Topps Rails and Sails Update

Time for another small update on my new favorite train related card set. Topps Rails and Sails is an awesome vintage set that I've been working on for a little while now. It's actually been over a year now since my last update. I'm only looking to pick these cards up when the price is right, so they are likely to be few and far between.

A little while back I was lucky enough to grab a lot of three new cards from eBay for just $8 including shipping. That ends up just over $2.50 per card, which is right around where I want to be as I'm building this set. It's nice to finally be able to show them off.

Up first is my favorite of the lot: card #26 featuring a diesel switcher locomotive from the National Railways of Mexico. The green paint scheme provides a nice contrast with the rest of the card and the artwork surrounding it is excellent. I love the logo in the lower right-hand corner as well. The cards in this set with actual logos look much nicer.

Up next is card #27 featuring a very odd looking rack-rail locomotive from the Mount Washington Railway. There is some really cool engineering going on with this design, especially the way the boiler remains horizontal while the wheels are on the incline.

The last of the three is card #28 featuring an electric coal mining locomotive. This is another one of the oddball locomotives included in the set. While I prefer the standard diesel-electric locomotives that common today, it is still neat to have cards like these.

While progress on this set has been slow, it is definitely one of my favorite side projects. These cards are the oldest in my collection and are a ton of fun to look at and sort through. While having 20 of them is great, there is still a long way to go for me to complete the set.

Rails and Sails Set Progress:  20/130 = 15.4%

Cumulative Cost (including shipping): $32.21

Average Cost per Card: $1.61