Can anyone put me on to some good sites that have photos of the Rio Grande Challengers. I have done a lot of searching with minimal success. I aquired a very old Bowser Challenger (I got it free from a friend) with the original moter and it runs great. Very smooth and it just crawls at low speeds. I have since purchased the superdetail kit for it and would like to go the Rio Grande route with it. Thanks
The web site below is of the D&RGW by Otto C. Perry by cities.
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00010785
The problem with those photos is that they depict the Rio Grande’s L-105 class Challengers that were Baldwin built. The Rio Grande also had (for a short time), ALCO built L-97 Challengers that were built to the specs of UP’s later Challengers. For all practical purposes, detailing the Bowser Challenger with the detail kit and then painting and decalling per Rio Grande standards will give one a prototypically correct model. Rio Grande did get rid of the L-97’s in 1947. They went to the Clinchfield.
Here’s a link to the Athearn site showing a model version of the D&RGW L-97. http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATHG9129
L-97 #3801 in service: http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00010820
#3802: http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00010820
Hope this helps.
Andre
Andre
I think you are right about the 3800 class. I never considered them real D&RGW since they were used less than a year or so and were sold to the Clinchfield in 1947 after being in storage for longer than the time they served on the D&RGW. I have one from Athearn but was going to renumber and rename it for the UP along with some other modifications.
Thanks