What Era, Railroads, & Locomotives are you set on?

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Now I am also a fan Of the Northeast Corridor and like Commuter trains from Metro North, MBTA, NJT, and LIRR along with Amtrak, AEM-7's are one of my favorite locos as I have a sweet spot for 7000hp electrics, LOL.

I'm with you on that one, I wish the stuff were more readily available and easier to afford. I've had to jump through hoops to get half the equipment i have, and now the pressure is on for more Arrow III EMUs from IHP. Island Model Works just doesn't appear to be working out.

On a positive note, i keep hearing that the Atlas AEM7/ALP44 may get re-issued in the near future. Normally i wouldn't believe such rumors, but i saw a few email messages from Atlas people that said there was a good chance they'll produce them in 2011.

Now my only problem for the layout is getting the proper CR locos as the Boston Line was primarily GE territory along with Cab signals so foreign power was rare on trains. If someone made C32-8's, C30-7a's, and C39-8's then that would help out a lot. Local's used mainly B23-7 pairs with a GP15 tossed in here and there and SD80Mac's were common on the line to. Now even though I plan on a prototype location I will run anything I have from Steam locos to oddball trains that never ran on the line and even some European stuff I have.

Well, the C32-8s are available from Rail power products,, but they take a little work. That said, other than getting the nice Smokey Valley handrails, there are enough GOOD detail parts that you can put together a reasonable model. I think the only thing i needed to change on my shell was the hand brakes on the nose, and i also used the Details Associates photo etched grills. Those two modifications do a lot to correct the look of the engine.

I remember reading that Conrail C30-7As were problematic to model, but i haven't looked so deeply into that.

The C39-8 only requires that a 8-tall door hood section get spliced into the area of the 6 tall doors on the C32-8. I think the C39-8 shared the same frame with the C40-8, so i would think that other than splicing the shell with a larger section, it wouldn't be too tricky.