Special Delivery from the New Mexico Northern!

 A friend of mine who goes by the handle of "Hypoponera" has long encouraged my hobby with good words and little (and not so little) surprises in the mail.  When I first entered the hobby he sent me an Athearn BNSF GP38-2 and a trio of BNSF covered hoppers that are still favorites of mine.  

He has a home road called the New Mexico Northern (NMN). It has a sharp grey and red scheme and he has modified and painted dozens of locos for it over the years.  Many of them he has sent to hobbyists all over the world.  A couple years ago he sent me this Spectrum 8-40CW. Quite a looker and still one of my smoothest runners.  It's in the running to possibly get a decoder so I can run it at the club. 

A while back we had loosly discussed me possibly acquiring a damaged NW GP40-2 shell that was either to become a dummy or to salvage the railings and glass from.   I had just about forgotten about it when it arrived in the mail today...  

...along with several other surprises!

This really cool Athearn NMN Caboose was included.  I don't think I realized the NMN had it's own tagline "The Rio Rancho Route". Very cool and authentic sounding.

It even has a set of KD's!

To top it off were these two hoppers. I got a lump in my throat when I saw them .  

A little history:

Almost 2 years before I started this blog I bought 20 Tyco Virginian hoppers From the $1 bin at Zientek.  I stripped off or patched out the "Virginian" name and reporting marks installed EZ-Mate couplers and painted the trucks, wheels and frames.  My kids and I weathered them with stain and made coal loads for together and had alot of fun doing it.  Never got around to patching them for anything and in a misguided fit of downsizing  ( I was getting rid of much of my non-modern collection) I sold these to Hypo, only keeping one.   

Just recently I was thinking of asking if I could buy some back for sentimental reasons so no surprise that I got a bit emotional over seeing these little Tycos in the box.

Thanks so much Hypo,

Karl