I just got back a set of O-scale locomotives (appears to be an EMC E1 A-B-A set) painted for Union Pacific (well, the paint job was started at least) that used to belong to my father. I gave these to a friend of mine about 15 years ago to have identified, stripped, cleaned and fixed, but for many reasons none of that got done and now I've got them back. Here's what they look like: EMC E1 A-B-A by PW&NJ Railroad, on Flickr EMC E1A nose by PW&NJ Railroad, on Flickr EMC E1A by PW&NJ Railroad, on Flickr EMC E1B by PW&NJ Railroad, on Flickr This used to sit on a mantle at our house forever ago. The A units are powered, but there's no way I'm even going to try to see if they work (dry-rotted wires, lubrication, etc.). Brass construction with alloy trucks (that have a few bits that are starting to crumble). The paint is starting to flake off here and there, there are a few dings on the roof of the B unit. Anyone have any idea who made this?
The UP equivalent of the E1s were LA 1-2-3 and SF 1-2-3. They had a more bulbous nose as opposed to the E1 "shovel nose" and round port holes on the sides. EMD called them E2s.
The shapes and locations of the holes on the side of the shell of your A-unit model suggests to me that someone was trying to make this model look like an E1. But the slant of the nose of you A-unit model does not appear steep enough to match an E1, and the headlight would need to be moved up and the nose reshaped to be accurate to match an E2. All E2 locos had round portholes on their sides. As bremner noted, AT&SF was the only customer who purchased E1 locos. It's not clear if your models have their original paint scheme. It may have been easy for the manufacturer to change the location, shape, and size of the holes in the side of the body, but perhaps more costly to change the shape of the front nose. My guess is that the manufacturer had the tooling to make a shell for one of the later E units (E7, E8, or E9), whose noses had less of a slant than the earlier E units, but changed the holes in the side to try to make it look like an E1.
I'm quick to answer yes but having second thoughts after reading the above information. The one I'm thinking of certainly resembled the model in your pictures. Sorry, I have no way to varify this and no way to lift the pictures, off a video. No proof I can show you. However, if you buy RailFanning Southern California in the 50's, or Hot Spots in Southern California, you will see in the movie pictures the Golden State coming past the Tower after crossing the SP bridge over the Los Angeles River ...ahh...that's not a UP locomotive. My bad. That would be the combined train of the Rock Island and SP's Golden State. Ok, thinking hard. I have a video of trains that ran into Oakland and San Francisco. To the best of my recollection UP and SP operated the Overland and City of San Francisco using locomotives similar to the E1's. I will need to do more research on this. No photos or resource information to share at this time. Here we go: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-AS7bICcBcFE/historic_hot_spots_combo/ I would recommend watching this video and others to get the information you seek. Ahh, the edit feature stayed on long enough for me to add this: http://www.american-rails.com/city-of-san-francisco.html That should confirm the information shared by some of TB's finest.
Thanks for the help, guys. The headlight is actually higher than it seems (the angle of that photo makes it look a little low) and the slant of the nose looks more pronounced in person. These photos don't do it justice (hard to photograph when cramped onto my little table).
Check this resource out...very carefully. Check out the picture on a brochure. http://www.american-rails.com/city-of-los-angeles.html
Interesting. The sides are right, the nose is wrong. Very peculiar. I wonder if this was designed based on that or similar brochures?
The locomotive you have is no doubt fictional. The maker of the toy train may have been avoiding patent and licensing rights by modeling this locomotive, as is.
Yeah, it has features from more than one diesel model. The sides look like an E1 with the square side windows and the curved cab window right behind the door. The UP E2s had that same window behind the door but all later Es did not. However, the nose looks more like an FM Erie Built than anything else. It is too vertical for an early EMD. It may be that it was easier to fabricate than a sloped shovel nose.
You know, it's interesting that the front pilot is about the right angle, but the rest of the nose slope is more like a later E. A crafty guy could chop that nose and make it look just peachy, but that's way beyond my time/money/interests. I'd love to be able to identify something about the manufacturer though. In the end, I'm probably just going to sell it. Paid bills are worth more than a shelf queen to me.
OK, I added more photos to my Flickr stream. On the sides of the trucks there's a stamping that says NSK. That appears to make this set from NSK models in Japan.
Interesting widget. The nose looks not like the E-2s but like a Fairbanks Morse to me. Add the big chrome grills and the noses could almost pass for the EMC-powered, Pullman Standard units that preceeded the E-2s--M10003-M10007... By the way, all of these units were jointly owned. The Chicago and Northwestern partially owned them, and the SP had a share in the San Francisco set.
