I am taking the local club layouts road name and building my home line around it as an extension or another division of the layout. I am trying to keep a family apperance to the motive power and not having models that dont make sense to the line. The main motive power, both at club and that I have so far painted up is a small fleet of Athearn SD9’s, both high and low hood varients. The low hood units have Mars figure 8 lights between the numberboards and the main headlight in the low nose. All are Southern green with yellow frames, footboards or snowplow and the stair wells are also yellow. A couple of the low nose units have baricade stripes on the short nose as a experiment in grade crossing visablity. Era is prior to all the bethgon style coal hoppers. Club layout is based on the old Clinchfield RR. I plan to model part of the line that the club layout doesnt cover, traffic will be online coal mine traffic, and coal/general freight bridge traffic. I prefer older Athearn units with diecast trucks, I remotor and add DCC to them and they run and pull well. I am considering adding a pair of Ex SP Train Masters with the light packages, painted and heavily weathered to handle the mine runs, SW7’s for the yard and mine switchers or GP9’s. I have a pair of chassis for the 4 axle GE’s that Athearn does, just need shells for them. I keep the details the same for the most part on the engines, large OMI brass 5 chime horns, single fire cracker antenna on most, twins on the Locotrol master units. Are Train Masters to oddball and out of place or good for my idea of mine run drag units? So far I have 4 SD9’s in the process of being painted and made ready for service, 2 SW7’s, 1 GP9 with hobbytown flywheel drive system and 2 four axle GE Uboat power chassis. I will get pics of my 1 completed SD9 tomorrow during the open house at the club layout. Mike
I literally have a stack of the FM Trainmasters and love the looks of them, my comment would be “yes”!! They would be excellent for what you are proposing as they didn’t MU with anything else except FM’s so they would be just the ticket for coal drags…beastly looking devils aren’t they?? If you have the old ESPEE road names on the them I would suggest just removig the Southern Pacific lettering and placing your roadname in it’s place, sort of a quick patch, it was done a lot even in the 1950’s.
Mark
Hi All,
I thought the only units that could not multiple with units from other makers in North America were Baldwin builts which used a 96 or 110v system (cannot remember which but similar to English Electric units here in Australia which when I was in the South Australian Railways could not be MU’ed with Alcos…) and I am sure I have seen multiple units in pictures with those of other makers. The only FM locos I have ever actually seen operating were FM switchers in Milwaukee in 76, so no joy there from a practical observation viewpoint. I also have a picture of a CP H16-44 and a GP9 hauling a train in a booklet about CP by the BRMNA.
Baldwin units escaped me in my travels but I have been led to believe that Baldwins even sounded similar to English Electric Locos and certainly the description of the air, controls and voltage have even go me wondering whether EE and Baldwin were in collusion early in Diesel history.
However, that part is another story!
Regards from Australia
Trevor
The Baldwins here couldnt MU due to the fact they used Punematic (sp) Multipule Unit controls instead of electric like EMD, GE and Alco used. FM’s I dont quite know about thier MU system. I would run them as a pair and they are brutish looking beasts. Mike
FM’s could be delivered with standard 27 point MU or anything else desired by the customer. There were some reported wiring differences on some early ones, but MILW and Wabash ran them in MU with their EMD power. Milw even used Erie-Builts with EMD FP7 & E units on the Hiawatha!
Early road switchers many times had MU that made them somewhat hard to MU with other engines. These were usually rather simple to work out. I beleive the ex-DRGW GP7’s the Rock Island picked up had some kind of issue at first(may have been the air brake schedule), and they ran with their own kind until they were modified.
Jim
Hello! I’m crious as to what club you refer to, as I’m unfamiliar with clubs in the “just north of the metro area” of Indiana. (I’m assuming anyway it’s in Kokomo)
Speaking from a club on the south side of the City, here’s what we’re looking at for power needs, a la late 50s (57-59)
- Yard Power: Consiting of SW1200s and SW7s primarily. Each yard gets 2 (or would as we aquire engines), one yard three since it also has a passenger terminal. Technically, there are also GP7s and RS3s serving as switchers, but they are in switching districts not attached to the yard and therefor need a road quality maker. For a later era, laeve the Gp7s where they are, the RSs might likely be traded up for something else, and it’s also possible that the GPs in yard service were bumped for 2nd gen locos and moved to a few branch line positions.
- ----Miller Mine is usually handled by an RS3 or GP7, but it tends to be whoever’s engine since it;s low on the list of needing power. Regardless, the mine will usually need a roadswicher to shuffle around the loaded hoppers more efficently. Peabody Coal used a GP7 up until it was donated to Indiana Transportation Museum. (Now NKP 426) so I;d go with the GP for the mine. And that’s JUST the mine switcher, the Mine will need its own loco because filling hoppers will happen more quickly than the rr is likely to be able to send a crew to the mine to switch it.
- Road Power: SD7s, GP7s, BL2s, and RS3s, the latter usually based out of local switching districts and branchlines. One thing on BL2s, is that they don;t run well in the midst of a locomotive consist. There was a flaw in their chassis that made it weaker than it should be and being MU’d into the middle or end and be pulled on by the locos on one end and the train on the other wasn’t a good idea. Some RRs did bother to fix this though, so if you like BL2s, then you can argue ghey made the change if you like. Also, P2K Bl2s can usually be f
Low nose SD9’s would pretty much place them in the “Bethgon era”, of the late 1960’s.
Entirely appropriate. The RDG, PRR, VGN all had FM’s. Actually a lot of the H-24-66’s were commuter engines (as were the SP’s). I wouldn’t buy SP units and patch them because that would put them in the 1970’s. They didn’t patch those types of units in the 1950’s because in the 1950’s most of those engines would be less than 5 years old. You aren’t going to buy a brand new unit in 1956 and sell it 3 years later.
I would suggest NW2, SW7, SW1200, VO1000 or S12’s for the yard switchers. Yard engines would be older than the road power. I would use whatever you use for coal trains on the mine runs. The prototype used 2-8-8-2’s as mine switchers. I would put the GP9’s on your hotshot freights and the SD9’s on coal drags. With 450 hp/axle for a GP9 vs. 300 hp/axle for a SD9, the GP9 will out accelerate the SD9, so they belong on the fast freights.
Of all the units you’ve mentioned these I think are out of character. They firmly establish your railroad in the mid to late 1960’s (post-1966) while the rest of your roster is pointing you towards the late 1950’s.