No military trains, but on my way to hang out with a Korean War Vet I did see a GP8, a GP9 and a GP10 sitting together.
I was proud to have a WWII Navy blimp pilot help me research details for my Navy blimp base railroad. And I was proud to be able to display my layout at a 50 year reunion of blimp base personnel in Hitchcock, Texas. Display of photos, artifacts etc was in Hutchcock's public library. School kids bused in to see it. Of course, the kids loked the blimp base railroad best, based on recognizable scenes from the abandoned base on the edge of town.
I was proud to have a WWII Navy blimp pilot help me research details for my Navy blimp base railroad. And I was proud to be able to display my layout at a 50 year reunion of blimp base personnel in Hitchcock, Texas. Display of photos, artifacts etc was in Hutchcock's public library. School kids bused in to see it. Of course, the kids loked the blimp base railroad best, based on recognizable scenes from the abandoned base on the edge of town.
Jim, that SD60M was supposed to be 9297, not 9299. 9299, became 9297 to fill the gap that 1991 caused. Also the caboose, is that a custom job or did Atlas do it before? And if custom, where did the decals come from?
Charlie (& etc), Sorry for the delay - I assume you're asking about the prototype photo? The train pictured is the daily commuter run from Husaybah/Al Qaim to Baghdad, taken in the second half of OIF-I, the first year of the Iraq campaign. Something good to come out of living in an old rail depot...
Yes, your right and I should have known that considering I painted that model. Both the locomotive and the caboose are custom jobs I did ten years ago. They are from Micro Scale decals and are on one sheet.
Ok, cool, think I got that sheet somewhere, so I'll have to check and probably do the Caboose here someday.
Just remember to sheet the windows on the car body. I didn't do that and it has bugged me since. Maybe I'll do another correct one.
Plug the windows like the BN did on almost all their cabooses. Also many other roads plated their windows because they deemed them as not needed.
They did this in the late 80s and early 90s when BN started a huge rebuild program on their cabooses. The cupola windows stayed, but the body ones were plated over.
IIRC, the FRA mandated that special window glazing be used on cabooses around 1982. This was in response to many railroad workers getting hurt and worse because of people throwing rocks and even shooting guns at the cabooses. The new glass was effective but expensive. Most railroads simply removed the glass window openings on the carbody sides and welded a metal plate sheet over the window area. This was my first modeling project when I was about eight years old. I remember following the article I saw in RMC in the early 1980's.
