The evening Portland Rose - Portland to Seattle - in Gauge 1

tac foley said:
The loco is Hans Huyler's last US outline loco for Aster Hobbies, the incredible UP FEF, and the twenty-one lit passenger cars are from Accucraft. The layout is that of Pete Comley of Sunset Hobbies fame...


Enjoy.
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'tis a handsome loco - and a spanking train :clap::clap::clap:
 
Awesome I made that 21 Coaches and with a layout of that size and curvature for once the speed was entirely appropriate. Many thanks for posting this spectacle of Model Railway envy.
 
You can all console yourselves with the news that USA Trains are producing the FEF in die-cast metal, and the heavyweight cars to haul behind it. I'm betting that GRS will be the sellers of both loco and cars in the near future. I'm looking forward to seeing it at the Peterborough show in April. Loco to be ITRO £3500, with cars around £240 each. It's been on Youtube, appearing at the ECLSTS last Fall.
 
A very large one. Peter Comley IS Sunset Valley Models, one of the largest North American dealers in large-scale model railroading. His aluminium trackage has been used on some of the greatest layouts in North America, and when I say great, I mean large and impressive. The late Mr Miller of Oregon had about 5000 feet of the stuff on just one on his numerous layouts.
 
Didn't the Portland Rose run between Denver and Portland ?
I've considered modelling that train in its final days, a single UP E9, and 2 streamlined coaches (and nothing else, OK, it picked up a Buffet halfway to Portland).
 
tac foley said:
Latterly, yes. It started off as a premium train between LA and Portland in the '30's.
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Make that Chicago...... it ran attached to the Los Angeles Limited as far as either Omaha, Cheyene or Green River depending on the year.
History of UP's 'City' trains makes for a fascinating read, at one stage there were 4 or 5 City trains all leaving Chicago as one train. They would split en route once on the UP proper, which was Omaha-Ogden-LA
Other trains would also combine along the way. UP worked with other roads to make this all happen. Originally Omaha-Chicago was with CNW, but they teamed up with Milwaukee Road in the 50's.
Southern Pacific facilitated UP transit into San Francisco. UP owned their own routes to LA, Denver, and Portland. Of course, UP now own SP, CNW, and D&RGW, and run commuter operations for one of the Metro authorities in Chicago.
OK, that was a ramble from memory. I'll check my facts, and amend any errors I've made. In a clean up at work, many years ago, I scored a March 1971 Official Guide for the American railroads. Never paid that much attention to it, until recently after reading a story about the 'City of Everywhere'..... Google it, interesting.
 
Lest I confuse readers, and myself, the Portland Rose, and City of Portland were actually two separate trains. The City was ex Chicago, and the Rose from 'various' mid west origins over time, to Portland.
 
One of the few things about trains, models or otherwise, is just how embroiled you can get emotion-wise with a just the few words of the train station announcer. One of the poster here, Royale, who posted above, has a MTH G1 train and passenger cars. A few years back we were both running over at main131's track when Royale toggled the train announcements - 'Track 1, City of Portland' came out of the loco, and it almost broke my heart right there. It obviously hit an emotional nerve for me, and I've never forgotten it.
 
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