Came in at my local hobby store last Thursday.
Kevin
The phase III SDP40F shipped a few months later than the Phase I, although they are from the same run.
I am particularly interested in modeling a train I road twice in the 1970’s, the San Francisco Zephyr. It was, for the most part, pulled by phase I “pointless arrow” scheme SDP40F’s with the icycle breakers on the cab roof. Those are the ones I picked up back in March.
However, a photo of the San Francisco Zephyr was posted on TO which showed it being pulled by a Phase III during the last couple years before it was replaced with F40PH led Superliner equipment.
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,5013770,5015835#msg-5015835
So I may pick up a single of the phase III SDP40F.
Edit: I see in the video, there were Phase II paint Genesis SDP40F’s.
BTW, the cinderblock walls don’t make the nicest back drop for a layout. I know it’s extra work, but installing stud-walls and drywall with a drop ceiling will make the layout room a much nicer environment. I delayed layout construction by a year in-order to finish my basement and it was really worth it. It took nearly a year because my wife and I did it on the weekends DIY, but a contractor could do it in a few weeks. Food for thought anyway.
Hi Kevin,
Congrats! When you stated unit #634, my memory lane kicked in. This shot is for you! Silver Star, 1981.
By the way, for those not aware, that is actually a 3-2 split Nathan K5LA horn on the roof.
Still prefer Phase 1, but that’s a great looking loco. Skipped around and enjoyed some of the great footage on that video, but 37min is more than I’m willing to invest now.
They were mostly gone by the time I can remember traveling via Amtrak, but I still love the look of the SDP40F. Last year I was able to take a couple shots of the last of their less-attractive cousins, the F40C .
https://chicagovalleyrailroad.blogspot.com/2019/06/chicago-trainspotting-metra-vintage.html
Same here. For some reason the phase 1 is a real eye catcher. I’ve used a photo of one in the foot hills of the Sierra Nevada mountains as my desktop wall paper.
Phase 1 seemed to dominate the San Francisco Zephyr though heritage equipment years, upto mid-1980 when the Superliner EQ took over.
I’m modeling the D&RGW which the SFZ didn’t use, except for a few rare occasions. However, the SFZ was a dog’s breakfast of heritage passenger cars but it’s been fun hunting down models to build it. Most are avaible in plastic since Walthers has run correct Santa Fe, UP and other trains, which Amtrak drew much of it’s fleet from. The only difficult passenger car would be getting the SP 3/4 dome, only available in brass as far as I know.
The San Francisco Zephyr was routed over Donner Pass over the Sierra’s and due to tunnel clearance concerns, SP reportedly restricted dome cars to only it’s 3/4 dome and possibly a few others, but most were prohibited. Apparently in the late 80’s, the tunnel clearances were increased to handle the upcoming Superliners so the SFZ was allowed to have standard domes during the late 70’s.
The Phase II SDP40F is #523, one of the first 40 with the pointed nose and high dynamic brake and radiator fans. Not sure if any of the first 40 ever made it to Phase III. I think the 110 locomotives from the second part of the 150 appeared in all three paint schemes.
As for my walls in the basement, somebody on YouTube made a comment about those, too. I don’t think my landlord would approve of my making that kind of a modification to the basement. The only modification that I was able to make was to put down carpet where the layout was going to be when I moved in. That had to come up this past March when the sewer drain in my basement backed up. Fortunately, it was only about 3 inches of water, but the carpet had to go.
Hopefully someday I’ll have a place of my own and be able to have a proper home for my layout.
Kevin
Ah, so a rental. If you expect to be there a while, maybe 2’ high backdrops could work using hardboard.
I’ll have to look into the usage of the repainted SDP40Fs for more info.
Found this discussion at TrainOrders.
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4688185,4688185#msg-4688185
One inconsistency is #622 was list in a group said to be repainted in phase III between 1980 and 1981, but #622 was photographed in 1979 in phase III paint pulling the SFZ. There was a separate report of #622 working out of Oakland in phase III paint in 79 also.
Finally watched most of the video. Noticed the SDP40F’s pulling MHC’s, Material Handling Cars which is an anachronism.
According to UtahRails.net, the SDP40F locomototives remained in service until mid April 1981.
https://utahrails.net/pass/amtrak-hep-locos.php
– Material Handling Cars (in service: 1986-2003)
https://utahrails.net/pass/amtrak-mail-express.php
So it doesn’t look like the SDP40F’s were around long enough to pull MHC’s, if that matters. But as always, we can run what we want.
As I said just before the videos of the locomotives running, in my world, the SDP40Fs didn’t have the derailment problems that the prototypes had. As a result they lasted into the early 1990s, working alongside the F40PHs.
As Bob Ross used to say, it’s your world.
Kevin
I like this point of view, and may be adopting it.
