The "DIXIANA" and other 37 ton Shays arrived August of 2018! We called these shays "Tribute" Shays because they were our tribute to the many modeling friends that have touched our lives throughout the years... Click on this link to see actual Production Models of these Shays! WARNING: If you like Shays, (And who doesn't?) you're absolutely going to love these! We're P-B-L... We're known for producing GREAT FINESCALE MODELS... Click this link to see why...

~ Latest Update: Monday, March 07, 2022 ~

CLICK ON ANY PHOTO FOR A SUPER-SIZED VIEW AND PARTICULARS !

   These models are an example of the beautiful Factory Paint and Lettering that our pal Se Ho and his crew applied... The real production models didn't disappoint..
  As noted in the story about the Cherry Valley, we spent close to a YEAR working up a true, prototypical operating scenario using our recordings of ACTUAL DIXIANA SOUNDS to use in these models...   (Scroll up and click on the Cherry Valley Shay if you haven't yet read the description...)
  Also worthy of note here is the shays with air pump exhausts routed into their smoke boxes have the proper muffled sound one associates with this type of arrangement...

REAL SCALE SOUNDS:

Each Shay version had it's own unique sounds... Including Real Whistles recorded in Real Time off of Real Steam Locomotives! And each of these whistles has it's own ambience so it sounds the way it would sound when you're standing 60 feet or more away from the locomotive, instead of right next to it! Why? Well, if you've ever been standing next to a real steam locomotive when the engineer blew the whistle you know how, after that, the rest of your day was spent with ringing ears... Those things are LOUD!
   But on the other hand, if you've ever stood a hundred feet or more away from a passing steam locomotive, say at a grade crossing, you will likely remember how other mechanical sounds are mixed in with the whistle, and how, at least in the mountains of Northern New Mexico when we came from, there would be at least SOME echo afterwards... 'Same holds true in Felton where we recorded the Dixiana and ex-West Side #7...    Beautiful!
   If you think about it, these models are scaled down from the real thing 64 times... That means that for every 12 inches that you move away from the model, you've moved a scale 64 FEET! Stand a comfortable 24 inches from the model and you have distanced yourself 128 SCALE FEET from it!
   We have even included an actual "canned" Grade Crossing Sequence for those times when you're too busy at the throttle to remember to blow a proper grade crossing! A massive undertaking considering that each of the EIGHT DIFFERENT VERSIONS of these Shays came equipped with a Unique set of Whistles, and Airpump, plus an auto-Start / Stop sequence utilizing Real Shay Sounds!
   In the process we developed a series of Custom Sounds suitable for our Three Truck Shays from the past, which include the correct sounding Cross Compound Air Pump, which we can program the Lok Sound decoders with, and four whistles to choose from in case you're a guy with more than one Shay, so your models don't all sound the same...

UNFORTUNATELY, THESE MODELS ARE SOLD OUT...

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