am putting together a freight set of the great northern from the time period of 1955-1968. my lead engine is a emd sd/7. for a trailing engine, would I be in the ballpark with a emd gp/7 for that time period of freights operating in northern minnesota. thanks
EMD GP’s amd SD’s would be very typical in Northern Minnesota in that time frame. Just remember to run them ‘long hood forward’ - The GN set up all of their early road switchers with the long hood as the ‘front’. The GP30’s were the first low hood engines delivered and ran with the short hood forward.
Jim
YOU haven’t said WHO made your “EMD SD-7”. Be aware most manufacturers make a single engine - and paint it in varous road names - so, essentially you bought a ‘paint job’.
ANYTHING you plan to run it ‘in tandem’ with your first engine, will benefit from matching speeds, therefor a duplicating brand, mechanism, and motor is most helpful.
If running it independently, with its own train, speed matching becomes unnecessary.
In terms of ‘authrticity’, SD-7’s were early mainline freight diesels. A book on Great Northern egines would be interesting and will tell you what they actually used. For example Life Like’s Proto 2000 current EMD f-7s would be appropriate for Passenger operation, as would ‘Doodle bugs’ for branch operations.
For me, a ‘Galloping Goose’ (as they were called) with sound would be approprate. When I rode one they were quite noisy.
Yes, Don is so right with the speed matching. I am assuming these SD7s are P2Ks, the gearing on these is very low 18:1 as compared to most other GP 14:1, Atlas, Proto and Athearn. You could get away with this ocasional MUing, but as a running pair, I would make sure that they are speed matched or eventually the drag on one or the over running of the slower unit will not be good for the drive.
My 2 SD7s are usually run as a set. It is rare that it is broken, maybe a short engine move.
I get away with doing something similar to this, but my coal drag of 30-40 loaded hoppers is generally pulled by 2 or 3 SD50s (low geared). Sometimes I will place an Atlas GP40 or SD35 in the mix. The Atlas is used as the last MUed loco and is coupled to the hoppers. 95% of the time the faster Atlas engine is working to pull the heavy train and the SD50s are running out front going for a ride. At any grade or on turns then the SDs will pull. This configureation has worked well for many years
As was stated run your GN stuff long hood forward and use locomotives that run together at about the same speed.
The GN had a big fleet of F units from EMD. There were some Alco FA’s as well. The mid 50’s paint would be the orange and green with deluxe gold striping. The simplified scheme didn’t show up until 1962.
The F units were used in both passenger and freight service. The freight F’s had a single headlight where as the passenger F’s had dual headlights and of course steam generators.
Here on the west coast the GN had most of the Alco power. The SD7’s and SD9’s were used on the eastern end of the system but there were two assigned to Klamath Falls.