ACL/SAL Any fans left?

Are there any Atlantic Coast Line/ Seaboard Coast Line/Air Line fans left?

I turn heads because when someone asks me what my favorite railroad is, I say "Seaboard Coast Line". I live in an area that 99% of the modelrailroader/railfan population is obsessed with the B&O or Pennsy.

 

I like the lettering Seaboard used on the sides of their locos.

I am on the West Coast. Here we have Borgrail almost everywhere, and there are a fair number of modelers of that, but we have almost as many or more who are modeling all the fallen flags, like SP&S, GN, NP. I am focusing on a shortline in my area that owns almost nothing less than 30 years old.

Good luck finding others. There's bound to be someone else on this board into the same roads, and there is probably a historical society for Seaboard.

Adam

P.S. This is my 100th post!

 

I always liked S A L and A C L. Living in L&N territory I had to like A C L since they owned L&N stock.
I never hear much comment about the late S A L colors but I liked the off-white passenger colors as well as the dark green with yellow freight colors.
Had a chance to ride #6 and 34 Atlanta to and from Howells yard. Also rode the Gulf Wind jacksonville to New Orleans.
They ran some classy passenger trains.
:thumbs_up:

 

Yes, there are a few of us ACL/SAL fans left, not too bad for two fallen flags that are gone 40 years next month. I've been of fan of both roads for close to 60 years now - after all, I had the SAL's main line two blocks north of where I lived for 18 years, and an ACL farm branch butting up against my parent's property.

While not a big fan of SCL, after all, two distinct, competing roads merged into one - being a fan of SCL at least puts you at the end of what I consider "traditional" railroading.

It's good to hear that there are a lot of Pennsy and B&O fans where you live. What I grew up with is now considered "period" modelling - and I'm glad I do.

One good thing, you won't have "Scale Rule Richards" questioning your model version of the SCL.

 

Unfortunately for this thread, SAL/ACL/SCL are not my favorite railroads. Even just within the Southeast - not the region I'm most interested in - I find Southern and L&N more interesting.

I can sympathize, though.

 

CP&E 3207 - Looks like the fine folks at Athearn are going to be supplying you with a GP-35 in the transition scheme, SAL colors with SCL lettering. I have the standard SAL GP-35's and they have a beautifil paint job.

 

22 May 2007

A lot of my interest still abounds with ACL and SAL.

I have now completed the scanning of 52 boxes, of 35MM slides into my computer files and saved them on a 'f' drive.

Many ACL and SAL pictures turned up that I had forgotten that I had made. Some of SCL backing into Jacksonville Terminal, some of ACL (and SOU) backing into Augusta's Union Station.

A number of pictures in and around Greenville, Laurens, Spartanburg, SC and Ashville and Ridgecrest, NC.

As I was looking at these '30 to 40' year old pictures, i remember taking some pictures of the SAL passenger station in Columbia, SC, however these did not turn up. Perhaps another box (or more) is still somewhere in the house.

Some of the pictures were dark from age and I am working on 'brighting' them. The pictures of the Union Station in Augusta, Ga.are some of the dark ones. That station is now gone with only the columns left - which were moved to private property.

Many other photo's of different railroads (the CZ from Calif. to Chicago included) while I was employed with the USAF for more than 20 years.

Greenwood, SC was another SAL rail center and on the route of the Silver Comet. These is a rail museum there which I am told has a lot of railroad history of Greenwood. I am just an hour's drive away and never been inside, just outside as it was closed when I was there.

The ACL and SAL (also SOU) is alive and well on the SCRS.

Larry at SCRS.

 

Larry - Good to see you back. Just ran across your photo of the SAL GP-7 switching on the east side of Charleston. Hard to believe that so much has changed and been lost these past 40 years.

Last week finished the last of the code 83 SAL mainline and the Savannah staging yard - all three tracks of it! Next, the three track or maybe four, Charleston yard.

Also managed to ballast ~15 feet of ballast (two different shades of grey no less {!!!???}. Hopefully the rust colored overspray will help blend the two. My thoughts upon finishing - "SAL mainline standards it ain't!"

Also put in the code 70 interchange track and the 3 associated turnouts. Laying the code 70 branch has hit a snag though, the code 70 flex track, while beautiful to look at, isn't all that flexible.

I can see my work train being permanent party at Farm siding.

Let's keep in touch here and see if we can keep this forum going. Would like very much to hear what's going on with the SCRS - were those CofG E-8's ever produced?

 

Like Boxcab, my knowledge of the ACL/SAL/SCL is pretty limited, however I have been researching the prototype extensively since the SCL has a pretty strong impact in the planning of my free-lanced layout and railroad.

Im freelancing in the Pittsburgh area, but with strong influences from the SCL and the P&LE. I dont think the SCL ran any far north than Virginia (did it make it to Richmond or DC?).

Where could I find a map of the ACL/SAL/SCL system?

 

23 May 2007

Dave. Good to hear that Your road is getting into operation. Keep laying track and you will be building the bridges over the Stono and Ashley Rivers.

Wow! I would like to build those bridges in 1/4" scale.

MTH has not produced those E-8's for C of G - as of yet. I do hope they will before June 2010.

In the MTH 2007, vol 2 catalog a Southern ALCO S-2 switcher is listed. This I have pre-ordered. These were utilized all over the Southern System. I also have some pictures of the S-2 working the Charleston Yard (really North Charleston).

I do have some MTH Atlantic Coast Line passenger cars (eleven total) that should be delivered by June.

CP&E 3207

THe ACL and SAL trains did go into New York City, however from Washington they were pulled by Penn. ACL and SAL would pick them back up in Washington for the trip south.

