(upbeat music) Your railroad sucks, and mine is better. The age-old debate among rail fans that is as old as time, what causes us to pick our favorite railroads and what's the appeal of modeling them? Who had the best engines and why are we so passionate about collecting them? All this and so much more. So go get your ticket from the station, grab a seat, and make sure you don't miss the train. Boog! (upbeat music) Good evening, everyone, and thanks for tuning in to episode 79 of the miniature models podcast. I'm one of your hosts, John Schwartz, and with me as always is my co-host, Johnny. How are we tonight? Doing fantastic, man. So glad to be back recording another episode. Absolutely, as am I as well. Both of the mats are booked for tonight, but fear not, we have brought in a returning guest to join in our discussion. The mad scientist himself, Mr. Sid of Sid's trains. Sid, how are you tonight, sir? I am doing good. I'm happy to be back on. I'm excited to talk about the topic this evening. Yes, indeed, we are happy to have you, sir. We always appreciate you coming on and shooting the breeze with us. You always have fantastic insights, which we appreciate, and we're just glad to have you with us. For sure, man, for sure. So before we get into tonight's topic, let's just do our usual roundup. What have you guys been up to this week? Mr. Johnny, please go ahead, sir. Goodness, what have been up to recently? I've been getting into 80s, 90s, Santa Fe diesel power, thanks to Maddy Sea. I had had my FP45 return to me, which I used to have from Matt R. I received that engine for him. It decided to detonate on me, and then I sold it to Matt Maddy Sea, which he was planning to gut it, but never got around to doing it. So I asked him to send the engine back. I put balloon on me in it, and it's an engine that I am chronically addicted to running right now. I tell myself that, oh, I should run some steam power, and then I take the train off and I go, oh, well, maybe look good to these pasture cars, and then I never get further than that. So it was off my lap for maybe half a day, and then I put it back on the way out. So I've been addicted to running that thing. - Well, it's nice 'cause you guys have one of those out there at IRM that you guys run with like everything. So it's no surprise that you're into. I mean, I've seen it too with your stuff. It's gorgeous and firm. It's honestly, 'cause it is a rail king model, isn't it? - Yeah, rail king scale. - It's good for a rail king scale model. Like, sometimes you get weird proportions or just you can kind of tell it's, you can't, it's hard to tell that that is one. It's a good looking engine. - Oh, for sure. Yeah, I went to do some small modifications to that engine. The biggest one is just the fuel tank got shrunk because it was rail king. So I actually just placed an order with MTH today with their parts department and got some replacement fuel tanks. So yay, spending $60 and three fuel tanks, woo hoo. - Absolutely, it's, come on, you know, we know it's worth it for sure. - Well, it's better than my, I don't know, a really sketchy way of attaching the current fuel tank on there, but want something a bit more robust. But yeah, that, I do wanna say a real FP45 at some point. We do have one at IRM, but I am cursed to never see it because it only runs on diesel days. And we are, there's always a train hangout on diesel days. In fact, this year we're gonna be on Long Island when diesel days is happening. Past years was like Palooza or other things. So hopefully I'll be able to see it maybe next year, but very cool engine and I'm very excited to have it going. - Absolutely, no, I'm, I've been loving your, you're devolving into the, the '80s and '90s Santa Fe stuff. It's such a great aesthetic, a neat era to model, for sure. I love that it just kind of, it just happened naturally. You couldn't avoid it, it just naturally happened, I love it. And we'll get into some more of that stuff as we go on tonight, but before that, Sid, what have you been up to, sir? - Well, normally I would be, you know, working on a bunch of trains, but I just finished school and so I am taking a little bit of a break for my little week off, just running my own trains. And as you guys know, I'm always rotating stuff in and out, I've been doing some trading recently and I've really been trying to specialize and get some very specific items, mainly rolling stock-wise for some coal-trained stuff and I'm having a lot of fun with that and just kind of enjoying, you know, running trains and just kind of stepping back and working on trains just for a very short period of time and you know, I'm gonna go back to working on stuff. And on the flip side, I have another hobby. I work on cars and my brother and I have a couple of classic cars and so I've been doing that. But it's been nice just kind of, you know, not having to worry about school and having to think critically every second of the day where I can instead, I can just, you know, run some trains, work on cars, have fun. And you know, now at nighttime, just sit here and talk with you guys. - Yeah, no man, I respect the grind. I know that that end of semester, just that crunch time, the crunch-itize-me-kettin' of having to work at the end. - Yeah, it's definitely a lot. It, I wouldn't say it really takes a toll on you, but it's kind of just like, you know, you're not really thinking about much else. There's that like 24 hours leading up to an exam, especially a final where you're just sitting there and you're just like X plus Z plus two, five, nine, you know, trying to think about problems or remember things and you're just, you're like, what is world people? What? - Train. - Train. - Train. - Wheels. - But it is nice. - But it is fast. - It is nice that I haven't been having to do that and have some fun with trains. And of course, in summertime, so we got some cool events going on this summer where all of us will be together and we can, you know, hang out and enjoy the hobby. - Crossover event. I love it. Yeah, no, man, I feel you on the crunch time. I've had a busy few weeks at work here and I haven't had much time to do train stuff either, but I have persisted through it and in the spare time I've been working on currently, I try to, one of the big things that I always have a problem with, and I'm sure you guys can attest to this, is wanting to do too much too quickly at the same time, like getting one engine from one railroad. It's like, oh, great, I want to build this train now. But then like, oh, wait, hold on, this came up just now on for so I got to get this right now. And then you just, you kind of bounce around and then you're like a, you know, master of none when it comes to buying stuff to finish trains. That's always the thing I always goof on myself for. I never finish a train. - We don't, we don't know anybody who does that. - No, no, not at all. - You're like a single soul. - Nope, so I've been focusing diligently on getting a mail train consist. I've been trying to, not just a mail train, but getting as much of the head end cars, excuse me, as many of the head end cars as possible that I could find, there's some, God, there's some hard to find pieces. Apparently Golden Gate Depot, just, you know, everybody that owns a 54 foot reefer just doesn't want to sell it 'cause they like it on it. - I just want a green REA one, but they always come up and like, there's no box or the two rail. - No, it's always two rail. - And it's $250. I'm like, I'm not paying $250 for just, you know, a two rail, no box car. - And yes, we love two rail, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what, we do three rail. We want three rail ones. - Exactly. - Well, unfortunately all the three rail ones are being buried with their owners, apparently. - Apparently so 'cause none of us can have 'em. So I just want a blue B&O one, God, it's so hard. B&O, couple of green ones, REA, maybe New York Central here and there, but Santa Fe, but yes, so I'm slowly but surely, actually just getting some stuff from Lou here soon. And I just did a deal with Tony. We grabbed a couple of New York Central baggage cars. He's gonna make one into a special project piece. I won't divulge it just yet, you know, anybody who follows him on Instagram in the rambles, he's working on some stuff right now. And I'm super happy with it. I love, I really love a good model. And again, we can get into this more in the show 'cause it does pertain to it, but like a really good well done model that you just, you just have to own because of how nice it is and what it represents is such a good thing. And I know both of you guys can absolutely attest to that sentiment of wanting it really good, say. So yeah, but that's pretty much all that's been going on with me. I'm just getting ready for my, oh, and also, I mean, God, and I've also been one last shameful plug, been getting ready to do some collection updates and stuff on Instagram. So you should follow me if you haven't yet, do my social media plug at the end, Rich McCottam on '96, but yeah, so I've gotten some interesting new pieces recently that I'm looking to show and share in the social media realm. But let's get into our main topic of the evening, which is just discussing some of our favorite railroads and why we like them and why our ideas and opinions are better than all of yours. And I mean, I don't, look, okay. - Well, it's true. - Which is how perfect they are. Like we didn't create this. It just is a fact. (laughing) Don't blame us for the fact that our taste is just better. We always, for reference, we're not actually saying this, even though it's true. And we always goof on this when we're talking with each other about these things. The three of us are all very supportive of each other's likes 'cause we do have this kind of mutual appreciation for all of each other's favorite railroads. Before we get into our icebreaker, can you guys think of any railroads between our little triangle here that we don't like amongst each other? I don't think there's a single one. Maybe, maybe, maybe Penzi between me and Johnny, but even then I'm not the biggest Penzi fan either. I have a love/hate relationship with Penzi, so. - I feel like the lack of, this has been, we can honestly talk about it in a few minutes, but not liking something as a modeler is usually just because there's so much of that railroad and that you're jealous that there's that much, yes. It's usually not, 'cause in all honesty, all railroading is very cool. Even if obscure or very run of the mills, like standing in front of a USRA engine that's steaming in front of you, it's just as cool standing in front of some obscure, very rude, specific thing. At the end of the day, all railroading is very cool, but I can't think of one myself, and I'm like, oh, I don't like that. I'm like everything. - No, we are a friend of all train, but it is more of just a social thing to debate. It's human nature to compare and contrast, and I mean, it's