Learning About the Rio Grande at the Whistle Stop Hobby Store

One day at Whistle Stop Hobbies, I discovered an Athearn blue box Rio Grande SD40T-2.  I opened the box and saw the speed lettered, "Rio Grande" painted on the hood. 
Ever so often, a Rio Grande locomotive would wander through Davis.  Recently, I had seen a tunnel motor.  This model looked just like it.
It wasn't every time that I went that I got a powered engine.  Today, however, I just had to have this engine.
I brought the box up to the counter and asked Lee, "Can we run this engine on the test track.  I think I'll get it."
"Rio Grande," he said.  "Are you going to run this on your Southern Pacific trains are running through from Utah?"
"Yes," I said.  "I just saw one the other day."
"Rio Grande and Western Pacific used to run the California Zephyr together with Chicago Burlington & Quincy," Lee said as we walked over to the test track.  As the locomotive whirred into action, Lee said, "Rio Grande is known as 'The Mainline Thru The Rockies.' It connects Denver and Salt Lake.  It truly is one of the most scenic railroads I have ever seen.  You should go see it someday."
As I put my Athearn SD40T-2 in its box, I knew I wanted to see such a scenic railroad.  "Someday I will have to visit the route of the Rio Grande," I said to myself. "Someday."

We All Love Model Trains- Support Your Local Hobby Store

I made my last visit to Bruce's Trains, my local hobby store once known as the Whistle Stop, shortly before heading to Roanoke in 2011.  I walked the aisles and looked at the new double-stack well cars and the tri-level auto racks for sale.  I said to myself, "Wow, if the kid I was could see all of the model trains they make today."  To me, this was perhaps the finest store on earth.
The kid in me wanted to return to Bruce's trains when I came back to Sacramento from Roanoke.  Fall was in the air, and I said to myself, "Wow, this reminds me of the days when I would get the Athearn blue boxes so many years ago."
To my sadness, Bruce's Trains was gone.  Such is the story with many of our local hobby stores.
Local hobby stores are more than places that sell model trains.  I made many friends as I first learned about trains at the Whistle Stop.
Athearn made Southern Pacific SD40T-2's with a snoot nose and the Rio Grande version with a standard nose.  It was not until a kit-basher came into the Whistle Stop and showed all of us that he had detailed a Rio Grande Standard nose version with the Southern Pacific light package that I began to see the essences of detail each railroad had.
The Whistle Stop gave me a chance to learn about railroads I had never seen.  I would walk up and down the aisles of Athearn blue boxes and MDC freight cars, looking for cars I had seen go by on Southern Pacific.  Ever so often, however, I would open a box, such as an old Seaboard Air Line box car and it would intrigue me enough that I would add it to my collection.
Lee, who worked at the front counter, would often ask me, "So how are your model projects coming?  Are you still working on Union Pacific and Southern Pacific?  Have you ever thought about Western Pacific?"
All I knew about Western Pacific was a few stray GP40-2s that I had seen roaming the now Union Pacific system.  My mind could not stretch back far enough to model Western Pacific in its entirety.  Mentors such as Lee at the Whistle Stop, however, first sparked my interest in railroads that were fading away or were before my time.
I am very grateful that as a kid I had a local hobby shop to go to.  Local hobby shops are a place for us all to learn about trains and for us to compare our model railroad projects.  I feel we should all work to support our local hobby store.

 

Great Days at the Whistle Stop, My Local Hobby Store

Every so often when I was growing up, my mom would take my brother and me to Sacramento when our report cards came out.  I always chose to visit the Whistle Stop Train Store.
It was great to walk the isles and see all of the Athearn Blue Box freight cars and imagine the train that I could build.  Southern Pacific 50 foot box cars made me think of the trains that moved through Davis.  As the men at the counter talked about Western Pacific and how it was sadly gone, at that moment, I guess my interest in our historic railroads began to grow.
I would listen for hours about the Santa Fe and its conquest of Cajon Pass and what it would be like if and when Southern Pacific and Santa Fe ever were to merge.  "What do you think of that Kodachrome Scheme?" they would ask.  I learned a lot from visiting the Whistle Stop.  Those were truly great days at my local hobby store.

Drawing the Southern Pacific Daylight and Cab Forward in 1992

There I sat, at the Vallejo Great Western Train shows, with my drawings of Desert Storm locomotives Burlington Northern 1991, Union Pacific 3593 and Conrail 6707.  Burlington Northern 1991 had been popular at every railroad I had visited over the summer, so I was eager to take it to a train show and sell prints of it.
I sat, determined.  But railroad enthusiasts kept walking past my booth.  All wearing Southern Pacific, Western Pacific and Santa Fe shirts and hats.  I kept asking, "Would you be interested in a 1991 print?"
They said, "These are nice, but do you have the Daylight?  Do you have the Cab Forward?  Do you have the Black Widow?  Do you have Western Pacific?" 
Heartbroken, I did not sell a single print at that first train show I attended.  But my heartbreak quickly turned to determination.  In short order, I went into the studio and drew my first steam locomotive, the Southern Pacific Daylight 4449.  In short order, I drew the Cab Forward, Black Widow and several Western Pacific locomotives, as well.
Soon, it was time for the next Great Western Train Show in Vallejo.  We headed down there with my new drawings.  "Hey, this Daylight drawing is great," people said.  "Good job on the Cab Forward as well.  I'll show my buddy this Western Pacific engine you did."  I was truly becoming a railroad artist.

Watching Santa Fe in Joliet, Illinois in 1991

In 1991, I made a grand endeavor which would be my first big railfanning trip, heading from Davis, California, via Seattle to Chicago.  At Joliet, we met with my friends from Nebraska, the Shearers.
We spent the day at Joliet watching Santa Fe and Southern Pacific trains passing in front of us.  To the Shearers, seeing Santa Fe and Southern Pacific was a treat, as they only saw Burlington Northern and Union Pacific in Nebraska.  To me, however, I felt it ironic that I was watching railroads in Chicagoland that I could see in the Central Valley of California.
Trains rolled past.  Making their first or last miles of their journey across our vast nation.  Many behind the new Superfleet engines.  Manifest freights behind SD40-2's headed past.  We waved at the engineers as the trains went past.  It was truly a great time for all.

To see more of my Santa Fe drawings, visit

http://www.andyfletchertrains.com/santa-fe.html