A new N Scale Locomotive for Mitchel
Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 11:09PM We dropped a few bucks on rolling stock today. There’s nothing like a new locomotive to get a couple of railroaders excited!
Mitchel, now 6, has been patiently waiting for me to buy him a locomotive of his own. Like most six-year-olds, he draws a strong distinction between things that are “his” and things that are not. Borrowing Daddy’s locomotives wasn’t cutting it for him when we ran our portable table top layout, the Mitchieburg and Natalieville RR. We had been looking out for a nice Kato Mikado in a western roadname but people seem to be hanging on to them and not much was showing up on eBay.
As chance would have it, he and I had a few hours together at home this morning and we took a look at the latest Trains DVD, this one on EMD’s early Geeps. We both like the DVD which is very good in my opinion and I’m not an especially big fan of early diesels. At the end I suggested that we might get a Geep and Mitchel was qite excited by this.
Later we visited the basement train department of Ace Hardware on University Ave in Berkeley. After checking out the Lifelike GP20 and a couple of Atlas GP7’s, Mitchel was adamant that he wanted a GP7 in Great Northern paint. All thanks to the DVD! A few minutes later we were enjoying our handiwork at a nearby cafe!
Atlas GP7
As happy as Mitchel is with his new locomotive, I am even more pleased with this great little unit. It runs beautifully. It is smooth and quiet and we had a blast having it haul a few cars around our loop. The price was a little more than I was expecting to shell out for a small non-DCC equipped unit - $85 - especially when the GP20 was marked down to $54. But with Ace’s 20% off for April I was happy to pay 68 bucks and I bought a new Intermountain flatcar with the money I just saved!
My immediate thought was to buy another one. I figured I’d be able to come up with a justification later!! I held firm though, having put my “collecting” phase behind me. (Buying rolling stock I don’t need is collecting, and collecting ain’t railroading.) I’ll wait till I sort out the roster for the RBL and there’ll likely be a place for one or two of these great little units.
Interestingly, a few months back, the Richmond Pacific leased a Western Pacific GP7 from the Niles Canyon outfit while one of the RPRC’s SW1200’s was being fitted with some new electrical gear. It was great to see the old girl burbling around the local tracks. Ace has about 7 more GP7’s in WP colors just waiting for me!!
Anyway, here’s some shots, with notes, of the GN GP7 turning the first of many miles on our home layout.
Reader Comments (2)
Glad to see you both enjoyed your new purchases! I think GP20 is cheaper cause it's likely not DCC-ready and if you plan to install a decoder, can be tough (been there, done that). the Atlas GP9 is a great model, I got two of them in SP scarlet and gray paint scheme and like them a lot.
I'm also glad to see Mitchel is enjoying the hobby. My son is almost 3 years old now and every morning before we go out he asks "Dad, can I see your trains?". I'm happy he likes them :-)
Denny,
How things! Hope all is well. Thanks for the tip on the GP20. Ideally, I wanted to get a locomotive with DCC installed but DCC ready will suffice.
You're right about it being fun watching the little tackers with the trains. I try hard not to push Mitchel. He's really into race cars so any interest in trains could easily give way to another Hotwheels!!!
- Steve