I think because the "L" is assumed. Your leading locomotive is going to be the "Lead" so no need for the "L". But the trailing "C" needs to be identified (in an LABC arrangement) in the event the lash is separated from the train. Engineers know which way is front by looking at the loco #. OF course, as time went along Santa Fe stopped caring about arrangement and you'll see photos showing leads with a "C" in front. There have been whole discussions here about this in the past if anyone wants to link to them.
Yep. I'm not aware of any road other than ATSF who used the LABC designations. Most/all other roads went with ABCD when they broke up the as delivered ABBA sets. A lot of folks (and some retailers) don't understand that if they buy an ABBA set for many roads, and the loco numbers don't have alpha suffixes, it is only correct to buy both A units with the same road number to represent the as-delivered consist.
You see the C on front when the train is on the return from the original destination. They ran the ABBA so they did not have to turn the consist.
The only thing that's always bugged me on the blue units is the less than opaque nose herald pad print.
The real things also had either an "L" or a "C" printed immediately below the cigar-band nose herald. I haven't received my locos yet, but based on the images provided by Kato this lettering has not been included on the model. Regards, Ron McF
This Microscale sheet supplies these numbers and more...I've ordered a number of these because I still must add these to mine... Bruce
Is that an "L" or a "C" under the nose herald on this unit? (Don't look at the numberboards before you answer.)
Yes, I did the same thing on the Freight F as well... Yes, I've posted pics in all of my replies to this thread... here are some more pics of the process... it does require overpainting the entire grill area yellow (the red and silver warbonnet only requires some red in front of the warbonnet separation) I have 14 more of these freight units to do and one thing I'll add on all the subsequent ones are yellow strips representing the visible structural members overlaying the black 'openings'. also, I'm doing a LABC set of 260 series Freight units, which don't have stainless grills at all, rather chicken wire over the entire area where the grills would have been. Bruce
Hmmm, just a blank space above between your two paragraphs. I don't see any of your images either on my iPhone or my Windows machine here at work.
The new release also corrects the paint lines above the cab on the roof. The original release had a sharper point in the blue paint. Here is a photo of the wrecked 274L that shows the actual curves between the yellow and blue paint.
That was in Duncanville, Texas between Midlothian and Dallas sometime in the spring of 1972. Dang, I wish that lady and I had got out of the picture sooner so Charlie could get a better shot.
Russell! because of your photo, I now have to create a mask that will allow me to airbrush a proper contour on all 7 of my older A units! LOL..thanks! Bruce
After studying this photo showing the roof painting, I can see that the new release from Kato doesn't carry the corrected paint far enough forward, although I like the fact that they got the curvature correct. Bruce