interesting for a lot of reasons. Like I said, we'll get into that, but let's begin with our icebreaker here, and oh, I love Johnny for this. The biggest debate since the dawn of time. Penzy or New York Central, and it's New York Central, and that's the end of the icebreaker section. Lots of New York topics. - I guess if you're looking at my wall in my basement, it's all New York Central. - I don't see a lot of pens on that, but I actually have a good answer to this, and it's kind of neutral. - Let's hear it. - It's a part. I think New York Central did passenger very well in all regards. I think they just did it really well, with mail and passenger, whether it was a local train or a cross-country train. I think they did it really well, and their engine and engines, through all of history, were very iconic. So iconic, in fact, some are still around to this day, and set some records, and the names of those trains are very iconic, and it kind of just stuck around. But on the flip side, I think Penzy did freight really well. When I think of New York Central, Fred, I'm like, what, just pacemaker box cars? Well, what are we just going up and down the east coast? Like, come on, now. - Yeah, you're picturing a little H-class mic with a little peddler freight going along through Indiana. - And so, like, Penzy had some big engines, and also, they did a lot. They had all those coal trains and ore trains. They had these big engines built just to pull them, the Decapades and the Texas types and the duplexes and all of that. So, they did that really well, and everyone, there's all the whole debate between K-4 and Hudson. I'm like, the Hudson is bigger, has more wheels, and so it was kind of more efficient than a K-4. And so, they were more efficient, and they were faster, and all the above. And so, that's kind of my neutral answer to that question. I personally have more New York Central, and I just find it a little more interesting to me, because it connects to the railroads I like more than Penzy, but I understand liking Penzy, 'cause it's very in-your-face, big railroad. - Yeah, well, I'll throw in my two cents on this one, 'cause going off of this, I do actually own some Penzy stuff with my collection. I do own an MCH Penzy 280, that's rail king, and just, you know, it's great engine. It's gutted, it sits, it does nothing. It's an engine without a soul, and it just sits there for whenever I wanna see a dead engine be pushed around by another engine, so I have that. - As Clarkson would say, so it's just like a normal Penzy engine. - Exactly, well, and then, you know, I do also have some HL that's Penzy as well. You know, I have this Bachmann Prairie that has its side-rods falling off, and every hand real stanchion ripped out, and the smokestack has been smashed from use, and, you know, I treat all my Penzy engines very well. I think it shows as much as I care about it. No. - Nobody else in the real railroad did. (laughing) - No, but jokes aside, I'm definitely more a New York Central person, and I think a lot of it has to do with exposure as a child, in terms of, like, you know, we all grew up with TM stuff here on the show, and that the streamline are segments, and the New York Central segments, you know, how could you not follow up with New York Central, watching that as a kid? But for a very well-done Penzy layout, one that is a lot of the accurate models of the locomotives, or something on the tier of norms, where the modeling is such a high level of detail and accuracy that you have no choice but to appreciate it. And the, it's a double-edged sword when it comes to the Penzy, I've noticed. They're very passionate about their history. There's a lot of pride that goes into it. And a lot of it's because, you know, it's so great with the history of the state and the towns it went through. But, which means there's a lot of passion to folks, but also means there's a lot of overly passionate folks who, when you hear it all the time, it leads to some burnout for a non-penzy person. But I do admire the fact that they have that dedication and admiration for the history and the personal connections that they have. You know, if I were to have a nickel for every single time that someone said, "Well, this ran through my hometown. I won't mention names." You know, I think that's a, I'd be able to own a vision line big boy 15 times over. But, it's funny you say that 'cause I have some ties to Pennsylvania and, you know, it didn't run through my town, but I had several relatives that worked for the railroads. I even know the engines they worked on. So, like, there's definitely a lot of, I understand the sort of pride and, you know, connection that people have to it. And it's just like you said, it's very easy in model form. It's very easy to have it. So, anyone can have it. And so, it's really easy for it to just be overdone. And, you know, it takes someone like Norm Charbonneau who is modeling at a high level. Or there's a gentleman in Ohio called Bob Bartizik who has the, you know, these phenomenal collections and layouts that really, you know, cement how interesting and nice and, you know, how much of a story there is to this stuff. It's not just run of the mills. There's actually some substance to it. Unlike, you know, just the surface level is like, "Oh, everyone has a Pennsylvania flyer." You know, it's just, it's easy to look at Pennsylvania Railroad and just be like, "Oh, well, that's just Pennsylvania Railroad 'cause everyone has it." - Yeah, it's not always actually growing. - Yeah, New York Central and Pennsylvania are definitely easy to just be like, "Oh, they're just railroads." And John, I know you're more on the New York Central side, but you've shown me more of the obscure stuff that I didn't know about, especially in like earlier before Hudson's with like the specifics and, you know, smaller engines that, you know, are not as well known. 'Cause it's easy to look past all that when you have, you know, the dreyfus in your face. Looking to expand your collection? Check out Trains.com. Trains is your go-to place for new and used model railroad products. They have everything ranging from engines, rolling stock, parts, track, and scenery. If you need it, they probably have it. With new discounts being added daily, you'll be sure to find something you like. Plus, Trains offers a newsletter, which keeps you up to date on new items, discounts, and upcoming promotions. We've been using Trains for years and we highly recommend their stellar service. What's really cool is you can also collect points by buying Trains and using them on future purchases. With their awesome rewards program, you can earn points on every purchase that you can use for future discounts. Dedicated modelers can also join their private car membership to get exclusive access to new listings, earn five points per dollar spent, and unlock great benefits like no questions asked returns. Trains not only sells Trains, but also buys them too. If you had a large collection or interested in downsizing and making some cash, you can head on over to sellmytrains.com. It doesn't get easier than that. You can find them using our affiliate link www.trains.com/mmop, or if you want to use our one-time promo code MMOP, you can get $10 off a single purchase on the Trains.com website. So, check out Trains.com and start expanding your collection today. - Absolutely, I appreciate you saying so. And I always, you know, I'm always goofing on Pensy, but I'm honest, I love both. I love them both for different reasons. Both have fantastic merits, both have, you know, some downsides to each of them. And I was, the reason I love New York Central was, it was just, that was what I got, literally the first thing that I got. It was going to be one of the two, and New York Central just got in first. So, that was what I was exposed to first. It was very, you know, close at the same time, but it was New York Central that just stuck with me more. Something the aesthetic I just like more. It's a little bit more, it's a little bit more new money. Pensy was kind of always more the old money road, and that was true even, you know, back then. That was the sort of vibe that both of them had. Pensy was the more traditional, and New York Central was kind of the more chic and forward thinking in terms of business practices, clientele, you know. Which isn't a bad thing in either way, it's just differences. The thing I like about New York Central more than anything else, and I hope our listeners appreciate, even if they don't realize, the amount of effort it's causing me to not make this entire episode this topic, because I will literally go on. - I honestly, I could go on. - We will, you will, I know you will too, we all would add in for night of about this, 'cause it really is a really, really good topic, but we'll keep it short. But because this is the topic, and because this is such a big thing for us, the thing I like most about New York Central, Pensy was the biggest railroad in the country at one point, one of the largest in the world in terms of being an actual company. And I think they were, if it wasn't double the size of New York Central, it might have even been close to triple the size of New York Central, but I think it was at least double. And New York Central was the only one that made them sweat a little bit. Like, to put it another way, this is kind of a crude metaphor, but like, Pensy was too, McDonald's was too Pensy, as New York Central was too Burger King. New York Central was the lesser of the two in terms of business, but they were the only ones that could really make the big guy look over his shoulder a little bit. And, you know, there's tons of debates about, you know, operating practices, you know, Pensy, Fortrach, I was goof. New York Central could do with two tracks what Pensy needed for it to do. That's always my crusher, my finisher, and I always goof, you know, New York Central, you got your Pensy in my New York Central when it comes to Pensy Central, I was goofed that they brought down the Central, which they did, and, okay, to be fair, New Haven was the thing that actually killed it, but Pensy was the thing that started it. It just wasn't good. And we've talked about this, too, a lot. It's from a business perspective, because, I mean, we've all, you know, studied business to some extent, whether in school or just as a hobby. And it's fascinating to see, you know, what they wanted to do back then, when the mergers were starting, and what could have happened, and what didn't happen, and how things turned up. Because, yeah, it's so, oh God, it's so sad, because what, for anybody who doesn't know, what was supposed to happen, what should have happened, Pensy and NW would have gotten together, New York Central, B&O, and C&O would have gotten together. And then, you know, New Haven probably would have done some like Guilford Rail thing that happened up there eventually, where all the little failing New England roads