I am looking at purchasing a Lifelike GP30, but I have always thought they looked ugly. Almost deformed cause of the extended blister behind the cab. Would like to know what some others think.
Thanks
John
It is your railroad. IMHO, MHO doesn’ matter. Buy to your hearts content.
I would agree with you for the low nose GP30. The high nose version actually looks kinda sharp for an EMD, IMHO.
Matt
Only the GP30 B unit looks ugly. The low nose and high hood versions are okay.
Yes!
Yes, it is ugly. So, why does it appeal to you? … Don’t buy it if you will be embarrassed to be seen in public with it.
Mark
I love the GP30! They’re quite possibly my favorite locomotive next to the SD60M.
Well, it’s no Farrah Fawcett in a bikini, but I wouldn’t say ugly. Just My opinion though. However, it’s up too you. If you don’t really like the looks, unless for some reason you need it, I wouldn’t buy it. Of coiurse everyone needs and “ugly duckling” don’t they?
The Hunchback of Railtra Dame? Need you really ask?
Hunchback[(-D] I was thinking along the lines of Razorback or wild boar.[(-D] Same train of thought I suppose. [(-D]
That’s why they made a BL-2. So ugly, it’s awesome! The same goes for the U50B.[:D] Now that Athearn has their turbine chassis, they should make the U50B and C-855.
Gp30 Mmmm cool!
I don’t know whether it is ugly or not–“ugly” is one of those words that is extremely subjective–but I do know that it does bear out American architect Louis Sullivan’s mandate that <<Form ever follows function>>. Keep in mind that EMD was playing catch-up to the innovations incorporated in GE’s U25b and found it necessary to cram 19 gallons of equipment into 18 gallons of long hood; this necessitated putting some of it above the cab and some high immediately behind the cab giving it that distinct bulge. The GP35 possessed a longer body and therefore there was more room in the hood for that extra equipment eliminating the need for that above-the-cab bulge.
Personally they are my favorite GP and I think that the GM engineers did a good job in designing a body that had to fit onto the same frame as the GP7, GP9, GP18, and GP20. My Seaboard and Western Virginia Railway purchased 38 of them. If I decide to model circa 1980 they will still be new enough to be being used as first line freight engines; if I decide to model circa now they will have been deturboed and derheostated and redefined as yard engines.
GE NEVER built a U 50-B, they built U 50’s and U 50-C’s, but NEVER a U 50-B.
Just MY opinion, U 50 [tup][tup], GP 30, not so much.
Doug
I like the GP30. So much so that I have 5 of them.
My pick for the ugly locomotives are the U50, Dash-8s, and just about anything else that came after that.
I had a problem with the looks of the GP-30 for the longest time, it just looked strange compared to my favorite EMD, the GP-20. My wife bought one for me qiuite a few years ago, a LL P2K and boxcar combo that Walthers was running a special on. It still needs to be converted to DCC but I don’t find it quite as odd as I used to.
Ricky
Heck no. Best looking diesel there is.
I have six or eight of them and others in the GP30 / GP3x range. I’m on the fence about how they look. On one hand I agree they’re kinda strange-looking, but at the same time they’re interesting to look at also. But unfortunately they’re too new for my era so they won’t run (much) on my present(ly being built) layout. But I plan to do some era-hopping, at least informally just for fun, not for sessions. So they’ll get some use.
They look bullish and powerful…Brute force like a bull…
Wait a minute… your avatar picture shows a CF-7, and you think a GP-30 is ugly?[:D]
I’ve always like the looks of the 30. Sort of a transition between 1st and 2nd generation diesels. The distinctive cab roof always set it apart, and I like the high hood versions of the Southern Ry. and the N&W as much as I like the standard low nose.
A rare sight by 1986… Penn Mary Yard, Baltimore
Atlas N scale GP30 with PRR Radiophone antennae…
It’s guts removed, but still soldiering on around its 40th birthday… Hagerstown, Maryland
And even in fresh paint! Summer of 2008.
I think I like them because they are the last surviving vestige of the age of the tail fin!
Lee