HO scale V&T rant

I have been trying to model the Virginia & Truckee Railroad ca. 1873-78 in HO scale. This is the period of the Big Bonanza, when Virginia City was booming and the railroad ran as many as 40 trains a day over a steep, twisting, single track line with no signals. I say I’m trying to, because there’s one little problem: locomotives. Rio Grande Models makes kits of most of the freight cars I need, as well as a few of the passenger cars. The main thing they lack is ore cars, which are available from Comstock Carshops, along with several Virginia City buildings.

So why doesn’t anybody make HO scale V&T locomotives? There are a few old locos that occasionally show up on Ebay, but nothing that even remotely resembles state of the art. Can’t somebody make a high quality HO scale V&T locomotive, preferably equipped with DCC and sound? I’m not terribly picky; I’d happily take any locomotive that would have been seen in Virginia City before 1880. (If I’m remembering correctly, there were 19 of them.)

On a happier note, I picked up Mallory Hope Ferrell’s new book on the Nevada Central this afternoon. On first leaf-through, it looks like an excellent reference on a railroad that, until now, has not received nearly enough attention.

Now he just needs to produce a book about the Eureka & Palisade.