Hi Guys, Sorry for no thread last weekend. I was with the family in SoCal doing Disneyland and didn't have a chance to hand it off. On the plus side, we spent Thursday morning puttering around Fullerton. Mom went for a run through town and I took my sons to the train station. The 2 year old thought it was the greatest thing ever....well, Barstow you can climb on the trains, so that may be better, but Fullerton, they are fast and loud and there's amtrak and Metrolink...so there. The highlight of my day was a local sporting 2 of my favorite engines ever in of course, the only Paintscheme that matters. The coca cola of Schemes if you will: Being relegated to branches and locals, the GP60Ms aren't quite as shiny as when they were leading hotshots like the 199/991 on high speed sprints on the Transcon, but they are still beautiful. But that's not all, what was on the rear of this train, but a genuine ATSF baboose as my son would say: As an explanation for the confused faces on the conductor/brake"men." They were getting ready to push to an industry that was on the Transcon, but they are on Track 3 which heads to San Diego...They had a high green and they were trying to figure out why they had a high green when they should have gotten a lower yellow to transfer to track 2...or, maybe they were being sent down the SD track and around a different way. I didn't know the railroad tracks here well enough to understand. Ultimately, the Dispatcher gave up on them or something as there was a late Amtrak Surfliner due in that track any minute, so their green went away and they got yellowed into a siding to the north at which poitn I had to leave. The confusion and ensuing discussion were fun though. as were what amounted to a 5 man crew.
But isn't the warbonnet with BNSF kind of like New Coke? Kidding aside, it is probably the second best paint scheme put on a loco...
A couple of days ago, Doyle McCormack's PA-1 was through this vicinity, en route to the east coast. Here is the train, an H-PASNTW2-13A crawling through the yard in Whitefish, Montana:
I was discussing the size subject with another fellow just yesterday. Interesting those PAs were thought of as large sized power sixty years ago, now they are physically small. An odd sensation.
A few years ago, in 2010, I found this in the museum shop building - I had a hard time figuring out what it was, but the wood cab told me it was pretty old: Last year, it reappeared inside the main museum building: That's a 4-6-0 built by the Pittsburgh works in 1896 - five years before Alco. It started off its life with P&LE and eventually ended up hauling coal in Nova Scotia. The Exporail people did a great job bringing her back to her full glory.
Being moved from Alloy,WV on the NS WV Sec. to Columbus, Ohio.Somebody bought all three of them to use in Cincinnati,Ohio. Curtis
That's a sight! Great find, wonder how many of these are out there. Nice photo to model a car after for a modern layout
Sure stirs up some nostalgia. I was lucky enough to catch both Rock and C&NW hoppers a few days ago. Re-stencils, but still very recognizable.
Ken, are you talking about covered or open? I know from time to time I still see MP and C&NW coal hoppers in trains.
Mike- Covered hoppers of grain. It was the same train, which was the only local still operating in the vicinity. Many of the grain hoppers being loaded in this valley are now carrying AOK or NOKL markings. The CNW was AOK, the Rock was NOKL.
I don't know for sure if it's just cosmetic, but I doubt they'll be steaming her up anytime soon - she's at the far end of the building relative to the entry doors. They must have done quite the switching puzzle to get her there.
