Model Railroading > 5056 Complete and some thoughts

I caught newly painted SD40-2 5056 at the Engine Facility at Glendale today. I recently purchased a new Iwata airbrush and got back into painting and waethering locos after a few years. It has been quite fun but it takes some time.
Thought number one: I am usually one to complain about the rising prices of the new lcomotives these days. But it takes an amazing amount of time and attention to detail to detail, paint, and decal an engine and then put it back together. To purchase a Scale Trains SD40-2 for $130 to $150, for example, is probably a heck of a bargain when you conside the cost of labor. Drilling holes and putting on lift rings, coupler lift bars and grab irons is just a sample of the work that has to be done.

Thought number two: It takes quite a bit of skill to truly be a model railroader. This is not really to brag but more to compliment the modelers out there doing great work. We should all be proud of our work. If you have bulit and operate a layout, and build cars and locomotives think of the different skilss involved; research, desigining, building, wiring, lighting, scenery, track laying, constructing buidlings, painting, electronics, .....the list goes on!  
Enjoy the hobby and shae your work and Santa Fe All the Way!

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What a nice looking model this is!  You'll be able to see and use it for years and know that your efforts are what produced it.  And that NRE leaser in your other post is top-notch too!

Jim

Yes, good looking model.  Research is not one of the skills I had previously considered but we all know it can require a fair amount of time for whatever your end result is trying to accomplish,

What you say is so true. I once heard a guy say he gave up the hobby because it was too hard. And he worked at a stressfull job as an air traffic controller. Having said that, though I enjoy the hobby, there are times I have to do something else for awhile. For some of us, we have friends who are better skilled at certain aspects of the hobby than we are. And they can help us. But I am pretty much a loner and often a perfectionist. That can make things challenging.

Victor A. Baird
htpp://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/19 18:48 by wabash2800.

Well done!! Thanks for sharing. Worth the effort.