The lights on the Baldwin S-12's was a housing for both the headlight and signal/warning light. It wasn't a hood over the lights but a housing enclosing the lights This photo shows the front light housing
I love em. The 1500 is my favorite - especially with road trucks. Here are two of mine on the Bloomington Southern in 2004. Athearn blue boxes with Digitrax decoders, LEDs, painted hand rails, and trimmed hand rails on the Rock Island (Valentines day gift from wife, what a gal!) to match the prototype (aside from that, my RI is uncharacteristically clean). Here it is in a consist at the club layout last weekend after being stored in a box in the garage for 8 Minnesota winters. Surprisingly it ran like brand new. The lead unit, 4374, I picked up on a business trip in Baltimore. The EMD lease unit is a dummy. Many of my trains have stories. That's the fun part.
Jason, Here is Rock Island 836 (CRIP 836) that was bought by Checker and then by Adrian and Blissfield. Checker1 by SackOHammers posted Feb 29, 2016 at 6:39 PM CheckerLocomotive by SackOHammers posted Feb 29, 2016 at 6:40 PM IMG_1420 by SackOHammers posted Feb 29, 2016 at 6:47 PM IMG_1421 by SackOHammers posted Feb 29, 2016 at 6:48 PM IMG_1423 by SackOHammers posted Feb 29, 2016 at 6:48 PM http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locopicture.aspx?id=78891
Great job on Checker #1! I had the pleasure of being able to climb up on that engine back in 2000 when I visited Checker Motors' plant in Kalamazoo for a Checker Club convention. I'm working on one in N-scale using the LifeLike/Walthers SW900.
Thanks. A fella named Larry Eyeman painted and put the decals on the model for me about 7 years ago (Proto 2000 SW8). I had the pleasure of operating that Checker locomotive one morning back in the late 1980's. I am from that area and knew the foreman.
Might be the same guy, retired now. I knew a few people that worked there at least into the late 90's, probably longer. I also work in the tech industry, funny how small the world is.
I got this one done a few days ago it is an Athearn BB SW7 with some mods done and will go to work spotting and pulling cars on the tramp job. Made the handrails and cut bars, had to solder the brass horn to a brass angle piece, plus a couple other minor changes. Included a photo of the prototype for reference.
Given that some steel coils can weigh up to 100 tons, the coils carried in gondolas are put over the trucks not in the center. That much weight in the center could collapse the gondola frame!
I enjoy putting these tonnages into perspective sometimes, so here we go. I've pulled a lot of coils, on coil car's, gondolas, some on flat cars, lets consider some of the numbers a bit here. The specialty more modern coil cars (not gondolas) have, on average, remember this is just one car. 240,000 lb+/- LD LMT or GRL (Gross Rail Load) some are up to 280,000 lbs 42,000 lb+/- LT WT or empty, some are 60,000 lbs, which leaves us with 202,000 lb Capy = 101 tons payload, usually see 3-6 coils on these cars, more like 4 coils per car thru here. this means, 202,000/3 coils = 67,000 lbs ea/2,000 = or 33.7 tons each for 3 coils average 202,000/4 coils = 50,500 lbs ea/2,000 = or 25.3 tons each for 4 coils average. 202,000/6 coils = 37,000 lbs ea/2,000 = or 17 tons each for 6 coils average. images of coil cars; w 4 coils http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bn/bn686607dsa.jpg w 6 coils http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bn/bn686860v.jpg EJE coil gondolas 192,000 lb LD LMT 75,000 lb LT WT 117,000 Capy or near 1/2 what a specialty coil cars tonnage capacity is. images of coil gondolas; http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/eje/eje4003gga.jpg http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/eje/eje4020ads.jpg Coils can vary in weight in vast amounts, these are very basic averages. The biggest/heaviest coil I could find on the Simons coil weight chart http://www.simonsconsulting.com/coilweight.htm shows 7.7ft X 8ft coils come in at about 50 tons. The loads should be loaded over the weight bearing bolsters, but sometimes they aren't. http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bn/bn686287eha.jpg Bear in mind that most class 1 carrier's bridge, rail capacities, (4 axle cars) are limited to 72,000- lbs per axle.