Model Train Journal

Stout has an interesting auction coming up on 1-8-26 with some very nice brass pieces. This is the 1st new in the box OMI 350 Ton coaling tower I've seen in decades and the price reflects it.

https://www.stoutauctions.com/?cat=4

Okay. I am impressed - first, by the fortune this person invested in his hobby (he/she was a major purchaser of Wasatch cars!), and by the quality of the models. They were carefully preserved (unlike mine, which suffer dust, moisture, and fly specks far too often).

And impressed by Ambrose, who organized them more or less by scale. I did not see many locomotives, which tells me that they were saved by family members or sold separately to maximize return. Still, as Butch indicated, this one is impressive.

Ambrose sent me a link that doesn't require an "app." If anyone else wants that link, I will see if I can post it.

Most of it appears to be brass 2-rail, factory finished. I find myself lusting for the brass ice cars, both in O and G.

See a lot of stuff that someone else can buy.........2-3 lots that might appeal but will also no doubt exceed anything realistic in my budget.

Lot #7546 is for seventy-four (74) pieces of 6 ft long sections of Micro Engineering track -- I didn't know that they sold track in 6 foot long sections! -- so whoever buys that one lot is going to end up owning 3.5 scale miles of track.

I'll also be watching to see how well the lots of Atlas 7056 track sell. Most of those lots are for two packages of 18 pieces of 40 inch long track sections, so each lot is for 120 feet of track.

Flextrack in most scales has gotten really expensive, at least judging by feebay prices.

Yeah, I'm not a buyer for anything either.......I got enough to last my lifetime. Lots of items I would have liked to own at one time, but that time has past. But, the quality of most models is either new or mint in most cases. Rumor has it this might be the 1st of several auctions of Larry Sokol's collection..............haven't heard that officially, but time will tell.



I agree on the cost of flex track, it is out of sight.

Basics like track, rail joiners, scenery stuff, plastic buildings, all are now lucrative on the secondary market. Nothing new coming from China and the industry put everything there. Short-term profit with no exit strategy, and now its bit them in the arse.

They have nothing new to sell us at a pricepoint we're willing to pay. Not like no-one saw that bird coming home to roost.

You want to build a model railroad? Well now, its bid on the basics boys and bid strong!

Yeah, it seems the only importer active these days is Scott Mann with his 3rd Rail products. He has a 2026 catalog with a lot of imports for 2026 (some in progress now), but alas, nothing I can't live without. But, unlike KOH's and MMW, he doesn't seem to have any problems having models built and imported.

I heard a rumor from a good source that Dave DaVita has enough left over parts from his Cab Forward build that he's going to have about 10 models assembled. He also made comments that he really wants to bring in a Big Boy...........but again, nothing I'd be interested in.

up148 wrote:Yeah, it seems the only importer active these days is Scott Mann with his 3rd Rail products.

My understanding is that Scott is retiring and now Jay Escamilla is in charge of Sunset / 3rd Rail.

I'm not sure of all the nuances, but I heard the same rumor and if you click to learn more about a up and coming model you are whisked away to a new website called "Third and Townsend".

You can find track( two rail) and scenery in local estate auctions. I see it all the time. Can’t imagine shipping 6 ft lengths of track. Even 40 inches will bite you in the wallet.
Just today i moved G scale track from the attic to my garage floor. I have boxes of Aristo track from 20 yrs. Ago. Unopened. They had a deal. Buy one get some free. O drove to NJ to get the free stuff. Didn’t want to pay shipping. Had to fight the original seller for a good receipt. He was pissed. Aristo was cutting his throat so to say.

sarge wrote:They have nothing new to sell us at a pricepoint we're willing to pay.

Nothing new there!

You can find track( two rail) and scenery in local estate auctions. I see it all the time.

Not around here; only model train stuff is junky HO stuff that belongs in a dumpster or low end Lionel at high end prices.

However, with care you can find craft paints in quantity and low prices if you willing to buy in bulk and with a measure of unknowns.

up148 wrote:...Rumor has it this might be the 1st of several auctions of Larry Sokol's collection..............haven't heard that officially, but time will tell.
...

I was wondering who had such a nice collection (and lived out west, based on the liveries of everything being sold)

I googled him to see if I could learn more...found some interesting results.

This maybe #2 or #3 of his auctions, since there was already a previous stout auction about a year ago:
https://www.stoutauctions.com/?tribe_ev ... arry-sokol

An Obit:
https://www.holmansfuneralservice.com/o ... d=37317018

And he used to be an S-scaler:
https://groups.io/g/S-Scale/topic/69608397

I bookmarked maybe a dozen items, but I have no skin in the game; Just curious what the resulting prices will be, before 19%+shipping/handling is added.

