I got my DC version ordered. Their website says a maximum of 150 units will be produced. Now to find a set of the Con-Cor Rock Island cars.
Not the same. The Life-Like version is the as-delivered paint scheme appropriate for early Rock Island trains. The Kato version is modeled after a museum repaint with slightly different colors than the original. Jason
I have that one, also. I put the Life-Like shell on a Kato drive and installed a decoder in it. I did reserve a DC version of the new Kato one, too.
When you consider how limited an edition this is going to be, you wonder why Kato does not do the B unit that had a cab and a headlight.
If anyone wants one of these, I found an etailer selling them for $164 instead of the $200 from Kato and the shipping is much cheaper. You can message me if you would like the name of the etailer.
Three guesses, first two don't count. http://www.tophobbytrains.com/176-5365-kb1e8a-rockisland652custompainted-nscalekatokobo.aspx
I had forgotten that they were E-6s; I had thought E-8s. In addition, I had thought that there only was one; there were two. At least now I know why Kato is not doing it. Originally, they had only one prime mover and the baggage compartment, but CRI&P later added a second prime mover and closed off the baggage compartment. At that point, it substituted truncated E-8 style grilles, although it retained the oval shaped "portholes" of the E-6. I can find photographs of the "updated" version, but can not find one of the "as delivered" with the baggage door. Was it CMStP&P that had some ALCo and perhaps EMD A units that were similar: one powered truck, one prime mover and an RPO or baggage compartment? C&NW had some modern cabs added to E-8/9Bs in the late 1960s or early 1970s for Chicago commuter work.
Nope. You're thinking of the C&NW's lone Baldwin DL 6-2-1000 No, no DL-105/7/9 was done that way. Milwaukee rebuilt theirs, which came out looking like EMDs, but they had two "540T" updated six bangers each. They also rebuilt doodlebugs with raised cabs and what looked like short Fairbanks-Morse noses. All PA-1s were built with only one prime mover, which was all they needed. That didn't leave room for baggage. No B&O EA or EB came with baggage doors, so I think you mean square windows. If you want a color pic, get out your crayons. The only thing EMD built that way with a normal cab was this one: I said EMD, nitpickers, not "Budd using identical machinery". Now you get to help me out. Are these locomotives or doodlebugs?
You would have to go with whatever the roads called them at the time. Generally the term doodlebug applied to a single car with capabilities to haul one or two trailer cars of 60 or 70 feet. And that single car besides motor compartment could be with baggage, mail baggage, passenger plus baggage, or passenger, baggage, and mail. I did run across a long time ago a photo of a single GN doodlebug as the power on a short freight of 10-15 cars. But the Rock's single factory built E-6B with a cab at one end was purposely built as a locomotive by the factory to haul a passenger train. I would tend to call it a E-6 boxcab loco with a cab at only one end.
I hear you, and it's true. But the same can be said of every doodlebug ever built by Brill, or St. Louis Car (often with EMC equipment), or whomever. Yes, Santa Fe motors also hauled freight, particularly M-190, but also M-110 on the St. Joseph branch during the war, and others. But they were all built to haul passenger trains. Mixed trains almost always used locomotives and coach-baggage-cabooses. As for what the railroads called them, I'm not sure any officially used the term. They were officially motor cars. But I can see roads strongly discouraging the use of the term in reference to streamlined equipment. After all, that's why streamliners were invented, to create a light passenger train that was cheaper to run and maintain than steam, but more appealing than doodlebugs. Remember, both the original Zephyr and M-10000 had capacities of under a hundred. The Santa Fe's M-190 had a great deal in common with M-10000--articulation, a six hundred horse Winton distillate burning engine, just about everything but that Pullman styling. It was only after the UP, Santa Fe and others saw the public reaction to these vest pocket streamliners that EMC was suddenly encouraged to get some real horsepower under those hoods. So, streamlined, therefore not doodlebugs? I can buy that.
Only a single unit, not two? http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locopicture.aspx?id=77801 http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoPicture.aspx?id=77802
