Contemplating building a passenger train from Walthers Phase IV Superliners. Setting is freelance midwest/northwest and era is modern ie within the last ten years or so. maybe Montana Rail Link country. What might be a suitable locomotive to haul this train and one or two for an 8 car consist? Not a rivet counter but don’t want something too silly.
Was thinking of Athearn AMD103/P42, or F59PHI Amtrak/West, or Atlas 8-32BHW Phase IV or pepsi can. Currently favour the 8-32BHW but would appreciate comments.
P42’s would be most appropriate. The Eagle, which runs between Chicago & San Antonio with 6 to 8 Superliners, uses one P42, but most other trains of that length use two. The Dash8-32BWH’s are used on Superliner trains occaisionally, but not regularly.
P40/P42’s would be good, and don’t forget F40PH’s. B32-8WH’s did turn up on the Southwest Chief occasionally but were not regular power. The leased GP40’s (AMTK 650-664) also did turns as second or third units behind F40PH’s, and the GP40TC’s (AMTK 192-199) also showed up on the Capitol Ltd.
Thanks for the replies and photos. The Empire Builder is what I had in mind and the photo is great. What is the 4 car consist of The Empire Builder? I can see the first car is a lounge but not sure about the following three. Are the F40PH still in service?
The four-car consist of the EB (presumably west of Spokane) would probably be lounge, 2 coaches, sleeper. All of Amtrak’s F40PH’s are out of service except for those that were de-powered and converted to control cabs.
Paul is right for the Spokane to Portland section of the Empire Builder, except one of the coaches would be a coach-baggage. The full consist of the Empire Builder (between Chicago and Spokane) is a pair of P42DC’s, a heritage baggage car, a transition sleeper (partly used as a crew dorm), two sleeping cars, the dining car, a coach, coach-baggage, the lounge-cafe, a coach, coach baggage, and a sleeping car. From the lounge-cafe back, it goes to Portland, and the rest of the train goes to Seattle. The strange arrangement is probably due to the fact that the Empire Builder is the only Amtrak train that splits into two sections and rejoins on the return trip. This split is scheduled for the wee hours of the morning, so if you’re travelling through Spokane, you probably won’t even be aware of it.
The choice of F40PH or P42DC as power is more a function of when you’ll be modelling the Amtrak trains. There was an overlap period, but essentially, the P42DC replaced the F40PH.
Actually, you probably will notice that you are in Spokane. The train crews are NOT gentle with passenger equipment as they used to be. Don’t think that they care one iota if they wake sleepers or not. I have been both ways multiple times- Everett to Spokane, Everett to Libby, Libby to both. When Spokane was my destination, the porter didn’t have to wake me up.
The East bound Builder that has been going by Libby has been 12 cars superliners, one sometimes 2 rail box, 2 power. To early and dark for pix, well, ok so in the heat they have been late Wed, Thu and Fri, on time today; I didn’t have camera. I did see the Orient Express ( I think ) at Ripley the other day as had 18 cars with two regular domes and a super dome that was leading Amtrak by an hour(ish). We were late this time also, think it was about 7a → you should have seen all the noses pushed against the windows! Kinda funny as it seemed that he didn’t have priority as he was taking the sidings for WB freights! I could hear the detector at West Libby and East of Libby, and the hogger was commenting on it…
A P42 or an F40PH for train set within the last ten years would be most appropriate. The F40’s started to get retired in the late 90’s and were all retired by the early 2000’s. 8-32PHW’s were and still are used on a lot of Amtrak trains, infrequently. They’re typically used as back up power when P42’s aren’t available. And yes, they regularly operate with Superliners.
The “Desert Wind” in the mid 1990s was almost always a P32-BWH (in the original “Pepsi Can” scheme) leading an F40PH, although I have seen an AMD-103 on it.
That was a train that ran through Cajon pass near midday in alternate directions on successive days, so I got a few photos of it.
The train was a mix of Superliner I and Superliner II in Phase III and Phase IV.