Haven’t watched the entire video, but your shots of the moving locos taken from a train running in front of it are brilliant.
As I just said - we can run what we want. No need to justify.
D&RGW didn’t run the SFZ, but I’m going to run it anyway, back story or no.
I take the Zephyr as flexible and expansive passenger train concept myself, so am prone to support such creative liberties. Our layouts are more prototype specifc all the times, but they also serve as somewhat traditional purpose in being generic frames to display equipment of all kinds, including that which never operated over the lines we depict.
One usually has to limit things to building and maintaining one layout, even when we are blessed with an interest in several and sundry locations and lines.
I operate a Houston-Portland Zephyr over my somewhat fictitious Four Corners Division. It offers the usual NG goodies familiar to most, plus provides a standard gauge line that starts with the branch to Moab, continues on to Dove Creek, CO and thense to Durango. From there, it follows a re-standard-gauged Farmington branch beyond there and down to Grants and thence east via trackage rights to Albuquerque…
I haven’t figure out much beyond that and the endpoints. Equipment is drawn from the CZ pool, apparently expanded beyond CB&Q/DRGW/WP. The less thinking here, the better. It just looks good tooling through the vast vistas of the West.
I like the plexiglass along the outside edge. Keeps trains from taking the big dive.
If I modelled the 1990s I would also take this approach. I love the look of the SDP40 locomotives.
-Kevin
I like modeling the 70’s when the SDP40F’s pulled the San Francisco Zephyr. The passenger consists were interesting and the make-up was almost never the same, being drawn from a variety of former private RR cars Amtrak inherited.
I’ve managed to hunt down a variety of baggage, baggage-dorms, coaches, lounges, domes and sleepers built by ACF, Pullman Standard and Budd from Walthers and Broadway Limted.
The Rainbow period is also an interesting and fun time to model early Amtrak trains when many of the private passenger cars were still in original colors, such as GN, NP, BN, UP, CB&Q and Santa Fe. As the early 70’s progressed, Amtrak phase 1 pointless arrow cars were being mixed in and by 1974, most, if not all cars in the consist were Amtrak painted. It’s a really fascinating period to model from 1971-1980.
Yeah, it’s good stuff. I added the siding closest to the aisle to facilitate the relative lack of standard gauge track in my dual-gauge Durango. But it really was life on the edge. Not so much the dangers of the long plunge to the hard concrete, but the layout height makes it susceptible to “belly rub” derailments. It’s unobtrusive and you mostly look right over or past it. It’s about 1/4" thick by around 14’ long total, with a glued splce at the 8’ mark. The local plastic shop made it up for me for ~$100. Doesn’t take too many $50 RTRs landing hard to make that cost seem very reasonable.
FWIW info.
This might be of interest to some fellow modelers.
Not all, but a number of the SDP40F’s that survived from 1978-82 were re-equipped with Nathan K5LA horns. So yes, it’s prototypical to have a Phase III unit with the same horn sound as an Amtrak F40PH (although some F40’s originally were equipped with Nathan P5a horns). I could not find a list so I’m using online photos (and my personal ones) as reference.
My Athearn SDP40F (629) is in the Phase 1 scheme, so I will leave its stock Leslie horn scheme intact, which does have a pleasant sound.
Athearn Genesis Phase 3 units #631 and #634 already have the correct K5LA horn mounted on the cab roof, and the sound scheme is available on the decoder. The other Phase III units offered (622,626) have the Nathan 4 chime, S4T horns mounted on the cab roof, as did the prototypes.
Athearn did a nice job with their research!
Yes, that’s one thing that has amazed me with these models. It seems like yesterday when I was a kid in the 80s, and manufacturers back then would just make a generic model of a locomotive and slap whatever paint schemes they wanted on it, typically with only one road number.
While there is always a place for kitbashing and scratchbuilding models to get what we want or need for our layouts, to be able to get accurate models with locomotive specific details is quite awesome.
Here’s the model of #575 in Phase I paint.
And here is the real locomotive.
Apparently it was repainted prior to August 1977 in Phase II paint.
Here’s the model of #523.
And here is #523 in it’s original Phase I paint.
By August 1976, it was in Phase II paint.
Still active in 1981. The numberboards were white by that time like on the model. The horn seems to have been changed as well as the ACI tags on the sides removed.
And the model of #634.
And #634 in Phase I paint.
Same here. Many photos of these engines leading the San Francisco Zephyr and those “smile” chains too.
I’m almost thinking that a thin wire with black insulation might work. I’m thinking cut it a little longer than needed, strip a little of the insulation off the ends, bend the wire to a curved shape, and bend the exposed wire on the ends into a hook to simply hook over the grab irons on either side of the door, allowing the “chain” to hang off the grab irons like the real thing. No need for gluing, drilling, etc.
Kevin