Introduction.....
Since we Muffins are coming into the hobby from HO, or as Mrs. Muffin calls
it "N-O," we are most interested in the scale sized models, running on three rail track. Thus
we're often referred to as "Hi-Railers." By scale, in O Gauge, the models are
1/48th scale - or 1 inch equals 4 feet.
Generally, we prefer models of equipment that ran during the height of
railroading from before to just after World War II. This era includes large
steam engines and the early diesel engines. There were lots of railroads in
existence, as the major rail consolidations had not yet taken place, so there
were plenty of paint schemes to model. Passenger equipment was also still
in use.
Mrs. Muffin and I also concentrate on Eastern Roads - we have to draw
the line someplace! So if it ran in the east, maybe even all the way to Chicago
- we're probably interested in it.
Our collection concentrates around this late steam - early diesel era,
therefore we have lots of 40' freight equipment and Madison, or Heavyweight,
passenger car sets.
We also have been able to collect and enjoy about 20 of the currently offered
steam engine models by both Lionel and Mike's Train House.
We hope you enjoy this short summary of our collection - thanks for looking!
Our collection displayed in the new house....
Moving into the new house, we pulled everything that we had in storage and
loaded it in the basement. With hired help of the high school football player
variety, we assembled a slide through the basement windows and slid all of the
cases of trains into the basement. With piles everywhere, building the layout
has been a constant process of moving around piles of boxes. We built all of the
shelves we had room for in the train room, then at the bottom of the basement
steps. Finally Mrs Muffin suggested that the Mr could display a few trains in
her soon-to-be equipped "exercise" room. Say no more - construction
commenced...... Here are links to the photos of the results:
At the foot of
the stairs
Entering the Exercise Room
The
passenger train wall
36'
Reefers and Milk Cars
The other wall of assorted rolling stock
Hoppers and Reefers in the train room
40' Reefers and Box Cars
Our Collection Summary (really needs updating!)
- Atlas O Reefers
-
From my understanding, Atlas Model Railroad Company has offered O
gauge scale rolling stock for many years. Sometime around the end of the
1990's, Atlas reorganized this effort, started Atlas O LLC, and began
offering highly detailed O Gauge rolling stock in both 3 rail, for us
hi-railers, and 2 rail versions. In May, 2000 they began to offer their
models of the 40' woodsided billboard reefers. These models were
representative of the old woodsided refrigerator cars that were used across
the US for transporting perishable merchandise, including meats, cheeses and
beer. Since their introduction, Mrs. Muffin and I have worked diligently to
build a complete collection of these reefers and to date have at least one
model of each design. To our knowledge, we have one of the few
collections in the country that includes all of the reefer designs.
In early 2003, just as we were reaching the completion of our Atlas O
reefer collection, Atlas announced a new series of reefers in the 36'
length. These 36' reefers predated the 40's as they were in use in the late
1800's. Ouch. Unfortunately, the 36' reefers are as wonderful as the 40's -
so we have been collecting them too, and are adding pictures of those
reefers to our website as we acquire them.
As we have been collecting the reefers, we have become pretty proficient
at finding them, so if you have a collection of your own and you need help
locating some of them - please e-mail us and we will try to help you find
them.
- Steamers
-
As we described in our history, Mrs. Muffin was first attracted to
O gauge as a result of seeing a demonstration of the electronics available
in today's O gauge model railroad engines. The sounds, the smoke and their
ability to move at such slow speeds make today's models the finest ever
offered. Mrs. Muffin's hands down favorites in our collection are the steam
engines. Actually, if she had her way, all we would have would be steamer
after steamer running around the track without a hopper car or passenger car
to slow things down.
To date, we have about 23 steamers from 3rd Rail Division of Sunset
Models; Lionel; Mike's Train
House and Weaver Models. All of them have command control capabilities, so we can run them
with other engines on the same track. Our collection includes many of
Lionel's largest steamers, for example, their 2-8-8-2 H-7; the 2-6-6-6 Allegheny and the
2-8-8-4 EM-1, plus a couple of their recent Berkshires. We also have MTH's Premier Triplex
in Virginian; the C&O 2-10-4 Texan and 2-8-4 Kanawha plus a pair of
Greenbriers.
- Diesels
-
I don't understand how, but as we have been concentrating on acquiring
steamers, we still managed to add about 30
diesels to our roster. In addition to scale diesels from Lionel, like the
new Alco S-2 in Lehigh Valley paint, and the Premier EMD F-3's by MTH in
Lackawanna markings, we have several Alco Road Switchers from Atlas O and
Weaver.
- Varnish & Streamliners
-
Almost all of our passenger car sets to date have been from Mike's
Train House, in both the heavyweight or Madison variety, or the streamliners
- included the ribbed and plated cars. In addition to the MTH sets, we have
the latest Madison car sets from Lionel in C&O; B&O; NYC; and Milwaukee.
- Other Rollingstock
- We have assembled here some additional rolling stock photos - cabooses
through maintenance of way pieces. Please take a look!
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