Amtrak French Turbo #59?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

My search for some sort of weird solution to commute traffic may have stumbled on an answer…

http://www.railpixs.com/amt2/AMT59_MichiganCityInd_Sept77.jpg

The caption for this thing says…

“AMT59_MichiganCityInd_Sept77 Amtrak French Turbo #59 eastbound to Detroit on ex-Michigan Central trackage.
At Michigan City, Indiana.
September, 1977”

Does anyone know anything about these beasts please? That’s both when/where they were and whether anyone makes a model of them? I guess one of the European makers might make one in SNCF or other colours (that wouldn’t be an issue).

TIA

[8D]

Incidentally… look at that nice track [:P]

2

Joeuf offered one in an Amtrak scheme in HO many years ago.

They were used in the mid-west in the late '70’s (and possibly early '80’s) I remember seeing one near Glenview Naval Air Station in Illinois heading towards Milwaukee.

See: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://lestrainsjouef.free.fr/spe_exp/rtg_amtrak.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Djouef%2BHO%2Bturbotrain%2Bamtrak%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:*%26sa%3DX

or if you read French: http://lestrainsjouef.free.fr/spe_exp/rtg_amtrak.html

They occassionally show up on ebay.