What is the Morris Arboretum Garden Railroad?

 I've already mentioned to you guys my soft spot for Garden Railroads, but something else I enjoy is a good Christmas Garden Railroad. Yes I know depending on where you are it's quite cold out and would probably be best to stay inside (or look at lights in a warm car), I can't help but get a kick out of seeing the large scale trains run around displays covered in Christmas lights, sort of like the one in Morris Arboretum. 

Before I get to that though, let's talk about the Morris Arboretum's garden railroad in general. 

What is the Morris Arboretum:

Located in Philadelphia (outside of the city), the Morris Arboretum has much to see and do for those that want to get outside and enjoy some fresh air, including a rose garden, log cabin, and plenty of places to picnic. 

As for the garden railway, it started back in 1998, with only just a few trains running around, but overtime the display would grow. 

Wider turns would be added for bigger trains, more track lines would be added, and the whole display would expand, with one of it's biggest happening for it's 25th anniversary. Trains aside, there's plenty of buildings to look at and see, all built out of natural material. 

Trains will travel over small rivers, bridges that go above the heads of guest, and plenty of landmarks in the area can be spotted, including the Rocky Statue and art museum in Philadelphia. 

A recent addition the display made was a train station modeled after the Chestnut Hill station for train operators to sit in and work on the trains while also storing them. 

Now about that Christmas lights display. 

The train garden closes around mid-October to be decorated with all sorts of lights bright enough to see from a distance. While the garden is open during the day, those who want to see the trains at night can buy a separate ticket. 

"Out on a limb" (the exabit taking guest up into the trees) is open, and along the path leading to the trains are a string of lights with some on the side to look at. The display is worth the price of admission, as those who come at night are treated to the sight of G-scale trains running through a winter wonderland of lights. 

For more information about the train display and tickets to see the display lit up at night, click here. 

Rating Broadway Limited Imports fantasy schemes part 2

For those who haven't read part 1, Broadway Limited is a model railroad company that models in HO and N scale. Like Lionel, the company has some fantasy schemes of steam engines and diesels. Are these fantasy schemes worth worth picking up, or should they be kept on the shelves collecting dust. Like Last time I will be doing 5 steam engines and 5 diesels. 

Steam engines: 

UP Early Challenger, Ornate 1800s 

This is a fantasy scheme that's out there, but at the same time still looks nice. I'd love to run this train in a Christmas village or old west village, though I wouldn't be surprised if my miniature people would be shocked and even somewhat scared at the giant train rolling through their town. 

Rating: A+ 

GS-4 Western Pacific Heritage Paint Scheme

Maybe it's because the Southern Pacific has been coated in different paint schemes before (and decorated for Christmas), but this scheme doesn't seem that bad to me. It's more nicer looking then the Golden State one, and something I can see the Southern Pacific rolling out in one day. 

Rating: A 

ATSF Class 4-6-4 Ornate 1870's. 

Like the UP scheme, this one just looks really nice. I don't know if Broadway is planning on doing anymore Ornate schemes in the future, but I hope they consider it. 

Rating A+ 

C&NW 4-6-2 Silver Meteor 

As much as I don't want fantasy schemes to go too out there, I also don't want them to play it too safe. Sorry Broadway but I'm not really feeling this one. It looks a little too similar to the 4-6-2's regular paint scheme in my opinion, and doesn't really bring anything new to the table. Having said that if there's anyone who models the Seaboard railway and wants this, I'd recommend it. 

Rating C- 

Big Boy 49er 

Look UP, I understand painting trains probably cost a good amount of money, but please let the Big Boy wear this paint scheme in real life. It's vastly different from the Big Boy's usual mostly black paint scheme, but at the same time works with it's Orange and red colors. Now if someone out there could release San Francisco 49er box cars and cabooses, we'd be in business. 

Rating A+ 

Diesels 

EMD GP20 Amtrack Scheme 

File this under the "looks like it could be real" folder. That aside the EMD just looks really good in the Amtrack scheme, probably helped by the fact that Amtrack has had plenty of diesels sporting their colors before switching over to electric. 

Rating: A

GE Loewy NCL fantasy scheme 

While not my cup of  tea, I don't want to be too hard on this scheme. Like the Amtrack scheme from above, I feel it's something that we could have seen in real life, and I do like the slogan on the side that reads "Main street of the northeast." 