conglomerated into this homunculus of just, you know, attempting to stay afloat. But, yeah, it's just, and instead we got these two, you could not have picked two worst roads to put together. Overlapping territory, completely different operating practices, everything, just, yeah. - From looking at it as like, there was more to it than that, but at least the Mayas from a business standpoint, you know, and NW and Pensy were, I don't know everything about it, but they had ties already via some bank or the company that-- - Stock ownership, yep. - Stock stock ownership, correct. And then, you know, it's like, it would have made sense. It's like if, you know, Dodge and Chevy were to come, like, no, you know, Chrysler and Chevy can combine. And, you know, Pontiac and, I just said the wrong thing, Dodge and Chrysler combine, and you know, Pontiac and Chevy combine, you know, like, that's how, you know, you gotta combine things that are similar and all that makes sense. - Yeah, you put those with like, both, you know, culturally and also, you know, from a political and economics standpoint of things, you know. - Absolutely. - We said, you're combining these, these two different railroads and, you know, like you said, they operate it so differently. And so it just, it makes no sense to why you would do that. And of course, we've, we saw the outcome and it's like, well, you kind of did that to yourself. - Absolutely. Yeah. No, they did. It was just a whole, it just, you know, wrong place, wrong time. And look where it's ended up now. We've had, you know, Conrail came in and then NS and... - CSX. - CSX, which are chess, you know, the heritage of Chesy, B&O, C&O and Norfolk and Western have now split Pontiac Central up the way it should have been originally. NS owns most of Pennsy. And CSX owns most of New York Central. And it works great. - Here's the thing, in those names, there's Chesy and then there's Norfolk. I don't hear Pennsy in any of them. - No, it's not what you're saying. - Just saying. - As the good Lord intended. - That's right. - As he did in the late '70s for either of them. But, yeah. So it's, that, that's a classic debate. And it will go on until the end of time. - One thing back to what you guys are saying on the engines real quick. The interesting thing, people always debate K-4s versus Hudson's. I mean, you gotta give the Pennsy guys credit. The K-4 was around at least, oh man, first Hudson's were built in the late '20s and early '30s. Forget exactly when, don't persecute me. - I believe it was the early '30s. - Yeah, early '30s. And K-4s were around about 10, at least 10 years before that. And we still have two of them and we have no Hudson's. - That's what to say. Yeah, that's a win for them that I have. - Absolutely. - Yeah. - A little bit more about it. - In terms of. - That is, that is one thing they did really. That's just funny, a lot of railroads that you wouldn't think, you know, would, would stick around or rather keep their equipment. You know, now we see if they did keep their equipment. And that's why we have literally, you have almost the entire iconic Pennsy lineup. - Yep. - Still an existence. And on the New York Central side, you have a Mohawk. - You have two Mohawks. - Yeah. - Couple of switchers, three, nine, and what else? - Yeah. - It's funny, the most iconic, the most iconic like from a record setting standpoint is the 4-4-0. That's the only thing left. - Literally, that was the only, I believe technically, that was the only engine initially earmarked for preservation by New York Central in terms of steam power. The Mohawks were afterthoughts and like, just tap and stance. 'Cause this Smithsonian wanted, I think it was either 5,200, which was the first Hudson or 5,344. - 44 would have made sense. 'Cause there was all kinds of weird stuff with that one. It was like new roller bearings and, you know, it was a J-1E. So it was like the, was it the last of the J-1? - Yes, most refined J-1 class. It was both the Vanderbilt and the Dreyfus in its lifetime. - And so it's like, it's like, that is Hudson. Like that just defines everything that the Hudson- - And it's the class too. - was trying to be- - It's the 700E. - Exactly. But yeah. - I guess it's a good point to think about that. You know, a lot of us being line out guys, it's kind of hard to not appreciate the central, in some degree and be a line out fan, because it's a line of the J-3. - Cowan indoctrinated us. - I guess what we're saying here is if you're a pencil person, you got to go do S-Gage now 'cause they made K-4s, but line out line only, what do they call John? The little weird like baby K-4 thingy that they made in the post-war era? - Baby K-4 thingy. Oh yeah, the not the K-4, the not the K-4. - The K-4. - Yeah. It's kind of someone said K-4 in the next room. - Yeah. - I guess you can say K-4 of K-4s. - But yeah, I definitely agree. That's, I don't think I knew about the New York Central before I knew about like anything to do with scale modeling or anything, 'cause I knew about the Hudson, I knew about the 700E. And once I watched like the TM video on all the Hudson's line I made, I actually learned about the, you know, the kind of path of Hudson's in real life and how they evolved over time. And you know, there were what, three classes, but within each class was like-- - Sub classes? - Yep. - Sub classes, which is just crazy. - You see how we can go on about this? Like we will literally, it's so deep of a topic. It's fantastic. - Well, let's take that actually. So it makes a good point. So speaking of the raros that we're into and what we model, a lot of it I think comes from what media and exposure we've had to different trains and different models and different railroads. And like I said, I think we all have a commonality of TM being one of them. TM had a lot of influence on me in terms of what trains I was exposed to as models. And I know you and Sid also have a very deep connection with those two when it comes to the classic TM stuff. - Absolutely. - Like I know for me, TM-wise, I had a lot of, you know, I had my model trains growing up. I had my railking GS-2 and my Alaska-4. I've said this many times through the on the show, but I didn't get to play with them as a kid. I got to, I lived vicariously through AVHSs of myself or watching I look toy trains. And it was through that that I had exposure to a lot of the, you know, every time I saw the daylight on the screen, I made me very, I got very excited or seeing the war bonnets or UP, Armory Yellow. And I think a lot of that had a big hand and, you know, as a kid, I liked the more colorful trains, which is a very iconic of the West Coast. And that definitely had a hand in my preference of trains. How about you guys? How did TM shape your perception of what railroad you guys liked? - So it's interesting because of the way I was brought up on TM, it was, I mean, I still have my original, like one of the first additional I love toy trains, VHSs. For me, I was always more interested. The models were more of like an expression of my, it was an outlet for me to enjoy my just, my general enjoyment of trains. Like I love the models for what they are, but I love what they allowed me to do more, if that makes sense. That's kind of very heavy in terms of the topic. But like Sid, I feel like it's slightly different with you because you very much more focused on like the models themselves as a kid, whereas I was more like, I was more into like, oh, the model allows me to recreate this or something. And I wasn't thinking this is a kid, of course. I'm thinking, colorful trains, but yeah, it was just a fun, I enjoyed the TM stuff because one it taught me a lot of stuff about trains in a fun way. And it was, it was just a way to find out, 'cause you know, when you're a kid, you kind of, you don't really need to like understand something to kind of download it into your brain. So like, I just kind of, you just kind of absorb stuff. And you're just like, yeah, okay, so this is what is now part of me. So just seeing all the layouts and just the different methodology, it was kind of like a big appetizer of all the potential that you could see, 'cause you would see high rail stuff, you would see vintage things, you would see real stuff, you would see all different kinds of just topics. And it was fun to kind of get that like appetizer tray of all the different things you could be into. So that's kind of what it was for me. It was just a fun program to just enjoy and just you know, just you know, turn your brain off and just blah over the trains. And you know, years later, after seeing one in whatever the first one was when they showed the MTH official Isle of Toy Trainset, it's one of my favorite things in my collection is my Mint TM, MTH Isle of Toy Trainset. I still have it 'cause it reminds me of what that program did for me. - Yeah, for me, like you said, it was kind of the opposite. I actually didn't watch "I Love Toy Trains" until I was more of an adult teenager. I jumped right into the classic TM. TM is very, I love Lionel and very history based and you know, what's happened kind of in the past, watching it now, it's kind of sad and how kind of backwards thinking it was like, like looking at it now, it was very reminiscent and it's almost depressing in a way looking at it because they were like, oh, the hobby's dying, old, you know? - Yeah. - When you stop at a corner and you see the old drug store that used to sell trains and now they're gone, it's like, no, there is still life in the hobby as we know. - Well video games are ruining everything, so the hobby's dying. - Exactly. But I was definitely based on more like focusing on the history of model trains. And so I got, I went really, really deep and I still know a lot. I'm not saying that I know everything, but if you ask me something, I probably know and if you ask me about some very obscure companies from the, you know, the 80s and 90s, I definitely know stuff that, you know, your average person doesn't, won't know. And so everything for me was kind of this, I wanna, oh, I wanna collect. I was, I wasn't still I am a collector. At the end of the day, I'm a collector. In the past five years, I've definitely dived more into the realism and, you know, scale and understanding the history behind trains. And I always knew about the history, but I was just like, oh, the hit, like, you know, it's kind of, you know, history on real trains is documented really well, but model stuff isn't documented as well. And so I wanted to absorb it as, you know, as early as possible so I could learn more and more before, well, unfortunately, the sources go away if they don't document it. And so I'm a collector. I was buying lots of 90s stuff and, you know, it fueled my love of stuff that's now kind of older. And, you know, to me, it's nostalgic 'cause I look back at it as a kid, you know, looking at it and then now I can buy it and can have it and it's very cool. But because I watched TM, I was very much