Razor_Antilles

Howdy all, and a Merry Christmas to you! Here are a couple videos my friend BrianUPHeritage and I did over Thanksgiving week with his brand new UP8444 (greyhound with yellow trim) and his Pullman passenger cars. Hope you enjoy the unboxing video, especially if you're thinking of buying one of these beautiful monsters.

I'm hoping that USA Trains re-runs Big Boys and Hudsons within the next year, but I think a pre-order announcement in 2022 is probably the best we're going to get. The USAT Hudson is a fabulous locomotive; I'd love to have one in Southern Pacific with sound. And of course, who doesn't want a Big Boy now that 4014 is operational? Even though it needs the 20-foot circles to really run smoothly, it'd be a fantastic beast to own.

Now the great debate resumes... to buy an 844, or not? I don't have a full circle of 16-foot diameter track for it, yet, so even if I bought one, it'd be a shelf queen (more accurately a box dweller) for a long while. Then again, I'm working so much (trucker) that I don't have hardly any time to play with my trains as it is.

Nice layout! Based on my experience, the USA Trains Power 10 is a really solid option; plenty of power, ports for accessories, and not a bank-breaker. MTH has a power supply that I've been considering for dual-track purposes, but with them about to go out of business (at least according to the last I heard) they may not be a good option. Bridgewerks makes what I've heard to be the best DC power supplies around, but they're as expensive as they are reliable, which is to say, very. If you ever intend to be running more than one line simultaneously, I suggest biting the bullet and going with Bridgewerks and paying through the nose for absurd amounts of power and excellent reliability. Failing that, I highly recommend the USA Trains Power 10.

I was speaking with an owner/manager of a brick-and-mortar hobby shop I frequent not far from work and he told me that USA Trains is re-running the Big Boys and the Hudsons. The USAT website has been changed on the Big Boy and Hudson pages to reflect this, with nothing more than "we're going to make more, they're coming soon". Firstly, this is both exciting to hear, but also creates a lot of skepticism: is USA Trains ACTUALLY re-running them, or just thinking really hard about it? Secondly, can they actually bring these to market in a reasonable amount of time, meaning within the next year or two? If they got all their molds back, the answer theoretically -could- be yes? The guy I spoke to said they already had some Big Boys in stock, which sounds waaaaaaaaay too good to be true. But, he's also a vendor, so... maybe he has an inside track on this? Honestly hard to say. 4014's successful rebirth will pre-sell just about every G scale 4-8-8-4 USAT could make (for those who have the money and the space to run/display it). Thirdly, will they fix any known issues with these locomotives? I remember reading that a lot of Big Boys had problems with shorting, but I have no idea what sort of troubles the Hudsons had; mine is so old it predates factory sound installation, but it runs like a champ. I'm hoping more information will be available at ECLSTS this year.

It would be nice to see at least one version released soon, but I'll believe it when people start posting pics and videos of their FEFs running their layouts. I'm still probably going to try to get an 844, but we'll see what happens, I guess.

You might do better trying for Ebay... but fair warning, because of the huge popularity of that engine in that paint scheme, you more thank likely will not be able to get that locomotive at anything close to the USAT/Charles Ro price of $435, even gently used. Average prices on ebay go for well over $600, sometimes it can get up to $800. If you have to have UP schemes, I do suggest you look into the UP Heritage locomotives through charlesro.com. Otherwise, it's possible someone here might sell you one. Another possible source is to check out the G Scale Swap and Shop on facebook; apply to join the group and you'll see people buying and selling all manner of G scale, including USAT SD70s. Good luck, and I hope you can find one for a good price!

Those of us who don't have a USAT Big Boy are really hoping that USAT re-runs those monsters. I'd love to have one, even though I don't have the track or the space to run one (yet). USAT/Charles Ro has said they've re-acquired all their molds from China, so theoretically once they find a new production site they could start re-running all their 1:29 ultimate series stuff, and hopefully the Hudson/Big Boys. My thinking on this is they'll most likely focus on getting the FEFs and the heavyweights out the door first, and once those are moving then they'll start thinking about what ultimate series stuff to run first (55ft tank cars, anyone? How about some 4-bays?), and if we're really, REALLY lucky, we might see an announcement about Hudsons and Big Boys coming back sometime around ECLSTS 2021... with first units being delivered sometime around Summer 2022-Winter 2023. MAYBE.

The heavyweights never excited me; my friend Brian on here has a whole set of the UPs on pre-order, and when he (eventually?) gets those, I'm sure they'll be gorgeous. I've got FEF-3 #838 in N scale from Kato; great little engine. Wasn't sure I was going to be interested in the G scale version of it, but with USAT dramatically unlikely to make another run of either the Hudsons or Big Boys, when these are available I'll probably get a black 844. I love my Hudson, and I'm sure I'll have fun running these two together at some point in the (distant?) future. Too bad the rear two tender trucks aren't articulated like the N scale version... maybe then this beast would fit on a 10ft curve, lol.

Hey all, Recently, me and BrianUPheritage were able to put together a train of exclusively Black Widow stock; I had the great good fortune to acquire a Black Widow SD70MAC along with an extremely rare Black Widow Intermodal along with an extended vision caboose, so we decided to do some running with all of our black widow stuff together. Along the way, I made a short video of the whole consist; enjoy!

I have the same problem as Brian; 10ft max diameter, and while I feel that an FEF-3 locomotive would be able to manage 10ft curves with care, the tender cannot do it unless the rigid axles are significantly modified to allow for at least some level of articulation to enable the combined locomotive and tender to manage anything smaller than 16ft. Plus, I also don't have $4,000 to blow on a diecast locomotive I don't have the room to run, either, so that sort of solves the dilemma for me. Just need to make sure I keep my Hudson in good shape!

Those 60-footers look nice; I'm considering getting one or two of them for my freight consists.

I couldn't tell you for sure which sound board is in the Mallet; I'd have to guess Phoenix, but it isn't my engine. The Hudson is a USA Trains Hudson, but it was made before they installed sound at the factory. Still haven't decided if I want to add sound to it or not myself.

Hey all, Myself and BrianUPHeritage get together from time to time and run our trains; we'll make videos occasionally and I'll quickly edit the clips together on my iPhone and post them up. The channel name is: Garden Rail Crucible. I've got 14 videos up right now of some fun runs; a mix of diesel and steam, freight and passenger, etc. Here's the most recent video we did, yesterday as a matter of fact, while it was raining like a monsoon on us:

These look amazing! Well done! Looking forward to the video.