Rating: B

EMD GP30 US Army 

You guys have my permission to lash this engine up with the U.S air force fantasy scheme I did in the last blog. Like I said, I'm a big fan of patriotic paint schemes, and I wouldn't mind seeing an EMD in this scheme. 

Rating: A

EMD GP20 New York Central 

Like it's Amtrack scheme, this is a scheme that I can see in real life. That and I will admit that I have a soft spot for the NYC's lightning stripe scheme. 

Rating: A

GE ES44AC Burlington Northern 

A little too much silver for me. 

Rating: C 

What were your favorite fantasy paint schemes? Comment below and let me know your thoughts. 

Looking at a Tyco train catalog from 1961

Time to revisit anther old Tyco catalog, this time from the year 1961. 

Right from the start I do like the Main street car that Tyco offers on the first page. 

It's not much I know, but I do like the charm of the little thing, and I personally wouldn't mind having a little area for this trolly to run on my layout. 

Anther set that has a spot in my heart is the red dot special, a small steam engine carrying 3 fright cars and a caboose. 

I know mixed fright car sets are more popular these days, but a part of me does wish a set like the Black Dimond could be released again. Trains were known for carrying coal back then (and to some extent still today), and I'd be down for Bachmann or Lionel releasing a set with 3 coal cars and a caboose. 

The Road Builder is anther set I feel like we aren't going to see anytime soon. Starter sets these days just don't come with small switcher diesels which is a shame as I do see the charm in them, and they are great for anyone who happens to have a railyard on the layout. 

In the "trains to buy separately and accessories" section are a few things of note, starting with an operating switch that uncouples cars. 

While I'm sure by the 1960's this wasn't anything super new (the Railroads at Work diorama was said to have cars that uncoupled and that was from 1940's.), I do like the idea of having these things made available to the wider public. 

I get that a lot of model railroading includes DIY projects, but I still stand by the idea that there's nothing wrong with giving someone a helping hand or push in the right direction, especially if their new to the hobby. 

Maybe it's because I'm looking in the wrong places, but an operating lighted car caboose coming back would be nice. The last time I've seen one of these things made available in a train set was one of Bachmann's desert storm military train sets, and even after that I don't think they made them widely available. 

Final thoughts: 

On one hand there really wasn't too much to talk about in this catalog. On the other, I still like a lot of what's being offered (and at the prices it's being offered.) Yes model railroad experts out there, I know that Tyco had a reputation for being more toyetic then realistic, but the impression I get from this catalog is that they're trying to do what Bachmann does today, giving folks train sets at a decent price with a decent amount of realism. 

Interested to see what else Tyco offers as we make our way to the next couple of catalogs from them.

MTH O scale catalog 2008 (volume 1 and 2) overview

 It's been a hot minute since I've done an overview of an MTH catalog. I first started out by doing their HO scale and One gauge catalogs, but in today's blog I wanna do a catalog on the scale MTH was most known for: O scale. 

In this blog I'm gonna go over MTH's volume 1 and 2 catalog, going over things that I find stand out the most. I will just say right off the bat that I do miss MTH's catalogs and wish the company didn't downsize/could find a buyer to take over for Mike Wolf, especially with Lionel's near monopoly on the O scale market. 

One other things that I'd like to mention is that MTH's catalogs are split into two. The first half shows their Railking line, (aka O gauge). The second half is their premier line (aka O scale trains with details and most likely needing bigger curves.) 

Volume 1 

In volume 1 of the 2008 catalog, we start off with a train that I wish would see it's way back into O gauge, that being the Hiawatha Hudson. 

The schemes MTH gave the Hudson are pretty nice, and I wouldn't mind seeing Broadway Limited remake some of these in HO scale (assuming they could). 

The 4-6-2 stands out to me because of one of it's schemes, which is of a John Deer train. 

I would say I'd like to see anther John Deer train set, but Lionel kind of has us covered. 

I'll give them some flowers for trying, but seeing the bigger steam engines in O gauge like the 4-8-4 FEF Northern just looks a bit weird to me. You can tell they shrunk the train down to size, and even though it operates on O-31 curves, a part of me still wants to run this thing on O-42 or something bigger. 

On the fight and passenger car side of things is this: 

Yeah I forgot to mention, MTH made the Coors Light train, the one from those commercials with "Love train" playing in the background. Looking back now I kind of do miss seeing that set. It was MTH's "Polar Express" in a way, and it certainly got a lot of heads turning. 