about Lionel from the 90s and early 2000s and they were making a lot of really nice stuff and time. And then as a local business, MTH was around me in Maryland and so I, it just kind of fueled everything. And by chance it kind of ended up pushing me to like, you know, a lot of local roads like the Chesapeake and Ohio, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Norfolk and Western, it's kind of another reason for that one. But yeah, TM definitely shaped me into a collector and lover of the models. And, you know, as more of an adult, I've looked more into the history and what really happened for these models to even exist. - Want to support your favorite O scale podcast and rock some awesome merch? Well, now you can. We've teamed up with redbubble.com and have come up with a great selection of gear that you can get right now. They have everything from shirts, hoodies, stickers, mugs, bags, you name it. Heck, you can even get a wall clock with us on it. All this great stuff and more at redbubble.com. Links are down on the show notes. So grab yourself some gear and rock some awesome podcast merch. (engine revving) - I think another thing is like, John, I think you and I have more of a similarity in this when it comes to the media that we consume, which is we lean more towards the historical stuff a little bit more or more of the media of the actual trains. Growing up, I started very much with the, you know, going to the library and borrowing, whatever, train videos or magazines were available at the time. And I have very fond memories of going to the library, getting all the DVDs of the Steam excursions from the '90s or earlier, you know, the '44, '49, the Challenger, going as, running as Clinchfield, the '84, the '64, the '61, '75, you know, all the classic '90s excursions, the 'T1s, you know, chesty Steam special. And I guess for me, you know, being a person who, for all of us, growing up, not, you know, Steam is long gone outside of excursions. That was our way to see Steam, to see it in action and see it in, at that time was the clearest form that possible. Now we look at it and we're like, wow, you can't make out half what we're looking at. But, you know, that was my way of enjoying Steam. And, you know, because of that, it's also shaped, you know, like I said, I have a love for the daylight which developed my love for the Southern Pacific. And seeing that in such clear quality at the time and being able to live experience that I would never have been able to have and otherwise, that definitely shaped my perception of what railroads I liked. You know, I saw, you know, UP, it's Challenger. 3095 came to my hometown when I was one and I couldn't see it. But knowing that it came to my hometown gave me a sense of pride. Seeing the daylight going so many miles for the Freedom Train, for being a chef and under its own, you know, daylight paint scheme was great. Or seeing 3751, although, you know, the war bonnet stuff. That definitely had a hand in that. And, you know, getting older and becoming friends with you, especially with you, John, had taught me to love watching all the historical footage, you know, Charles Smiley presents or Heron Rail and all that stuff like that. I think that definitely had a huge effect on which railroads became my favorite. How about you? - Oh, dude, you literally just said one of them right there. Heron, I would not be the person I am today without Heron Rail. Everybody obsesses over Pentrex. No, now Heron was the, that was the gateway drug. That was the catalyst for like all this. I, and now to be fair, my earliest memory, one of my earliest memories and probably the first train thing I ever watched, literally when I was like a newborn, was Pentrex's, and it's the reason I love Santa Fe. '80s and '70s Santa Fe specifically, was Pentrex's Cajon and Tehachapi film, which I think was like four hours long. And I would literally just, my parents told me I would literally just sit there for the entire time and just watch it, just watch the super ASMR narrator with the voice, the really good, I always forget his name, but that very great, that really good narrator. But no, I had two Heron films I had growing up as a kid were Reflections of the New York Central and Pennsylvania Glory, volume three specifically. I can almost quote both of those films from, I can quote the beginning of Reflections of the New York Central to a tee. And those were what got me. As we all know from what is it, Century of Lionel, that's one the real, real love star. (laughing) - That's one the real love. - That was getting into the sound of it. - I was getting into the sound of it. (laughing) So no, that was where my just appreciation of the historical and just wanting to, that nostalgic feeling of wanting to recreate that. Like even as a kid, you understand, okay, this is something I can't see anymore. This is something different than what I can go out and see. And again, as a kid, you don't really understand it, but you just kind of download all this information. And then it just kind of marinates in your head for the next 20 plus years until you turn out like this. And then you have to see the product of, it's like a time capsule almost. See, that's like, oh, that got cut with all this other stuff. Let's see what happened with that. So, yeah, no, Heron was a gigantic, the fact that they had the narrator that they had too in those, he was an original CBS broadcast narrator named Ralph Morse. His diction, his meter with which he spoke, his just overall tone. If you've ever watched a original Heron film, you'll know exactly what he sounds like. And the way, just the way he presented things and the way that those films were put together, I hold everything else to the standard of Heron rail in terms of what I was exposed to. But going back just to briefly sum this all up, kind of what I feel like, it's interesting to see the way we kind of approach modeling because when, when it, when Sid, when you're modeling, when you buy a train, you're more appreciating the train as it is as a model. You're enjoying the train as a model of the train. And Johnny and I are more trying to actually have the train represent the real train. Like it's, the model is just the vessel for the real train in our mind. And so it's kind of interesting, am I wrong on that? Like that's a, that's a pretty good. - It's, it's a, in my case, it's very true. Something I, this is something I tell people which, they sort of have trouble understanding sometimes is, if I like, it's kind of just common sense, but it's also like, why wouldn't you try? If I want, like for me, if I want to, you know, experience real trains, I go to a museum. I know they're not running most of the time, but for, as, as someone who's, who's becoming an engineer and understands what it takes for these to work, to an extent, I don't know everything. But I understand what's going on. I can stand there and imagine and just, or I can go see a real thing actually running. And there is my, you know, there's my intake of, of train. - Absolutely. - The models are just a way for me to not only see this in miniature form, but also bringing in the mechanics and the electronics and those getting the sound of it. (laughing) - I agree for me, it's definitely more of a, of a, of a model thing. And which, which for me is fine for, for other people, they're, you know, you guys, like the, the, it's representing. - Exactly. - Every, a real train for me, I guess, even though these are detailed models, it's more of like a caricature of a real train. - Yeah, you're appreciating the model itself. And you know, it's just a black and white thing. You know, we, you know, we appreciate the models themselves. And you, of course, have, you know, you're representing, you have a high rail layout. You are designing somebody that looks like the real world. - Thank you. - But it's just interesting to see our different kind of approaches and how they stem from our backgrounds. It's kind of, it's kind of like profiling. It's seeing how we got to that point. And not in a bad way, of course, but it's just, it's kind of an, it's interesting to see, see the timeline, how it all happened. - Yeah. - And we can, of course, see that in our friends too, all the way up, all they collect and everything. And that's what's so fun about this is just, you know, kind of, you know, trading ideas and thoughts back and forth and all this kind of stuff. - Yeah, for sure. Well, I guess this brings me on to the next one. And the biggest, you know, kind of one of the bigger points that we want to touch on tonight, we are, you know, very defined in what rarits we like. What would you guys say was, what led you to that point? Why do you model the rarits that you do? - I'm gonna go for the Sid first. Go ahead, Sid. I want you to take that off. - So for me, it's two things. I live in Maryland and Maryland and just the whole DMV area is the home of, I don't want to call it, America's Railroad, but the Baltimore and Ohio, it's the original American, one of the original, you know, United States railroads. - It is the original. - And so that's like the main, you know, where a lot of the, my liking of that comes from. And then it stems out, you know, C&O is south of me, but it's still very related, you know. I like, I like very large industrial like machinery. And so that's why I like big coal hauling engines and freight trains. And I also like Art Deco. And so I like all the streamliers. And of course, the C&O and B&O had plenty of that with their fancy Hudson's and Pacific's. And then they had their big articulated and it, it just represented this kind of different form of railroading from, you know, your typical New York Central or fancy and it was just, it was different. And then I've talked about this, all our friends joke with me about this, but my liking of N&W didn't really come from anything local to me like directly. It came from me going and seeing a layout and a collection of a local businessman called named Tony Lash. He was a local businessman in Maryland. He owned Consolidated Waste Industry, which is, which was a industrial kind of waste company for construction and things like that. And so in his warehouse, he had this enormous, like I think it was 3000 square feet or something. Half the size of an average starter home. And he just, you know, that was my exposure to N&W and he had direct ties with like his grandfather and riding on real life N&W articulated. And him telling me these stories and getting to see a visual representation of it in model form just took, just ignited this liking and desire to own and in model Norfolk and Western 'cause it's impressive. And it's, you know, big articulated, big coal trains, one of the greatest and most iconic Northerns of all time. And tons of fantastic kind of local history with just stuff in Virginia and smaller trains. And John has shown me plenty of footage now just showing me some of the smaller stuff. And it's just another