Big Boy Build, let’s run with that…Revell 1/87 locomotive

[themongoose]

So, Project510 (James) started a build thread for the HO scale Revell, big boy, and a number of us have really gotten into it. Me so much that I bought one on an auction site recently. And then Tcoat started showing all the derelicts and different ways you could do up these locomotives! And that led to some comedy as apparently, these often come out of the box, warped! and my thinking turned to, we should post this up in the duel builds for a bunch of us to do side-by-side. So let’s go ahead and do that, I will kick it off. Anybody who would like to join - Please jump on in here and let’s see how many ways we can do these locomotives 🚂🍿 
now mine is still in the post, so I don’t have any pictures to put up so I will share some of Tcoat’s, and some of mine to start us off with ideas

[stikpusher]

Three things come to mind seeing these... scenes from the movies Enemy At The Gates and Cross of Iron... and memories of smashed rail yards and rolling stock that I saw in Bosnia during my deployment there...

I look forward to seeing what gets cooked up here. I do love me some trains!

[keavdog]

[project510]

Cool idea! Like a group build with no pressure haha. I like it.

Trains are one of those things that boy and men like and I am not sure there is a particular reason for it. I know absolutely nothing about trains. But I LOVE seeing the yellow and grey Union Pacific trains near our house. They are my favorite. My son loves the older steam engines, this Big Boy locomotive and the AMTRAK lol.

Happy to join along! I have a thread of my own but Ill post ideas, fun stuff and updates here as well.

Progress so far:




And the layout I will try to make is:




I have changed my mind on the walnut. I think I will do just a pine or plywood base the walnut is heavy. Plus I want the focus to be the train. Not a $50 piece of wood on the bottom haha.

[brandonk]

I grew up in a railroad house. My dad was a conductor/breakman for UP his whole working life until he got injured. I had the pleasure as a youngster to ride in some engines and even for a spell in a caboose, remember those. I have always loved trains and I would likely model them except for the fact that there are only a few plastic kits available and most train modeling is done on pieces used for miniature runners. That is a whole other rabbit whole I don't need to go down. I do have the Big Boy on my wishlist for building one day. This will be fun to watch.

I believe the Big Boy was still in use in this pic, likely the 50's early 60's before Diesel took over.

[Steve Zuleski]

Derelict engine is a great idea, love the ref pics!

[tcoat]

Would love to pile on but it would be way, way, WAY down the list. A rusted out hulk would be right up my alley.

I would like to find one the same (or at least close) to the one we have in a park in my city. Used to play on it back in the day before they fenced it all off. Maybe there is something around in the model railroad world.



It was pretty rough for a few years before it was restored recently so has some cool weather possibilites.

[project510]

May 10, 2024 9:37:12 GMT -5 brandonk said:

I grew up in a railroad house. My dad was a conductor/breakman for UP his whole working life until he got injured. I had the pleasure as a youngster to ride in some engines and even for a spell in a caboose, remember those. I have always loved trains and I would likely model them except for the fact that there are only a few plastic kits available and most train modeling is done on pieces used for miniature runners. That is a whole other rabbit whole I don't need to go down. I do have the Big Boy on my wishlist for building one day. This will be fun to watch.

I believe the Big Boy was still in use in this pic, likely the 50's early 60's before Diesel took over.

How cool! Thats a heck of a job to have for that long.

[tcoat]

May 10, 2024 9:37:12 GMT -5 brandonk said:

I grew up in a railroad house. My dad was a conductor/breakman for UP his whole working life until he got injured. I had the pleasure as a youngster to ride in some engines and even for a spell in a caboose, remember those. I have always loved trains and I would likely model them except for the fact that there are only a few plastic kits available and most train modeling is done on pieces used for miniature runners. That is a whole other rabbit whole I don't need to go down. I do have the Big Boy on my wishlist for building one day. This will be fun to watch.

I believe the Big Boy was still in use in this pic, likely the 50's early 60's before Diesel took over.

Out of curiosity I looked up the Big Boy history and I was surprised at how brief it actually was for a train. They were all built between 1941 to 44 and out of service by 1959. 

[garybrantley]

While not a Big Boy locomotive, I'll post a picture of my Lionel Super-O gauge locomotive.   I believe it was built in 1949 but I'm sure experts might be able to correct or confirm that.  It pulled a train put together by a local electric train fanatic named Rueben Johnson.  Ol' Rube had a helluva layout in a building behind his home.   There were four or five different tracks on a great platform, all running simultaneously; I was maybe 7 or 8 but I can still remember him crawling underneath the tracks to stand at a central "control station".  He had many assembled, complete train sets on shelves awaiting their turns.   It was absolutely mesmerizing for me!   He put together an eight-car train for me; three boxcars, a hopper-car, a tank car, loco and coal-car and caboose.   It rode on a cork, elevated "railbed" that he had attached to a sheet of plywood, complete with glued-on sawdust painted green!   It has a big, black Art Deco controller too.   I had a lot of fun with the train set until slotcars came along...

[dean48ws]

I do believe that a big boy loco has been restored somewhere in the U.S and is back in operational service - I'm presuming on historic runs but stand correcting. My son found it somewhere on one of the social media sites.
Kit availability depends largely on the scale you wish to build in. Most kits are in N, HO/OO or O gauge, and even then, most of these are a metal-based kit for locos whilst rolling stock is usually plastic/resin. Less is available in larger scales such as G but what is there is suitable for kit bashing. I've used G scale 1:22.5 railway items with 1:25 plastic kits and the difference wasn't too noticeable in my opinion.

