matched the Kadee Height Gauge.

While still browsing the selection at Trainmaster Models with room in my basket I came across some more must have freight cars from Atlas. A Milwaukee Road 60' double door boxcar, the Illinois Central 50' double door boxcar and a B&O (BINO) PS2 covered hopper. 

A Southern Railway bay window caboose kit from Walthers allowed me to check this box on my quest for a Southern caboose. 

The kit has been built!!

This bi-level auto rack built on an Athearn 85' TOFC frame looked like an interesting model from a company I'm not familiar with.

I believe with decals on hand this will make a nice NYC auto rack.

New Cars Ready for Revenue Service

All cars as always received a blast of Testor's Dullcote, had their wheel faces and trucks brush painted flat black. Kadee or Kadee style couplers were added as needed with the exception of the VTR boxcar because they wouldn't fit. All freight cars were adjusted as needed to meet the Kadee Coupler Height Gauge.

VTR & IC 50's are ready for entry in the model railroad operations. The VTR car sure looks like an APRR boxcar!!

MILW 4162 is ready to go with Kadee semi scale couplers. The lettering in the white box states "When Empty Return To Penn Central RR N. Tonawanda NY via reverse route". Via google I found a GM Plant that shipped engines in Tonawanda, NY.

Southern 43230 also received semi scale Kadee couplers.

The 32248 received the Walthers knuckle couplers that came off one of the auto racks. The small lettering under the road number indicates this car "When Empty Return To SOU.RY Per CSO 145" which translates to return empty to the Southern via reverse route.

The WP gondola rides on the P-2000 wheels and uses the P-2000 knuckle couplers that came with the model.

The B&O 631381 received a set of Walthers knuckle couplers from the other auto rack.

The D&H car was basically ready to go, just needing some Dullcote.

The EL auto rack was fitted with Kadee long center set knuckle couplers.

The PC auto rack received the same couplers.

Southern X458 is ready to bring up the markers on the Sterling Yard to Terminal Yard freight transfers.

This project auto rack received a shot of gloss coat and decals from my decal supply box. Below it is waiting for better weather to open the Patti-O Paint Shop again to spray the auto rack with Testor's Dullcote and spray the weight, coupler boxes, and trucks with rattle can flat black.

After what seemed like a month of cold and rain the NYC auto rack is now in service at the Bedford Park Ford Plant with a load of Country Squire station wagons.

The auto rack has made it to Terminal Yard for its next move to a Ford Motor Company Distribution Center.

To keep the auto rack rolling reliably a half ounce of weight has been added to  the bottom four cars.

New Rolling Stock is on the move and gets tested.

The NYC Auto Rack enters Revenue Service

The weather finally cooperated and the NYC auto rack is now in revenue service.

Final Thoughts and Comments

Another twelve freight cars have been added to ever expanding fleet. Here's the story. The auto racks were must haves, the Southern equipment was needed for my nephew's railroad interchange traffic which will be highlighted in a future post, the Milwaukee Road boxcar was needed to help move Steve Neubaum's Blue Comet Presentations merchandise and the rest were good buys. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

After the purchases I turned to 1:1 Sir Neal, my trainaholic sponsor, to get an intervention. Guess what he told me? Train-World has Bowser HO scale Penn Central U25Bs on sale... More like Sir Neal the Enabler!!! As I prepared this post the U25Bs were being tested on the layout. More on them in a future post.

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See you soon!!!