I purchased a 2-8-0 with dcc and then used a medium SP vandy behind it. I switched the boards between the tenders and added wires for the rear headlight. All works fine.

As Yampa Bob stated, there are two screws hoding each half of the tender to the frame. Be very careful with the tabs. Wiring may need to be unsoldered, I did mine wire by wire and it worked fine.  DCC works as specified.. This oil tender behind a Bachmann 2-8-0 gives a very SP look while the loco is not an exact model. Most observers think it's  a good match.

I agree with Gene for a number of reasons, the usual Atlas bridge is an open-deck type to start with and the railroad would end the ballast before the abutment. This is very easy to do.
A ballasted deck bridge is built much differently than an open deck./ These are used to provide a smoother roadbed for fast train service. Most SP small trestles were the ballasted deck variety. They require more under trestle clearence for traffice as the deck can be four or more feet deep.

Don,

You might hit a few swap meets and find a good used example of the Reading 2-8-0 and then buy a Bowser motor conversion kit. This comes with a completely new drivetrain and will pull much better than the original.  I have some other Bachmann 4-8-4s with those conversions and it is solid, even Gene would be impressed.

While billboard reefers are a lot of fun, they really didn't exist on western narrow gauge lines. That doesn't mean we can't have them. Some of you enterprising guys could make them yourselves.

Now, if I were to have a billboard reefer, how about Bear Whiz Beer? About 15 years ago there were some enterprising guys that actually put thisstuff out and offered a 1:22.5 reefer to go with it. I don't think I have to explain what the logo looked like, a bear whizzing in a local stream.

About the only thing that was a billboard on the D&RGW Narrow gauge were the Granps oil cars, outside of any graffiti

I have attached a medium Vandy to an undec 2-8-0 for a nice reasonable SP  locomotive. As the loco has the family look already, the tender ices it. I picked up a late locomotive with DCC and transferred the board from the square tender over. Pretty easy.

For the non-rivet counrters, the Heavy Mountain can ber made into a reasonable SP MT-2 which were ex ESPW locomotives that the SP inherited. They were used only on the Tucumcari and Ex ESPW lines because they were originally coal burners.  The Tender would be the big project here as the SP englarged the originals and finally went to a Vandy-type on some. These also got skyline casings when transferred west.

Don't look at any commercial locomotive model like the Spectrum as solely being one prototype. Get a  locomotive cyclopeadia and see what the basic types were turned into by the railroads. They customized everything.

You can get most Mantua parts from Yardbird Classic Trains.
www.yardbirdtrains.com. Go to his website and you can look up the parts. Phone 573-248-3841.

One of those mints (I think Franklin) offered the 1401 for some time in the 90s. I believe it was a re-done Rivarossi, but had the usual plated look to it.

Tony D,

Well, They were people who just had one passion: Model Railroading. The yall did it from their own perspective, which is what they taught me. That's what I encourage others to do. It's like old 1010.  It sits at the California Railroad Museum in fair condition. It needs to be really redone, but it was operating when the museum got it..

Joe Alexander was Ed's cousin. I have a few of the 0ld kits I got in the early 60's built. Crude but still good places to learn.  I have an old o scale B&O 4-6-0 by Varney that's as old as I am but it runs very werll and pulls a large group of cars..

John Allen's layout was really for operation but he loved to do scenery, the more outlandish the better. The best hisotry on the layut and some of the best pictures are in Linn Wescott's book on the G&D from Kalmbach. It is still available nd I highly reccommend it.

I think what John Allen was doing  is similar to what the special effects groups do in movies. He made you look at something the way he wanted, you actually saw more than was there. He would delight in pointing to a new area to see if you could pick out the new detail. . Andy Sperandeo of MR stopped by a few times in the 60s. He has strated that John influanced him greatly. He's just one of us.

The Grandts built the best detail parts for buildings and their narrow gauge cars always turn out fantasticc. Thank son Dave for that. In HO, the Grandt line has some very good prototype buildings. Very good, even for a beginner.

I have been a manufacturer as well, offering 1:20.3 gallows turntables  for about 12 years, stopping when everyone else thought they wanted to do it. I build cusoms for people that know me and want things.

Anyway, I like to hear what everyone is doing. It's your railroad. I really envy guys like Gene and Sheldon with their focus on a single things. I still work a number of scales  to build what I want. This spring is 1:20.3. H have a K-36 that needs exercising.

Tony D,

First, I was a pretty lucky kid in that I saw Cab-Forwards and most of the big SP steam still in action. The San Francisco East Bay had the Mosel Engineers in Emeryville and my uncle was trainmaster on many nights and made me sit in a chair and not touch anything while he ran a Lobaugh two-rail Oscale engine he had. Nice. But in 1963, Joe Alexander asked me if I wanted to go with him to see John Allen's layout. I had seen pictures in Varney ads and MR. First, John was a good host when most young people were by. As I was college age, he just went through the rules and then showed us downstairs. In person the layout was fantastic!

The Model Engineers had some scenery but nothing like the G&D. John let the usual operators run trains and took me on a trip around the layout. It was no where near completed at that time. I had brought my HOn3 PFM C&S #22 to run on his layout. It wasn't painted yet but he went ahaed and ran it. .
A bnit later on that visit, Cliff Grandt and his sons appeard so the operating session got underway.

John did his own track and switches. His locomotives may have been sold as something once but on the G&D they were heavily modified.

Later in the 60s I had to do college and military but kept in contact with John. I went to Europe on an MR-sponsored trip in 1971-2 or so. John and I got to all of the narrow gauge railroads . In person, he was generous and  friendly but you never should get involved in his switching game.  I learned more about setting out cars from John and Whit Towers that I ever learned watching a real railroad.
IMHO, John was someone who created. I wish I had the dedication but I still play.

I had one back in the 70s. They were a notoriously bad running locomtive for some reason. The locomotives waddled down the track. The worst part was that they were just a modified NYC hudson model..

There have been some brass models of the Blue Goose. Expensive but factory painted.

The locomotive was built as the backup of the original Super Chief diesels in case they failed.

Gene,

I visited the G&D as a kid thanks to a hobby shop owner I knew.  John Allen used all sorts of things to make his locomotives. The amazing part was that details that looked physical weren't. John had a way of painting details on. He knew how to trick the eye.

Andre, The Key models look good but don't  run all that well, at least the one I had didn't Poor weight distribution.

Gene,

The MT-4 was unique to the SP. It was an all-around passenger locomotive that also did fast freight and secondary runs.

Most were built in the SP shops at Sacramento. After the war all received skyline casings.

The WP had second hand USRA mountains that were purchased from the FEC. Both mountain types were well liked by the crews though they prferred the GS class on both roads.

My information is that the mountain will be here in June and the USRA Mike and Pacific at the end of the year.

I have one Bachmann USRA re-lettered for the WP. Isaw the SP Mountains in service on the commuter run from San Jose to San Francisco. They rarely missed the schedule

Woody,

It's one of my favories also. I have converted a Bachmann t#22 to On3 as well. I have an earlt 60s PFM C&S # 22 in both On3 and HOn3. I've had them so long they are a part of the family. I picked up a new in box PFM #22 in HOn3 in 1997 and promptly made it #21. . Presently, the real #9 is borrowing the tender from C&S #74 until it's own is repaired.

1010 is a large locomotive for that wheel arrangement. Andre hit the nail on the head, the MDC is incorrect in a couple of important areas, it is about 10% too short. Itt can be made into a reasonable model, but it is not prototypical. The kit was originally a Santa Fe 4-4-2 made into a 2-6-2.

Hallmark did make a scale model but those are very rare.