interesting but different form of railroading from, I keep using Pensy and New York Central, but, you know, they're your flagship American railroads but then these other railroads are just kind of your, your work horses, you know, you're just getting it done and out of small, slightly smaller level, but still, you know, talk about an impressive, just display of railroading, look at Baltimore, that yard and all the facilities they had in Baltimore, that's just, it's crazy, a lot of it's still there. But looking at photos and seeing the number of tracks heading into those yards and the facilities there, it's just so impressive. And the fact that I can still go and see some of it at the museum is just even better 'cause I can, you know, get a little taste of what it was like and that's kind of what led me to liking the C&O, the B&O, the N&W and just unhauling railroads, I keep saying that in general. I collect a bit of everything, but those are, those are my true loves of modeling or those three railroads. - Very little put, man, very little put. John, how about you? - Absolutely, no, and I can go right off that. For our listeners real quick, if you don't know Tony Lash, you'll know him from pretty much every MTH thing that's ever been filmed or pretty much anything that was ever filmed in TM that involved MTH stuff was on his layout. Very Appalachia, lots of woods, lots of greenery and tunnels and all that stuff. - I've been to thousand trees or something, it's like insane. - The trestles going everywhere, I can't believe, I'm very quite jealous of the fact that you got to see, on multiple occasions you went to this layout, did you know? And in the DMV area where you and I both live, I never went and saw this layout, so it's definitely, the way you talk about it and the memories and the photos that you share, I can tell it was a very almost religious experience to go there. - Yeah, it definitely was. - Yeah, and growing up in the same area, we do have some quite interesting, for what we lack in tourist railroads in this area, we absolutely make up for a very interesting railroad heritage, we pretty much live at the genesis of American railroading where everything began. - It's funny 'cause everyone overlooks that I call, I call the B&O America's railroad 'cause it's the first, but it just got overshadowed by everything else going on the east coast and now we have UP which continues on the heritage, but that's a completely different side of railroading, which Johnny'll talk about. - Absolutely, no, it's, yeah, and I live in kind of a, right in the middle of a triangle of three different railroads, I love, I was joke, it's funny, I love New York Central and Pennsy, but I never saw either of them. The closest thing that comes in is Pennsy, which went into DC, New York Central, I've never, you know, I've never even been, the closest I've been is, you know, New York City, I've never gone along the, well technically did go through part of it on the Capitol Limited, but yeah, I have no connection to it historically or, you know, in terms of location, so it's kind of funny that that's one of my favorite railroads, but the little triumph of mine would be Baltimore, Ohio, of course, because that's my favorite local road, Southern Railway, which is probably, I've never mapped it out, but it's probably the closest, like in terms of where it is to me is the Southern Mainline, and then RF&P, which was another fascinating railroad, which RJ has been getting me big into, he's the really big fan of that road. I've always kind of liked it in the background, just 'cause it's an interesting, you know, thing, but I've very much more gotten into it now, knowing him and learning so much about it from him. It's great to have friends who are passionate about other railroads because you just being a railroad friend yourself, you absorb so much great info, like Johnny, I've learned so much about SP from you. It's just a fun thing to talk with someone who's very knowledgeable and fun to discuss these things with, even though it's not like a road that you particularly find not uninteresting, but just one that you don't model, that you probably never will model. It's just nice getting to enjoy it vicariously through someone else hearing their knowledge and stories and just the interesting things about why they appreciate, because then you can appreciate your own stuff so much more because you think, oh, he appreciates that that way. I do the same thing with my stuff. So yeah, no, same reasons that Sid said, I grew up going to places like Harper's Ferry and Point of Rocks, you know, I pretty much lived along the B&O mainline. I never really realized how much I really liked it until a lot later in life, just because I was always kind of around it. I never really like thought about it as much, but it's such, it's just the aesthetic and the fact that we have so much left of it, it's just impossible to dislike. It's so likable as a railroad for so many reasons. It preserved its own history, just like the pansy, the architecture is beautiful, the aesthetic of the coaches and the paint and the locomotives are beautiful. The logo alone, the Capitol Herald is America. It's without being distasteful, you know, like a bunch of bald eagles and flags and stuff, which, well, fantastic, are a bit much. But it's just, it's such a refined, tasteful road. I love Southern, the kind of flamboyant, you know, green, RF and P is very kind of reserved and business-like, you know, it was all about money, money, money, money with RF and P, getting stuff, you know, north and south. So it's very, it's just a neat area to live in. And then also, been doing, Sid, thanks to you very much, as of late, I've been investing in an NW heritage and found out that I live very close, relatively, to kind of the fourth main line, which was the NW Shenandoah line, which went from Hagerstown down to Shenandoah and eventually Roanoke. So I've been really, since I've met you, delving into N&W history and lore and finding tons of cool footage about that. And you and I have kind of building each other up with that since then, but this is why you need friends who are into other stuff because it's just so nice to be able to learn all this stuff and appreciate other people's stuff and still, again, with like Pensie and New York Central, I love both of those for different reasons and just, you know, even though I wasn't connected to them growing up, I just like him for different ways. Like, Pensie is very kind of like a homey railroad. Like, I think more like local kind of friendly sort of, you know, everybody's railroad sort of thing, you know, short little trains and stuff and just kind of like, you know, taking railfan trips and being a little bit more relaxed and central is just like, you know, big money, big time, hustle, bustle, back and forth, back and forth, lots of, you know, like, you know, movie stars and celebrities and that kind of thing, you know, big power, lots of, you know, shiny contests and little interesting peddler freights and stuff going around, like I said, and all that kind of thing, you know, technology, they were all about technology. So it's just interesting to, you know, see all these different railroads. We can appreciate each one so much more as a result of just, you know, all these different methods that we were brought up on. And, you know, I don't know, it's just fun. - And joining this week's topic, you can join in on the conversation too on a community discret server. We have a lot of different discussion channels ranging from showing off your collection, discussing the latest and greatest in the industry, a buy and sell form, and even a voice channel we can hop on call and talk trains with us late into the night. We're a little over 300 strong and it will love to have you join us too. Check out the invite link to our community discord down in the show notes, reading, knowledge of the rules and introduce yourself and start chatting. We have a great team of moderators to make sure all are welcomed and respected. So what are you waiting for? Come on down and join us in on the fun. And let's talk some trains. (upbeat music) - Johnny, what about you? - It's really interesting because you guys have very strong connections to the railroad you model through personal experience or through, you know, they've been local to you. The history being tied to the area that you guys are from. And you have me here who models of rail, model railroads that are miles away from Chicago. Like UPSP and Santa Fe did come through Chicago in their own way, shape or form, especially the UP and the Santa Fe. SP is one of those things where you go, oh yeah, they did touch Chicago. My exposure with the SP, obviously with my first train set, but it goes more than that. It started a young age growing up on early, early YouTube, you know, everybody watched one of those like, you know, train simulator, train series and stuff like that. And I grew up very strongly watching the full Buccaneers, which is an MSTS series. And it quite literally, for those who never saw it, you can thankfully someone had uploaded all, re-uploaded all of the original episodes to YouTube again. But essentially it's like the storyline of TUGS, quite literally ripped a few of the episodes and character names. But, you know, it was a compete, it took place in this fictional desert route. And it was a fight between the main two SP and UP and the West Pacific also being included as well. You know, the main protagonist was SP, but you know, no one was really the evil character in this series. And seeing a lot of the was railroads, you know, seeing the daylight, the cab forward, the E units, big boy challenger, the FEFs, a whole nine yards, the California's effort, stuff like that, you know, I got ingrained in my brain and I, you know, even at a young age as a kid, I tried to replicate that, even though I had literally nothing from those railroads aside from my railking engine. But it was definitely had a very strong hand in what I modeled. And then obviously seeing the excursions, a lot of those engines from that series still are around and they run excursions. And it was a combination of that, that really cemented my love for West Coast railroading. As I grew older and, you know, I stepped away from trains much like everyone else does, you know, for a short period of time. And when I got to the point of being an adult and being able to afford trains, you know, I came back and I collected a variety of things, you know, every good deal that you run into, 'cause everyone suffers from that at some point, you're from good dealism and you just buy everything. Some people never get out of that and that's fine. But I realized, right? Yeah, but I realized that I couldn't buy everything that I wanted. And I had to narrow down my focus. I tried to, you know, 'cause I kept buying nothing but excursion engines and that just resulted very expensive purchases that I can't always justify. And when it came down to the point of needing to narrow down my focus, a lot of it came back to those old YouTube series that I watched, you know, full book and ears being one of them. And one of them is a Nick Ozorex series at the Rail Yard where he reviewed a lot of MSTS content. Oh, that's the Rail Yard. Do you remember the episode, John, where he reviewed the Donner Pass with City San Francisco where they modeled that snowstorm, the train getting stuck? Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, he had a, he had a, I think he's still doing that show as well, very rarely. Yes, very, very rarely he does it. He's mostly focused on the Roundhouse podcast which we take some influence from. But I don't know where we got that from at all. But, but seeing that, you know, seeing the struggles that the SP went through as well, the SP was known as the friendly SP, you know, it was the dominant railroad aside from UP out in the West Coast to the point where almost to the point, toxically so. So he had a stranglehold over the Bay Area and a lot of railroads had to compete with that, you know, quite literally WP got into a gunfight with SP back in the early, early days. Or they would constantly try to keep other railroads out of lucrative areas, you know, Santa Fe and West Pacific had to go through very round about ways of getting into the Bay Area because SP was such a dominant force there. It was quite literally the equivalent of the Pennsylvania Railroad out in the West Coast. And you had not only, you know, in there's so much variety, you know, the Modoc line, Donner Pass, the Bay Area, there's so much rich history that goes into the SP and I love that, you know, the camp engine. So they designed the camp for it just to make sure that their crews didn't suffocate out in the snow sheds and the tunnels out there, or the GS is being beautifully streamlined and iconic. And that was my main priority in terms of modeling 'cause that's the railroad I really enjoyed. And over time, learning about the history through John or through my own research has been very fun. I mean, Pacific's one of those ones where I hated the Pacific as a kid because like, oh, they killed the SP and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know. - Based opinion, Johnny, based opinion. - But, you know, I had to kind of love the UP a little bit because I live next to the UP West line, former Chicago Northwestern. Surprisingly, I don't model CW, but I do have a soft spot for it. And how could you not love the challenger, the FEF, the big boy? I mean, no. - Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's impossible not to. Again, it's just, you know, us, former, you're forced to, you have to. - Sid hates the UP, that's why he has a spike wall of nothing but UP. - I don't have a wall of just big boys and FEF, no. - No, but it's hard not to at least love the UP to a certain degree. You know, even if you have your strong hatred, does that little bit of, okay, that's pretty cool? You know, you've got to at least smile a little bit. - Oh, yeah. - You see, you know, big boy or FEF running. - Absolutely. - And I do enjoy the UP a lot for that. And that is something I have collected. Again, because of that nostalgia for some of those old series that I watch as a kid and, you know, getting to, you know, last of the giants, you know, that's another one that kind of cemented that love for UP. WP, I've, I don't know too much about it, but kind of become a friends with Cody, wipe out. He's kind of rekindled that love for WP again. I do want to get into it. Charles Miles Lake having a lot of that on his HO layout that he featured in his videos. I also want to get back into that because he models it very well. And the one that I kind of completed at this point, and one that I've been very happy that I've been able to share with John is the Santa Fe. You know, the war bonnet is so iconic. And the super chief, the pasture trains, the freight trains, all of it is just so iconic for the West Coast. You know, you got a level war bonnet to a certain extent. And Matt Rosford was a big inspiration for that. He, you know, being the big, I remember going to his house for the first time when we first became friends and walking into his layout and literally being surrounded by nothing but war bonnet for as far as the eye can see. He had a war bonnet shelf. That was three tears. It's crazy. And I started to give Santa Fe more mind. I didn't pay attention to as much, but, you know, you look out for things that your friends want to buy. If you know their railroads and you've tried to, you know, live vicariously for them or make them spend money. And in the process of looking for things for Matt and trying to lead him into bad financial decisions regarding trains, I fell for the Santa Fe a little bit as well. And he was a big, he wanted to collect every pasture, diesel ever, you know, ever owned by the Santa Fe at an O scale and he accomplished that dream. And, you know, I also fell into that as well. He also gifted me a hat that he had purchased in the giant lot of rare hats, which was a SPSF hat, which was the full spelled out Santa Fe something specific, you know, Santa, Santa, Santa Fe, you know, that whole, that kind of unintentionally, you know, ignited a spark for me. I was like, well, that'd be kind of cool to kind of model both of them, you know, not in the Code of Chrome era because that wasn't disaster for both rare hats when, when that happened, you know, Santa Fe luckily was able to get back on their feet and merge would be in a SPSF. And Rio Grande saved the SP from going under and kept the SP name, but I hate Code of Chrome. Sorry, it looks terrible. - Ooh, that hurt. - I can't, I can't. - Okay, no, I'll give you, I hate it with the SP engines. It looks great with the Santa Fe engines. - FP45's great in Code of Chrome, everything else weird, but you know, it's fine. I can respect it for what it was. And I do wish that merger could have worked because there are two rarer's I love great. I love Gerely, but after Matt Rajford switched to, to H.O. Or more accurately, explored H.O. He's not left to O scale, but he, after he went to explore H.O., a lot of his collection was up for grabs. And I remember grabbing a few bits and bobs. One, just so if Matt ever wanted it back, that he could always ask for it back and buy it back and stuff like that, or pieces that I have memories with. It started my Santa Fe collection. And over time, I just started purchasing or inheriting more pieces from Matt R. And eventually I built this giant Santa Fe collection. And you know, Lulu being a big Santa Fe guy too, egged that on. And so it's Tim out here in Chicago. And through all of that, that's where my love of Santa Fe came from. It's a lot of learning the history and having exposure to it as a child and having, you know, seeing how excited it makes other people around you who are into those rarer's and deciding to indulge in that with them. And yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't always have to be a local inspiration like you guys have for me. Like I said, a lot of it was just seeing it growing up on YouTube or on media as a child and having that love for those bright, colorful trade stick with you and going from, ooh, shiny train to the history behind me as rarer was just cool. And I like to have that in my collection. So, well, when do we answer? That's how I got into the rarer's. I meant SP, UP and Santa Fe. - No, that's fantastic, man. I was hoping you were gonna bring up the fact that exact thing that you led into that with, with how none of the stuff that you model is anywhere near you. But that's fine, you know, like that's, if anything, I think that's really interesting and shows how passionate you are about those roads that you, you wanna go like, again, with like me in New York Central or said with UP, like, even though we're not like exactly near them, we love them so much and we know so much about them that we want to, you know, we wanna learn more about that stuff. Like, my logo is a GS-2 for me. - Exactly. - It's my GS-2, it's just the picture of my engine that I can't get back. - Oh, man. So, yeah, it's cool to see those, like, the reasons why. Like, Johnny, that's, I love that you brought up the old YouTube series and stuff. 'Cause like, for all of it, like, you know, we grew up during that time of like the YouTube, everybody kind of like finding their creative voices and stuff. So, seeing stuff like that, 'cause I remember, you know, I wasn't a religious viewer of that kind of stuff, but like, I remember checking out pieces here and there, you know, all the trains, Thomas' content that would come up and be made. Everybody doing, you know, their own episodes and stuff, it's, you know, it sounds silly, but it was such, you know, it was just exploring new creative outlets and, you know, again, being exposed to stuff that's kind of outside your realm of, you know, where you live and everything. I have a unique one. I wouldn't mind just talking about briefly with like New Haven. I, you know, I live nowhere new than, nowhere new, nowhere new than New, near Haven. (both laughing) We're not taking that out. That stays in. I live nowhere near that road, but I remembered as a kid, in addition to, you know, watching the train films and everything, I loved, my library had a collection of, you guys might even know the film set. It was, it was like a VHS set. Hey, kids, remember VHSes? Remember when, remember when the media was linear? You had to rewind it. There was no menu. It was a set of, I just said, like America's railroads and had the daylight going through some-- - Yes, like a wooden organ, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, like it's gray and rainy on the side. Yeah, I feel like everybody knows that one. But it had like the different corporate films that the railroads would have made back in the 30s, 40s and 50s. And one of them was a great railroad at work, which was all about the New Haven. And, you know, you see the opening scene of this, it's like, what the heck is this weird, you know, streamline, pointy Hudson with these dinner plate wheels? It's just, it was so, and then later on in life, I, two of my best friends are from New London, Connecticut. And I got to go up there for, you know, a couple, I would regularly go up there over the summer and getting to travel on the shoreline, the New Haven shoreline, which is one of the greatest pieces of rail line in anywhere in our country. It's absolutely beautiful. It's one of the most interesting historical pieces of network in our system. It's just something so interesting. I mean, I would equate it, Johnny, to like, you know, it's probably nowhere near in comparison to the scenery and everything. But like the coastal, you know, the surf line on the Santa, the former Santa Fe down to San Diego, like it's that level to me of like, it's right along the coast. You get all these little neat towns and all this