BOOM! Winning.

Northern Pacific GP-18 pulls this small freighter.

Recently, I have been fortunate enough to make two winning bids on the big E-auction site; you know the one. First, I pulled a very special gift for very little money…. I managed to buy a complete, new-in-box 1990’s-era Life-Like American Workhorse train set, in my roadname (Northern Pacific). I’ll point you back to my first post,  my opus on the joys of unboxing the first truly awesome gift I recall reciving; this very trainset (worth a read if you’ve got a couple minutes!). Those memories still run deep, and I had a bit of a…. moment while unboxing the new one. What a trip down memory lane…. half my life away, those memories still hold clear and happy. Here it is, sitting in front of me on my antique coffee table, waiting to be played with….

The second “win” of the month, I’ll admit, I had no intention of vying for when I had first seen it listed. As the auction wore on, I relaized I may not have to fork-over the $400 this special collectors’ set often commands! How much did I pay? Let’s just say I feel like I stole it 🙂

Con-Cor North Coast Limited, Northern Pacific Railway

This is the Con-Cor Northern Pacific Railway North Coast Limited boxed collector set, one of a series of named passenger trains released almost 30 years ago. There were quite a few of these decorated (and sometimes compromised/fantasy painted) passenger sets, suffice it to say almost every major railroad received this treatment using whatever Con-Cor had available to fill the consist. Of course, this one is special to me because I have wanted this particular set since I can remember, one of the first “golden calf” pieces of N scale for me. I recall pining for it as a new model railroader, after seeing it on…. you guessed it, E-bay. The paint scheme is very true to original, with two-tone green carbodies striped in white and generally (on the prototypes) kept clean and shiny. The Vista-Dome cars are one of the neatest parts of this set; long glass domes adorn two of the passenger cars, giving the passengers (whether real or miniature) a breathtaking view of the trains’ travels. Long before I knew who Raymond Loewy was, I loved his color scheme (even having such a Locomotive printed on the side of my own coffee mug at age fifteen!). Of course, you old fogeys and rail buffs likely know he had a hand in streamlining the planes, trains and cars (notably Studebakers!) throughout the mid-twentieth century. Simply beautiful!

Rare as can be, and with quite a beautiful presentaion here in N scale, The North Coast Limited was known as one of the fastest, most luxurious Western trains; so proudly did NP serve those Western terrirories that many of its locomotives were adorned not with the name of the railroad, but the italicised slogan “Main Street of the Northwest”. They truly meant that, and it showed in their takeover of the northern routes early in the 20th century. There are various reasins for the proliferation of passenger service in the area, including vacation travel and business expanmsion; NP served a wide array of clientele and offered excellent dining (famous for their “Great Big Baked Potato”) to almost any traveler, most any trip. Keep those bellies full and those eyes gazing into beautiful scenery, you’ve got a recipe for repeat business!

Con-Cor offered a very nice presentation job with these, using the fiberboard woodgrain boxes usually found on expensive gifts and small home decor in the 1970’s and 1980’s (boy, how style has changed). No vacuu-formed plastics here! When the set arrives, I will be sure to post a video of this beautiful trainset traversing my small layout, pulled by those powerful (and strikingly stout looking) EMD F-3’s. An A-B-A consist leads this six-passenger-car train around, only one locmotive is powered in the set; I know from my experience with these locomotives, it’ll fly around those tracks just fine. Let’s hope the postman pays me a visit soon!

For now, I sit in my quiet, comfortable living room and tinker with the Life-Like trainset. It invokes such vivid memories of my childhood afternoons shunnning video games for a much more creative pass-time. Even the paper manuals and plastic box inserts have that familiar, heavy smell of gear lube and old printers’ ink. This set is going to stay in the box for now, as I have plenty of other trains to toy with…. yes this one stays new, stays safe and stays waiting patiently for me to open it up and relive some of my fondest years of childhood….

Maybe I’ll bring it out around Christmas and really live it up!

-B