[edit: some grammar]

Larry had been in O scale for a long, long time and I think the S scale sojourn was just a diversion into another gauge........I've done it more than once. But, this explains why there are S scale and HO scale items in this current auction and maybe reinforces the notion that this is part of his collection. Larry had one of the largest and most complete O scale passenger train collections I've every seen. He also has some very rare brass locomotives, but not sure if those will make it to auction or not. I bought a Sofue FEF-2 from him around 2010 and he had more at the time.

up148 wrote:I'm not sure of all the nuances, but I heard the same rumor and if you click to learn more about a up and coming model you are whisked away to a new website called "Third and Townsend".

Ok, sorry for the widely off-topic reply, and perhaps it warrants its own thread, but YES, these aren't rumors, its fact.

Jay Escamilla is taking over the operations of 3rd Rail and GGD. Scott should be wrapping up the last of his fully-owned/supervised projects within a month or two. I also don't know legal nuances and ownership facts, but the TLDR is that the company is going to continue to make train models for the foreseeable future. Jay had been his social media guy for awhile and IMHO has already done a pretty good job so far modernizing the ordering process, and social outreach/brand awareness.

The new site is: https://www.thirdandtownsendmodels.com/

The categories are at the top and models are slowly being transitioned from single model pages with dropdown options to individual road-specific pages. I do think they can maybe better organize each road-specific page maybe under parent pages for each model, as it isn't very scalable with the layout design they've chosen. Some improvements to the ordering process include:
1. They now advertise road numbers
2. They advertise some level of road-specific information.
3. For DCC, they now offer 3 options - Soundtraxx TSU2, Soundtraxx Blunami, and the default ESU Loksound.
4. You can register an account and keep track of all of your orders in one place (vs. multiple emails.)

For DCC, I do hope they take more time to reach out to Soundtraxx and ESU to get each model tuned/validated. Scott seemed to just reuse settings after some point. Hopefully the sound files are right as well. While I've figured it out, they could do like Scaletrains and provide a very basic FAQ on how to do the most basic decoder tuning of their models, like changing the horn, bell, and auto-tuning the drive. Anything further like changing out sound files is on the user to figure out.

I have found a useful video about the 3rd Rail catalog and I'll start out by saying I don't watch or follow any influencers. I'll watch an occasional Norm Charbonneau video at most as his videos provide very useful and stimulating information. I did try again this week, but I reconfirmed that they really just don't add any value 99% of the time, especially since most of them are just look-at-what-i-bought or catalog reviews. One of the guys I watched admitted multiple times he was clueless about trains and prototype history while thumbing through the 3rd Rail catalog. Why would I care to spend what little free time I have to watch that? In any case, I forget how I stumbled upon this podcast, but if you watch it at 2x speed (and slow down when you want to listen to Jay) and ignore some cringe, it will give you some insight into the new structure of 3rd Rail, who Jay is, some thought process behind the chosen models, and some of the younger 3R operators that Jay has chosen to trust with part of 3rd Rail's business model.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd_Png0O8Kw

Personally, I think its really aggressive. As always, orders will determine what is produced. Hopefully they put a production schedule, like Atlas does, on the website to keep it all straight. Jay definitely brings the required energy and enthusiasm and I trust Scott chose the right successor to his family's business. I just hope there is enough market demand left for higher fidelity items in O-Scale to produce enough of the catalog in a continuous fashion to keep the factory (and 3rd Rail) going for years to come. They're figuring out how to better economies of scale, so that's promising.


As a side note, 3rdRail/GGD parts were also sold off to gentleman in NC who is still working to sort through everything and setup a website to provide replacement parts for 3rd Rail and GGD projects. I might have chosen a better FQDN, but this is at https://www.get3rparts.com/ I appreciate that someone is willing to sacrifice their time to run this little cottage business. Hopefully it doesn't cause many headaches for him.

Side note if it matters - I'm not involved beyond helping get certain Southern models accurate. Just stating what I've come across as the landscape evolves. All very promising so far; we'll see how it pans out.

WOW DAVID! Thank you! That is very helpful information. I had no idea the transition had gotten that far down the tracks, but very glad to see some young guys pushing and holding everything together. I agree, it is a very aggressive schedule and hopefully the community will help to support it and make it grow. Changing of the guard is always tenuous so I wish Jay the best.