What makes this one so great??
Honestly, not a whole lot, I suppose. Although, in spite of the fact that I've managed to accumulate close to 1000 magazines dealing with prototype and model railroading, a good deal of my time researching the prototype is spent online. Various e-mails to and from other modelers and sporadic participation on quite a few mailing lists yield great results but my greatest information gathering sessions will usually find me spending hours with search engines trying to milk the most info out of the web that I can. The hands-on part of my projects are the least time consuming, probably accounting for 15 to 20% of the project, the other 80-85% is spent doing the research. For instance, while building Oakway #9077, I found Q-station to be the greatest source for photos, but the best photos were found following the threads of at least a dozen or so searches performed. If I only had been able to find all that info in one spot, I would have been that much farther ahead with the project.
I'm not implying that the "fastest modeler wins" here, only that more time might be used to create models instead of trying to find that "one perfect shot" in the next 13 hours.
Now, obviously, this list won't help everybody all the time, but if you'reinterests might be similar to mine, hopefully this compilation of stuff will help.
I'll list all info that I have for a given subject, be it magazines, books, or online (with the appropriate link if I can find it). If anybody else has any information that would be of interest to a specific topic, feel free to let me know and I'll post it here.
Oakway SD60
* Qstation
* Model Railroading, Dec. 1998, Diesel Detail Closeup.
* BNSF 1997 Motive Power Annual (probably other years as well).
* Railroad Model Craftsman, Nov. 1989, with drawings.
* EMD's SD60 Series, Withers Publishing.
BN SD60Ms
* The BNSF Photo Archive
* BNSF 1997 Motive Power Annual (as above...)
* EMD's SD60 Series, Withers Publishing.
RMC ran an article on the SD60M sometime after their SD60 article came out and, although it dealt primarily with UP's three-piece windshield models, the article did touch on other roads as well, like BN's and Soo's '60Ms, with drawings. Model Railroader had an article where the author constructed both a two-piece and a three-piece windshield version of BN's SD60Ms.
Update - Yesterday, while Josh and I were visiting Jim's Junction in Billings, I finally found "EMD's SD60 Series" book by Withers Publishing. Everything that I heard about the book was true - this book is chock FULL of info about all SD60s. Every road the has (or had) them, all types (including M and I cabs, MACs, etc.) and even scale drawings (YEAH!! - I can finally build my SD60MAC!!), a very well done and informative book.
To go to the Withers site, click here.
Pertaining to locomotive modeling, by the way, if you want an awful lot of info (and don't mind sifting thru a ton of e-mails to get it), try logging onto the Diesel Modeler's Mailing List. This list has been around for some time now and a wealth of info can be found. Go to The Prototype Modelers Group site for more info.
BN(SF) Caboose (Cabeese)
* Railfan.net
* Qstation
* The "lost" caboose files from Charles Biel's BN Photo Archive (I found them after going thru a dozen or so search pages on Yahoo, I believe).
Thus far, I've been using the internet for most of my research for these, and I'm still looking for more. I'm compiling a list of where I've found what I've found, but this is a good start. If I find some printed material, I'll post it. There are several caboose books out there, none of which are coming to mind right now.