I see that you live in the Wheeling area. My wife and I will be passing near there on 1 July (Sunday) - right up I-77 on the beginning of a two week - round robin, 50th wedding annv. trip.

I had hope to stop there and see the layout at Oglebay Park.

Need to go.

Larry at SCRS.

 

Larry - Good to hear from you again and glad to see that the SCRS continues to add power and rolling stock.

Sorry, but no Stono or Ashley river bridges, with a space of 10'x12' with a gross area of ~75 s.f., just couldn't figure a way. However, do have about 2 feet of high fill running along what looks like marsh, the best I could do.

If you get a chance, browse through the book "Trackside Around Atlanta". It's all color and has quite a few good photos of CofG power in both the blue and grey, and the "collard green" scheme. As a matter of fact it has all the railroads that served Atlanta and even includes color photos of the decapods on the Gainesville Midland.

Although I try to buy anything ACL/SAL/SOU, have to admit I've neglected the "butt-heads" such as the S-2, but you're right, SOU did have a lot of ALCO yard switchers and they did serve system wide.

CP&E 3207 - SCL and earlier ACL/SAL passenger trains did go to NYC.
The RF&P took them over in Richmond for the ~100 miles to DC where, as Larry said, the Pennsy delivered them to NYC.

That's another curve ball you could throw at your friends. The ACL had a power pool with the RF&P, which I believe (subject to correction) was continued with the SCL. RF&P E and FP units were often seen on passenger trains through Charleston, and I heard of them getting as far south as Miami and west to Atlanta.

 

SCRS... I was thinking the ACL/SAL ran to Washington area, i wasn't positive. Thanks for the confirmation.

Yeah I live on Wheeling Island, just moved up here in February.

Dave... That is certainly a curve ball, I didn't know the RF&P and the ACL pooled power like that, interesting. Thanks for the information.

 

25 May 2007

Good morning all.

CP&E 3207

For sometime, the SAL, ACL and SOU also had some of their train cars that were set up as through cars up to Boston.

Should you ever get up to DC, allow about two hours to visit the Union Station. When I was last there, I was able to go out on the platforms and take as many pictures as desired.

What I really needed was a movie camera. Trains were moving in and out at a regular pace.

Dave.

You may have told me this already, however I will ask it again. Do you have room to model the Johns Island Station area?

Larry @SCRS.

 

Larry - Can't say that I haven't had the room, although I figured a truncated representation of John's Island would have required a space of ~8 to 10 feet. by ~1.5'.

I was especially tempted when AMB produced their laser-cut model of an ACL station (very close to the one at J.I.). And, at about the same time, someone (Walthers I think) produced metal silos which were very close to the soybean elevators there.

Drawbacks, as I saw them then, were;

1. Approximately 70 to 80 feet of handlaid code 40/55 track.
2. 10 to 14 switches - ditto the above.
3. A doorway in exactly the wrong position.
4. Sidings too close to each other.
5. and, finally, no outside corner to duplicate that big, sweeping curve.

Also, operations would have been pretty well limited to ~5 cars per train pulled only by my choice of (a) GP-7's, (b) butt-head switcher, or a 4-6-0 "Copperhead."

Can't say I wasn't tempted, just thought that operations would be pretty limited.

 

I Model the Seaboard Airline Railway. Iv'e been modeling it since I was five or so. So it has been a long time. It's probably my most favorite railroad. I like the Seaboard Coastline to.

I'm currently modeling my layout based on the western side of Savannah. It's called the Savannah route to the everglades, or miami. I model it in HO scale. On my roster I have an SAL, E7 and E7B from P2K in the SAL citrus scheme, an SAL E8 in pale green also P2K, an SAL SDP45 from Athearn marked as 1170, an SAL E6 and E6B in pale green from P2K, and a SAL GP9 also P2k.

Here is my favorite of all E7 and E7B! Also my first E set.

 

Seaboard - Hi. Glad to see that there is another SAL modeller out there.

Savannah in the '40's/'50's would be a good choice. You can model traffic off of the Columbia and East Carolina lines to the north and the main line over to Montgomery Alabama. Also, Savannah was normally the farthest north that SAL ALCO power got.

As you can probably tell from some of my earlier posts, my modelling is based on an additional "mythical" quarter to third of a mile inserted into the East Carolina line. This is "somewhere" between Savannah and Charleston.

 

Definantly is good to see another fan of SAL out there. Iv'e pretty much been by myself for awhile. Nice to meet you Dave Jones!

Iv'e been modeling the line from savannah to jacksonville. I could get the line to Montgomery AL. in there, but that may be a future build. Iv'e stuck with the basic line build plan at the moment.
I gotta get more space first before I can build the other half of my layout.

I had plans to make the line run from savannah to Charleston at one point. I always thought Charleston would be something good to model. Cool to have your own seperate branch from the real line though.

 

It's also nice to meet another SAL fan. I know that there are others out there, but apparently not too many visit this forum.

I see that you're from Conyers, is/was Conyers on the old SAL Hamlet to Atlanta line? From Paul Faulk and Harold Robins book "Trackside Around Atlanta 1956-1976" I know that Conyers was on the Georgia Railroad.

Your choice of Savannah as a focus of your layout is quite interesting. Next to Hamlet, Savannah was the focal point of the SAL. And you have quite a bit of SAL passenger power on your roster, quite fitting since every north-south passenger train on SAL went through that town.

The EC or East Carolina line in contrast always had minimal passenger service, just Nos. 25/26, the "Bollweevil." Thus, I have a heavy preponderance of freight power. Outside of 3 SDP-35's, I only have an E-6A painted in the pale (I've heard it called "Savannah") green.

Well, it's getting kind of late so I'll sign off for now.