Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society


After a little preliminary research on the web, I decided to join the Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society. Their web site ... http://www.atsfrr.com/ ... contains some great information on the history of the real railroad.

Once I started down this path, it became critical that every decision I made for my model had to be authentic, both in content and in timing. If I wanted to run the Super Chief diesel engines and passenger cars, then I had to select everything else from a time period when this train actually ran from Winslow to Flagstaff, AZ.

I also wanted to run some steam engines for the freight trains ... this desire led me to select the crossover time period between steam and diesel when both were running on the line. Once this was decided, I was stuck between the late 1940's and the early 1950's as most of the steam engines were phased out and retired around 1955.

As I continued my research I found some web sites where historical pictures of railroads were offered by various deceased enthusiast's estates. At one of these sites, I found a listing for a picture of the Mikado 2-8-2 steam engine running through Winslow, AZ. I have ordered this picture and plan to custom decorate a Kato 2-8-2 Mikado steam engine to match. I will share the picture here when it arrives.

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