old infrastructure. It's just something really cool like that. And, you know, that's kind of where I came from, too, with Santa Fe, loving the West Coast thing. And, you know, nowhere near the Santa Fe. Couldn't be further away from it. Like to me, even though I love being in New York Central, like Santa Fe is like the god tier American railroad. Like that's America's railroad to me. That's the official. It was always profitable, never really faltered much during the 70s. Iconic, the paint schemes, the diesel, the steam, everything about it just screams incredible business venture that just went. I'm doing the narrator's voice in my head beyond even its creators, wild expectations from Santa Fe Odyssey. - Yep. - Yep. - The Santa Fe was the epitome of a class one railroad. That, just in, you know, again, Lou has been, you know, within the past few months of meeting Lou in person has been, you know, profoundly influencing my Santa Fe knowledge. So it's just been, it's been really great with you guys telling me everything. Sid, what about you in terms of like just going back to like, you know, your kind of oddball roads that you don't really have a connection to, but you still love anyway. Like any, did you wanna add anything else to your stuff? (mumbles) - Nah. - Short and short. (laughing) - Okay. - No. (laughing) - Looking for something different? Need a gift for a fellow rail fan? Well folks, look no further. NPL Customs is your source for all railroading decor. Handcrafted, made in the USA and veteran owned. Their products made for rail fans by rail fans. I personally have a set of coasters from them that I absolutely love. Find them on Etsy at NPL Customs and use code MMPodcast at check out to save 10%. NPL Customs, quality since 2017. - We've, I feel like I've said everything and what you guys were saying makes like, I agree, you 100%. (laughing) - Well, I'll hop on what John said earlier. The America's railroads, those DVD sets, I came in those little tin boxes for me. Oh my God, when you mentioned it, I heard the music, the intro music. - The jazz music, right? - Oh, I think, I noticed a change from version version 'cause Jason, a Chicago Jason, he also had that. And he brought it over, he gave it a cure. I bet you don't own this. I'm like, Jason, I own the exact same thing. Just in a different tin. It changes between the different versions. The music changes, the different selection changes, very so slightly. But mine was like an aggressive like fiddle sound, like a fiddle word, like, it was weird. - Was it the one with the really bad CG little like, - Yes, Columbia steam engine, like the- - And then you look straight into the camera. - And then you look straight into the camera. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. Well, that's, what do you mention that? That's where Milo for, and NW comes from because there was one film in there that was the NW. I don't remember what it was, but you tracked like a single like box car. - The co-car, was it a co-car or a box car? I remember that one. - If something, I can't remember what the car number is. It kills me, I can't remember. It was like 5450 or something, something 50. - Oh, core memory unlocked. - But it was that, and I think I said this in my original, original layout tour video back from two years ago, where I said the stations, there's a station scene from that video where it was like them staying at the depot and they were transporting this like crate of like baby chicks. And then this giant articulated and NW articulated in conjunction with this orchestra of music as it stomps its way into the station through this little cut in the building. That is what made me, and all the haunting hooter whistles, that is what gave my love for the NW and then becoming friends with Sid in developing Stockholm Syndrome when he broke out of the commercial every five seconds of his fan around Sid. - Yeah, but like, it was through the combination of Sid blowing that NW whistle and those core memories from that film that made me love NW or heck for Santa Fe, the fast rate number 40 and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. - Okay, John, confirm if I'm crazy or not. - I threw up watching this, I am crazy. I watched it in color 'cause I remember seeing everything in color like the freight diesels were in blue and yellow and then halfway through my childhood, this turned to black and white. I don't know what happened. - No, I remember there would be certain films that were shot in color originally and depending on the release of them, would be either black and white or color. A few of, I think, 'cause Santa Fe was one of the only ones because money that would shoot in color on their-- - But that's the confusing part. I watched it on the same DVD in color, but then when I re-watched that same DVD now, it's in black and white. So I have no idea what-- - On the same one, oh, that you're having a Mandela effect on yourself. - I'm like, I can't find it in color, but I know the colors vividly on that one. - Maybe you're transposing another film's aesthetic onto that film. - I guarantee it, as sure as I have like six daylights that I know the scene where the kid is counting cars from crossing, and you see the freight train leave and you hear the horn of the blue and yellow effort, freight units leaving. I remember that much. I don't know what happened. I don't know, it's just, I don't know what happened. Now you drove me nuts today. - You drove me, dude. (laughing) - Well, I feel that though, I'm teasing though for real. I do with the other dreams. - It's only dream. - All in your head, the power within. - The power within. - I'm so glad you guys also watched that to that DVD too. - Oh yeah, God, the frickin' the intros of those things. And then you would have other ones with aggressive jazz music where it was (laughing) just like intense clarinet and oboe stuff. - Oh my God, you just were looking back to another memory, the B&O birthday party one. That features the Chassis Steam special. - That's the one I'm, I mean, the show said if we haven't watched that already. - We haven't, so it hasn't seen that yet. - I've described it to him. I don't think he's seen that. Have you seen that one, Sid? - I've seen clips. I know I have 'cause when you said the birthday thing, I've seen clips so I've never seen the whole thing. - The music in that video is so frickin' weird. (laughing) - They literally wrote a song for me. I think it's called B&O's 8,000 Mile Birthday Party or something. - Yes, yes, yes it is. But yeah, that is what made me love the Chassis Steam special because, and that's why I will forever say flying number boards are dead. That is, that is what, again, a lot of my love for East Coast where it's came from that DVD set because I watched it so many times, the kid. - Oh yeah, well, Chassis is just amazing again. You can't not love Chassis, it's the progression. - I'm sorry, but we're just good. We're just getting good. - It's just the way it is, you know. - It is, again, we cannot help that. We cannot help that we're this, to say, as the Zoomers would say, we just can't help that we're the Illest Rizzlers, like-- (laughing) - That hurt my soul. (laughing) - Are you in a dip step, Johnny? (laughing) Are you big, mad? - Oh my god, what? Chills. (laughing) - I don't like that cash money of you. - I don't like that. - You're just saying it's so bluntly, it's hilarious. - I don't like that there's times where there's slang now that I have to look up. I don't like that. To be fair, I was never up to date with pop culture to begin with, so. - No, I don't always have to have people explain stuff like that to me. Like, what does that mean? - Oh, do you remember the movie Airplane? What was that? What was the slang that the couple was speaking or whatever? - Mrs. Beverly Cleansy-- - Yeah, she was speaking slang or jive. - Jive, that's weird. (laughing) Just like, have the new boob-boob-boob. - Well, I'm gonna, just so we can kind of wrap this up. This is, there's one thing I want, one more comparison we talked about very briefly before the show. And I've always kept this, and this is something I've noticed, when I first started talking to people on Discord, that the arguments of people, you know, with debates of like, oh, I like this rare because of this, and I like my rare is better because of this, and you know, obviously the pen severs is near-exunction debate, it's always the classic example. Us real fans, and you know, we say, this browser is better than this one, and well, we have this better engine because of this. Well, we have this engine. It's very akin to, as I say, this is a non-sports person. It's like watching people debate sports teams, and well, my local team is better because of this reason. Well, we have this player, and well, we have this player. It's almost like the veracity of the arguments and debates is almost on the same tier. Maybe a little bit, well, it could be just as passionate, depending on the level of foam you are, but I always found that very interesting. It's like, when you try to explain that to the casual person who is not trained, and people ask me, like, why do you model these rarers? What do you collect this? What's so cool about SP? What do you, you know, why do you hate the pencil being a rare with a thousand fires, you know? Why do you hate it so much? It's like sports, you know? You have your heroes and your enemies based on where you live and what experiences you had, and that comparison has always made that stuck with me since then. I love seeing, I love watching, like, for example, like Burnsy adamantly defending Pennsylvania rarers. Like, well, our K4s were, well, get to the Broadway was so good that we had to have two K4s and two separate sections pull it. How about your SP? It's like, well, our engine's gonna hold the trains perfectly fine, and we didn't need to split the train. We just made more trains, like the Shasta, daylight, or the San Joaquin, you know, but, yeah, it's fun. It's fun to have those petty little arguments like that. But I love throwing it against Burnsy, man. I'll be like, oh, you needed two sections for the Broadway? Well, the century was late if the first of the four sections of the century didn't get in 20 minutes early in Chicago. The fourth section arrived at the designated arrival time. It's not our fault that you couldn't blast tunnels through mountains. No, he's great to bounce stuff off of. It's just like you said, Johnny. The coal argument's so fun. Oh, yeah, it's not all versus hard coal. Our superior soft coal. We don't need giant, weird fireboxes. Only anthracian has to have a special heater. It's like what? Every engine is Henry. Exactly. I've got boiler ache. As a matter of fact, bossy boiler. The older listeners are like, what the hell are these people talking about? Maybe you should talk to a tree instead. No, I'm going to talk about the forest. Listen to this and be like, what are they saying? What are these? What