Grey, Looking forward to seeing some Jenks Blue on the layout, my layout now has 6 Jenks Blue SD40's on the roster.
I ran NTrak on Sunday. I had 3 MP trains on the layout. They all had to fit in the yellow yard while there were 4 of us running, but after everyone else left, I brought them out for some pictures. Here we see a classic FA1/FB1 pair on 75 cars of freight, a Jenks Blue GP38 pair with 50 cars, and an SD50 NLR pair on 38 cars:
The GP38s were posed and shot 3 times, and in all 3 cases, the Jenks Blue proved invisible to the autofocus on my Nikon Coolpix. I have backgrounds in perfect focus, but the locos in the foreground are a dark blur. Maybe mine were painted in a super-secret stealth blue by mistake? In their place, I present a pair of ancient Minitrix cars. Anyone know what the NOT&M reporting marks stood for:
The New Orleans, Texas & Mexico Railroad was kind of a holding company for the Missouri Pacific for operating the Gulf Coast Lines and the International-Great Northern Railroad. These two railroads were in turn made up of many other smaller railroads such as the San Antonio, Uvalde & Gulf, New Orleans & Lower Gulf, Houston & Brazos Valley, Sugar Land RR, San Antonio Southern...the list goes on and on . All this was done in Texas to fullfill the crazy Texas law that required any corporation doing business within the state, to be chartered or incorporated and maintained as a Texas' institution. The parent Missouri Pacific Railroad was therefore obliged to maintain this independent existence, both on paper and on its equipment until the mid-1950's when the judge presiding over the MP bankruptcy, overturned the law.
Bob, Excellent shots, you will have to try and get some shots of the GP38's, you certainly had quite a length on that FA train. Thanks for sharing and look forward to seeing more.
Mr. Straw....Is that the Tex-Mex? I knew about that old Texas law, but I forgot MP would have needed a separate "Texas Company". Colonel, sir, thank you for your kind words and encouragement. The next time I am out there with the camera, I will see if I can coax my stealth Geep 38s to uncloak. I'll tell them the Colonel gave the order, and they better comply with it!
On the long train with the Alcos, that was a test of two things. I had previously pulled 130 cars for 4 hours straight on that same line with a pair of Rock Island Life Like FA1/FB1s. It stands to reason that a single AB should be able to haul 65-70 cars, then. At 77 cars they started slipping, so it took 2 off. The other test was the use of LL dummy couplers from the nose of the FA units as couplers between the A&B. Now that I know they will hold as well as anything up to the traction limit, I can work on getting them close coupled. That saves a pair of MT 1015s which will never be asked to uncouple magnetically. The LL nose couplers have centering springs and will couple without having to lift one of the locos off the rails. Not my idea. In a thread on another board last spring, someone suggested this as a way to couple them closer together. In the broadside photo of the pair, I confess to positioning a 90T hopper behind them so the broad gap between the diaphrams was not immediately obvious.....
No, the Texas Mexican Railway was a compeditor of the Missouri Pacific in South Texas. It runs between Laredo and Corpus Christi and was the first "Class 1" railroad to completely replace its steam engines with diesel locomotives.
Bryan: Comparing notes - on the early unit (the one labelled SD) what did you use for the exhaust stacks? I have some LocoMotives Spark Arrestors which work well for me, but with only a limited supply left and having not seen them lately, eventually I'll need something new.
eagle jnj trains offers the spark arrestors in white metal cast, they are pn# 344-0151 no lift spark arrestor.
Here's a URL that shows quite a few pics of MP models done by Tom Stolte, MP fanatic and head honcho of Oddballs Decals: http://mopac.org/models_stolte.html Personally, I think they're pretty darn awesome!! And yes, they're all HO scale, as Tom models in that scale. However, he DOES offer decals in N as well as HO, O and other scales.
His decals are great, wide variety of roadnames and some great subjects, but the carrier seems a bit thin so it's well worth the effort to give them a coat of either the Testor's decal overspray or of clear gloss prior to use.
I agree ...Tom's decals are great. I've used them to recreate some 86' MP autopart boxcars. Hmm...I may have to take a few shots to give the good Colonel another MP project! ~Tim