[dean48ws]

This is what I built.

[tcoat]

May 10, 2024 18:48:16 GMT -5 dean48ws said:

I do believe that a big boy loco has been restored somewhere in the U.S and is back in operational service - I'm presuming on historic runs but stand correcting. My son found it somewhere on one of the social media sites.
Kit availability depends largely on the scale you wish to build in. Most kits are in N, HO/OO or O gauge, and even then, most of these are a metal-based kit for locos whilst rolling stock is usually plastic/resin. Less is available in larger scales such as G but what is there is suitable for kit bashing. I've used G scale 1:22.5 railway items with 1:25 plastic kits and the difference wasn't too noticeable in my opinion.

Would appear that it’s excursion schedule is busier than when it was a commercial hauler. 

www.up.com/heritage/steam/schedule/index.htm 

[project510]

May 10, 2024 21:37:57 GMT -5 tcoat said:

May 10, 2024 18:48:16 GMT -5 dean48ws said:

I do believe that a big boy loco has been restored somewhere in the U.S and is back in operational service - I'm presuming on historic runs but stand correcting. My son found it somewhere on one of the social media sites.
Kit availability depends largely on the scale you wish to build in. Most kits are in N, HO/OO or O gauge, and even then, most of these are a metal-based kit for locos whilst rolling stock is usually plastic/resin. Less is available in larger scales such as G but what is there is suitable for kit bashing. I've used G scale 1:22.5 railway items with 1:25 plastic kits and the difference wasn't too noticeable in my opinion.

Would appear that it’s excursion schedule is busier than when it was a commercial hauler. 

www.up.com/heritage/steam/schedule/index.htm 

www.up.com/media/releases/4014-roseville-ogden-nr-240509.htm?agfc=HomePage&agfm=HomePage&agfs=UP.com

Not far from us. Might have to take the boy.

[tcoat]

May 11, 2024 0:17:33 GMT -5 project510 said:

May 10, 2024 21:37:57 GMT -5 tcoat said:

Would appear that it’s excursion schedule is busier than when it was a commercial hauler. 

www.up.com/heritage/steam/schedule/index.htm 

www.up.com/media/releases/4014-roseville-ogden-nr-240509.htm?agfc=HomePage&agfm=HomePage&agfs=UP.com

Not far from us. Might have to take the boy.

That would put the meaning of the model off the charts.  

[themongoose]

May 10, 2024 18:50:32 GMT -5 dean48ws said:

This is what I built.

Oh so cool, haven’t seen anything like that! Is that static display or is it part of a running track? There’s a place called EnterTRAINment Junction by us that has a huge running train display that you walk through. I will have to go there and look for everything I need to do a little diorama for this.

[themongoose]

My Big Boy arrived! He’s in pretty good shape, i.e. not warped. With everything packed in a single baggie though a lot of parts are scratched up from shaking around over the years. No worries tho, i’m almost positive that i will do a rusted hulk next to the tracks.





This is one of Revell’s A-Team designs i believe. I think this is some really nice detail…

[project510]

Nice! Cant wait to see it!

[dean48ws]

May 11, 2024 8:20:45 GMT -5 themongoose said:

May 10, 2024 18:50:32 GMT -5 dean48ws said:

This is what I built.

Oh so cool, haven’t seen anything like that! Is that static display or is it part of a running track? There’s a place called EnterTRAINment Junction by us that has a huge running train display that you walk through. I will have to go there and look for everything I need to do a little diorama for this.

This is just a static display. It doesn't have a power unit but could actually be towed or shunted by a G scale loco.

[kyledehart5]

This is a super cool thread of ideas and builds. I’d love to jump in as trains are too cool but I have none in my stash. Looking forward to seeing another Big Boy build going.

[keavdog]

I had this one in my stash but lost it and two other kits during my move. No idea how or where...

[themongoose]

May 13, 2024 17:42:39 GMT -5 keavdog said:

I had this one in my stash but lost it and two other kits during my move. No idea how or where...

That is so cool! Damn shame it went missing. One of the things I love about modeling is that you come across stuff like this, that you never knew existed 🃏

[stikpusher]

May 13, 2024 17:42:39 GMT -5 keavdog said:

I had this one in my stash but lost it and two other kits during my move. No idea how or where...

Did you move your stash yourself or pay a mover?

[keavdog]

Paid a mover and they were in storage with most of our belongings for 8 months. But all those kits in storage (140 or so) and the Trevithick, Minicraft 1/144 connie and
Tamiya 1/48 f4u-1a Corsair were missing. 🤔

[stikpusher]

May 13, 2024 22:04:29 GMT -5 keavdog said:

Paid a mover and they were in storage with most of our belongings for 8 months. But all those kits in storage (140 or so) and the Trevithick, Minicraft 1/144 connie and
Tamiya 1/48 f4u-1a Corsair were missing. 🤔

Somebody from the storage place or moving company had sticky fingers…🤬  sorry to hear about this.

[dukemaddog]

This will be fun to follow. I already built all my 1/72 scale trains except for some flatcars, so I'll just watch from the sidelines.

[keavdog]

Closest thing I have is this rail car. I have a special project planned for it.

[stikpusher]

This is my only 1/35 rail kit

[Medicman71]

This bad boy is in front of the Astros Minute Maid Field.

[406 Silverado]

The box that the kit came in looks pretty straight and you're right about the amount of detail that it has in the box. Looking forward to seeing what you do with this kit Chris.