are these gents talking about? I'm enjoying the hobby wrong. Um, Rizzler, what the hell is that? That's a candy. That's a candy. I'd give them. I'd give those to Edith at school before we ate coal. Barb wife, bad. But no, we're getting off top again here. The what we're talking about. Oh, sports teams. OK, so as a person, I really like this analogy a lot, Johnny, because because as someone who played football and still knows almost nothing about football, like I if you show me a map, like all the team helmets and stuff, I can only name about two thirds of them like and likewise, like I'm not going to go out and like just stand by a railroad line for eight hours and watch a bunch of freight trains go by. Like, like we all have these aspects of stuff that we do enjoy and things that just seem weird to us, even within our own, like, you know, community, like it's like, it's an interesting thing to go do. Um, yeah, but like it's fun to debate the different merits of these things just because, you know, I mean, I don't know about you guys. But like I said, Johnny, not super big sports guy. I'm not either said, said you are to some extent. I am, but see, I don't I'm I'm passionate about going to the games and knowing how the team is doing. But, you know, I'm not a I don't know every like if I'm looking at a football field, I can name you a bunch of the positions, but I can't name you every single one. I can't tell you about routes. Oh, yeah, like, you know, it's the same thing with trains. I can I can go to the side of the railroad and, you know, watch a bunch of trains go by and be like, Oh, there's there's that train. Oh, well, but I can't tell you what class of modern deals going by. I mean, like, I don't look at the vents. And no, yeah, how dare you not know how many rebuilds that exact engine went through with rehabilitation program? It's had exactly like it's just it's just not my thing and vice versa. I can look at a football field and, you know, talk to you exactly about like what, you know, different kind of play that they're running or what different positions are going to do and why that was smart. But you know, you asked me what team did what last year? And I'm like, who, who did a team? Yeah, so it's yeah, it's cool to see our different. We all kind of contribute to this conglomerate entity of knowledge where we just kind of feed off each other. And it's it's nice. I like it. But then, you know, we get the friendly debate going and everything. But it's always, you know, at the end of it, we never get too heated to the point where, you know, we're calling each other vulgarities and such. We always keep it. I think we all keep it pretty civil, don't we? We would never start a show by telling you that your favorite rare sucks. What it does, but it means you never. Again, sorry. We're just better. Good. All the all the Pensy fans are going to stop listening to our show now. Well, to be fair, we we have we do all like I said, we do all have our our love for the Pensy in one way, shape or another. But we're just forced to. It's impossible. When you have when it's so big, it's easy to it's easy to punch at it. That's right. Exactly. Our more surface area to contact. We're just hipsters. We like hating on the things that everybody likes. Absolutely. That's our whole personality. You got to hate on the popular stuff. Come on. Well, just so we can tie a little meatball on this, because we are reaching about almost an hour and a half now. This is a topic that I've been thinking about a lot recently. And I know that a lot of our listeners have everyone has a very passionate opinion about what rare is that you guys like and what did we get wrong? You know, what did we get wrong about your favorite or what rare do you think we should, you know, more people or should be interested in? Let us know in the in the, you know, in our in our comment sections or if you're in the discord, please let me know. I really want to know why people love the roads they do. And why do you guys like Pensy so much? I still can't understand it. So let me know I really want to know that's not a sarcasm thing. I'm genuinely very curious. I can't understand either. I think I said one sentence about the Southern. I literally live right near. I said one sentence about it the entire show. I don't understand. I didn't even, I didn't even mention the Western Maryland ones. No, you didn't. Oh my God. See, there's so much even we've been in my backyard. Literally, I drive, you know, an hour up the road and I'm in, I'm in Western Maryland territory. It's hard not to love almost everything. Like there's there's something to love about all of this stuff. Like you, like you said, Johnny, you had to narrow it down eventually because we would, um, you know, want a model everywhere that's ever been existed, Jason, um, not, not our dear Chicago, Jason. No, well, as I, as I said, in past and in fact, in my, my way out to a video, full, full more dreams and funding do not go hand in hand. No, they do not. No, they do not. But if we ever get on the lead funds, but great show guys. That was a lot of fun. John want to take us home? Absolutely. Well, first of all, Sid, thank you for joining us. You know, you're kind of our resident guest, guest host here. So we always appreciate your insight and your, uh, you're just fun demeanor. Thank you for coming on with us tonight. Yeah. Thank you so much to be on. It's always fun to be on and always a pleasure to have you. Absolutely. And you were a member of our amazing community. And, uh, as always, we'd like to take a moment to shout out some of the fantastic people who boosted our server and helped keep the lights on here at the Men in Toronto's podcast. Uh, those server boosters are Tim's trains, blue comment fan, 833. Maddie C trains, Newt, 1969, Commodore ghost ninja, Bill B of the O M and S, uh, the rambles of Tony. And SD IV underscore, Tim, uh, hard work pays off. Dashing Dan's trains, every day's life and SD 70 train fan. Thank you so much guys. We appreciate you as always. And as we always say, it's you who inspires to keep the show going. And we make this show for all of you. And tonight was an awesome show. Guys, thank you. Uh, I see our stop is coming up next and, uh, just, you know, superimpose, whatever your favorite road is onto the station, give it all. It's a little accoutre mall and dressings of, uh, whether it's a keystone. Um, no keystone band on the, on the, uh, the station sign or a big burning station. Yep. Oh man. Um, or a beautiful, uh, SP Herald of the sunset or, uh, a very nice Western Maryland logo, whatever you like, put it on there. Um, so, uh, if you'd like to get more of us and come on, why would you not want to, um, Mr, Mr. Sid, where can folks find you, sir? People can find me on YouTube. My YouTube channel is called Sid's trains. Uh, you can find me on Instagram under Sydney's trains. And then you can also find me on the various, uh, Discord server and server is including the one for the podcast under Sid's trains as well. Fantastic, fantastic. And, uh, Mr. Johnny, where can folks find you, sir? You can find me on YouTube. It automates. It's A-U-D-A-M-U-S. I am currently working on my crane video to this very day. Um, time recording. This is Memorial Day weekend. Uh, hopefully I will have, uh, have, will have completed editing that video and adding the additional segments. So you guys can enjoy that. And I've got some other projects in the work, um, works such as go into the train bunker and maybe give them the tour of that because that is a fun place to, uh, to hang out and run trains. It's also a new layout to see getting developed. Uh, you can also find me on Instagram and Facebook at ottomus_trains. I tend to post there a lot more than my YouTube channel. So if you want to see some very cool photos of my layout and my latest projects, you can check me out there. Last but not least, you can find me on the miniature models podcast community Discord server where I'm reading and responding to all of your posts and making it fool myself in the voice chat. So come on down. It's a lot of fun. Uh, John, where can people find you? Thank you, Johnny, you can find me on Instagram at retromaccato96. Uh, that's where I'm most active. And you can also find me on YouTube at retromaccato. I swear to God, I will have the second part of that year and review video done before the next year comes and I have to start work on that video. And then I have to start working on the next band. And then the next meeting the next day. Yeah, it's only if only your standards weren't so high. Oh, I'm my own worst enemy for sure. I would just need to hire editors, John. And that way we can actually make content. Yes, absolutely. But then I would have to, I would just micromanage them the whole time and be like, no, no, no, that needs to be five minutes left and that has to be the same. This has to be the same. This is this, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This and that and this and that and this and that. Um, and you can also find me on the miniature models podcast Discord server as well. I always like to hop in there and have fun talking with you all, seeing your collections and just hanging out with you all wonderful people. It is a great place to hang out. If you're not a fan, join and also make sure you follow us on our podcast Instagram page. You can check out some exclusive content that you can't get anywhere else on that cage. That is the miniature models podcast on Instagram. Go check that page out and follow us. We really appreciate it. Uh, guys, that was a really great show tonight. And I think that's it there. Anything else you want to add before we go? Yeah, we want to give a shout out to our, uh, our founding friends of the miniature models podcast, formerly the Matt and Matt Oeskill podcast and what we can find them. Oh, yes, absolutely. You can find, uh, Matt Rotchford at WC model railroad on, I think, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. He's got that good branding going and you can find Mr. Matt Z at Matt train lover with a combination of numbers. I always forget Johnny. Do you remember what the? The number nine 43 that one that said, just said, absolutely. You can find him on, uh, YouTube there and then, uh, he's Matt's hobbies on Instagram. You can, uh, find him on there. He posts pretty pretty regularly on both of those. So yes, definitely go follow our Matt friends there. They will be back soon with us here. Uh, they're both menses on vacation and, uh, it works stuff. So they will be back soon. Uh, but guys, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate, uh, said you and, uh, Johnny as always. I appreciate you guys so much. Anytime that's always a blast doing a show with you guys. Yeah, this was a ton of fun. Well, thanks so much. All you wonderful listeners out there have a fantastic evening. Be safe and wishing you green signals and dryrails as always. Take care of everyone. Take care of. [Music]
