There are no ads or active content on this website.
Trapped in someone else's frame? BREAK OUT!
I'm Randy Gordon-Gilmore (known to some as Kludgemeister), and ProtoTrains is a very part-time business to make kits of the 1930's
streamliner passenger trains in N scale. The "Proto" in ProtoTrains denotes two things--
the prototype, or pioneering, nature of the trains, and my desire to be as prototypically
accurate as possible ("fanatical" is a term that has been used 
) in modeling
the trains. The main focus of ProtoTrains will be the Burlington Route's shovelnose
Zephyr trains.
Pioneer Zephyr
ProtoTrains started with my collaboration with Dick Billings of
Fine N-Scale Products to develop the very popular and successful Pioneer Zephyr kit, which we
introduced at the 1996 Long Beach convention. FNS is currently selling the PZ kit. UPDATED 29 Feb 2008
|
Flying Yankee
The current project I'm working on is a similar kit of the Boston & Maine/
Maine Central Flying Yankee,
a very similar train to the PZ which ran in New England from the mid-1930's to the 1950's.
I'm really going to try to have the model ready by the time the prototype is back in operation!
|
McKeen Cars
I have started work on the knife-nosed McKeen Car.
Although not quite in keeping with the other trains, they are pre-WWII and they
are streamliners. <grin>
|
EMD E5 shells
In 2005, Gregg Scott of GHQ created E5A and B shells from the Life-like E6 and Joe Valerio is casting them in resin. The shells are available for purchase from Joe Valerio. You can contact him at trainutz@excite.com. They are a drop-on fit to the LL chassis. If you are a member of (or join the) Yahoo CBQ group, you can see pictures of the shells (both raw and finished) in the folder http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/CBQ/files/N%20Scale%20E5/. (As a "fantasy loco", I'm still considering making the original-concept, shovelnose E5A shell.) |
Other possibilitiesAfter that, we'll have to see. I am working on a body shell for Burlington's streamlined Hudson Aeolus. I already have artwork completed for the first Twin Zephyrs (#9901,9902) and the Mark Twain Zephyr (#9903) which, together with the Pioneer Zephyr (#9900) and the Flying Yankee (#6000) comprise the first-generation Budd shovelnoses. |
|
Kato has released the prewar corrugated Budd cars, of which the coach and obs are based on the GPZ design, so the task is really just to produce a Silver Charger E-unit kitbash. |
| Other candidates include the New York, New Haven and Hartford Comet and the Gulf, Mobile and Northern Rebel. The postwar General Motors Aerotrain is out, because Con-Cor has announced it. I wish them the best of success with it. |
An ultimate project has to be the semi-articulated 1936 Denver Zephyr, pulled by the very elegant EA/EB
shovelnose locomotives.
|
Please note: I'm sorry, but I am not in a position to undertake custom or contract etching at this time. Your best bet would be to contact a commercial etcher and inquire.
Links verified 20 May 2007.
Article-specific links appear in their respective pages.
Coded by hand in Alan Phillips' excellent PFE32 freeware text editor.
(Alan's website is offline, so just do a websearch for "pfe101i.zip")
Checked using 
HTML Validator.
This website should be viewable using any browser that you have;
if you can't see everything properly, please let me know and I'll fix it!
This website and all its contents is ©2002-2007
Randy Gordon-Gilmore.
Established 4 July 2002. Last updated: 29 Feb 2008.
I was planning to make E5 A and B shells. Microscale already makes E5 decals in N scale, included
in their set 60-98, Burlington Passenger Cabs.
I also have the layout completed for the General Pershing Zephyr, which was a
four-car non-articulated train using #9908 Silver Charger, which still exists in
the National Museum of Transport in St. Louis, as the power car.