Baseball box cars, what happened to you? These used to be a thing all the time and now not even Lionel seemingly does them. Can someone please bring these back from the dead? I can't accept Bradford Exchange being the only ones doing Baseball trains and Baseball train accessories. 

One thing that bothered me about the streamline passenger cars in the RailKing section is that they never came with Observation cars. I don't know if that was an error on MTH's part or the sets just didn't have them. 

And yes MTH I do dig those John Deer passenger cars. 

MTH's premier trains started off with the good old Hudson, including an Hudson train set that's still pretty pricy, but feels less pricy then what Lionel would offer (at least these days.) 

The 0-6-0 is one of those engines that's perfect for anyone who wants to get their hands into more to scale O scale trains, but either doesn't have the budget or the space, being a train that takes 0-31 curves. 

AC-6 Cab forward is such a treat to get as a scale model, and MTH makes the deal sweeter with a train set. 

The 4-6-2 K4 is anther beautiful steam engine that's offered in a set. I do like how they added a mail car to the set as well. It's something I wouldn't mind seeing be put into some of these train sets more often, as it wasn't just passengers some of these trains carried. 

The 4-6-4 Great Northern looks great here, and I love the passenger cars that MTH gave it for the train set. I always did like looking at MTH's passenger cars, I feel they did an amazing job with them, and I'm glad their talents for making great passenger cars transferred into the HO line when that was around. 

While MTH did mostly American trains, they did sneak in an European steam train in the 2-3-1E, with the promise of passenger cars coming for it soon. 

The M-1 Steam Turbo train set looks like something that came out of the future. It's not a train I'd personally add to the collection, but I do dig the unique design it's got going on. 

Can't forget about the good old Zephyr. 

The EMD GP60M diesel is anther engine that's perfect for "I'm tight on space but want more to-scale-O-scale-trains" collectors. It also comes with a set that's only $700. Hey, it is cheaper then the other sets above...

The P5A box cab was an interesting but unique choice to the line up. 

On the fright and passenger car side of things are two operating cars and two operating cabooses. 

Volume 2:

Volume 2's Railking section starts off with 2-8-0 steam train sets with Pennsylvania and New York offered. 

I can't help but bring these two sets up as I remember seeing them all the time in MTH's railking ready to run catalogs, which I may look at one of these days. 

Credit where credit is due, MTH's 2-10-0 Decapod looks pretty good in o gauge. As I mentioned above, some of the steam and even diesel trains look a bit weird as it's made obvious they were shrunk down to fit 0-31 curves, but this one looks pretty good. 

Same can be said with the 4-8-2 L-3 Mohawk, which comes with a fright and passenger set. 

A Union Pacific Big Boy that can run on 31 curves? I can't tell if that's blessed or cursed. Do like the two sets that are offered though...

And then we have the 2-6-6-6 Allegheny. Look I don't want this blog to turn into me being surprised that MTH were able to design some of the bigger steam engines in railking to take 31 curves, but I refuse to believe some serious thought didn't go into it. 

The Caterpillar and Harley Davison F3 are two diesels I wish would come back. 

MTH's O scale line up came out swinging with a 2-8-8-8-2 Triplex that was available in a set and paint schemes. 

In the last catalog MTH showed off an European steam engine. In this catalog they're keeping up with the trend, with the Princess Coronation steam engine. 

I have a soft spot for the J-class in general and always liked MTH's model on the train. Two sets were offered with heavyweight and streamline cars. 

The 4-6-4 Royal Hudson is a treat for anyone who anyone who has a Canadian theme model railroad. 

The AA16 AFB is an interesting diesel to add to the collection, and comes in a Great Northern set scheme that weirdly fits. 

The Traxx ALP-16 diesel is yet anther European engine that MTH has added to the line up. Honestly good for them. I understand the reason why, but American Manufactures touching European trains for just a one off seems pretty rare. 

The Orient Express Passenger cars are here, and look amazing. MTH did promise more European passenger cars in the last catalog. 

Final Thoughts 

In retrospect it's honestly kind of hard to believe that MTH folded up shop. I know a part of it was because Mike Wolf wanted to retire, but the company had so much momentum going for it back in the mid to late 2000's, going onto the 2010's. 

Who knows, maybe the company will get bought out by someone who isn't Lionel and start making more trains again.