After two years, 4000 miles of travel, and countless other wheeling and dealings, my Turbine has arrived home!!!
BWwwHahahahahahaaaaa I chew on your small engines!!! GIVE ME POWER!!!
Here are a few photos. ((Eat your heart out 8500! [:D] ))
She has both sound decoders installed, DCC control, and some light weathering
Ya, Ya, Ya, I know she didn’t make the grade in the real world… but gads, she is just an apple to my eye. Got to put up some temporary track this weekend and run her a bit.
Thanks for putting up with my ratings, just been a LONG time getting her home!
Ed, I have know Idea! But you got to think someone would have caught a short cat nap - but heaven help that person if the coal crushers came on line!!! hehehe
Flash, “She” is the whole three unit set. The front PA unit has the proper sound board installed and with the release of the Athearn Turbine and the new turbine sounds, I had a turbine board put in. Here is some info by Don Strack I just about got all his books, hope it’s cool to post. If you need to know or see some photos, he has done some very nice work.
Coal-Burning Turbine
Union Pacific’s coal-burning turbine, a two-unit set with road numbers 80 and 80B, was built by the road’s Omaha Shops over a more-than-two-year period, between September 1959 and December 1961. Stationary load testing took place at Omaha between December 1961 and mid-October 1962, with limited road trips taking place between Laramie and Rawlins, Wyo., on January 16 and April 7, 1962.
The control unit was rebuilt from UP Alco 2,000-horsepower PA-1 passenger unit number 607, which had been retired in March 1961 and sent to Omaha Shops for conversion (UP 607 wasn’t actually renumbered to UP 80 until October 1962, when the rebuilt locomotive entered revenue service). Modifications to the Alco passenger unit included removal of the steam generator and main air reservoirs from the rear interior of the unit, and installation of an additional 3,852-gallon diesel fuel tank. The air reservoirs were re-installed along the roof.
The second part of the set, the turbine-containing unit, was built using the frame and running gear of Great Northern Railway W1-class electric locomotive 5018, which UP had purchased at scrap price from GN in September 1959. The turbine on the B unit were essentially the same as those on UP’s road numbers 61-75 “Veranda” gas-turbines, with modifications to burn coal completed by Alco.
Perhaps Union Pacific had never heard of the C&O or the N&W or perhaps in the late-'50s and early-60s they were just being bullheaded; whatever the case this has to be one of if not the most harebrained endeavors in the history of railroading!
Perhaps Union Pacific had never heard of the C&O or the N&W or perhaps in the late-'50s and early-60s they were just being bullheaded; whatever the case this has to be one of if not the most harebrained endeavors in the history of railroading!
Whole different concept, there RT. The C&O and N&W turbines were coal fired STEAM turbines. UP #80 was an experimental coal fired GAS turbine. They tried pulverized coal as a replacement fuel for the oil used in UP’s other turbines.
I seem to remember an article (don’t know if it was RMC or MR) where an intrepid modeler kit bashed a reasonable facsimile of that locomotive using an Athearn PA-1, a Rivorossi GG-1, a tender from a Big Boy and a whole lot of sheet styrene! It wasn’t an exact duplicate, but it still conveyed the size and power of the original!
You know, I seem to remember an article such as that also. In addition to the Athearn PA if memory serves me the tender came from one of the old Revell(?) static kits. I don’t recall just what the turbine unit was but you could be correct that it was from a Rivarossi GG1 – the wheel code is correct.
What I do remember is that the guy had put in a hundred or more hours in its construction – that dedication makes me feel a little lazy that I abandoned my N-Scale Code 55 handlaying rail after about 20 feet.
Please give us the lowdown on the model.Is this a brass import /kitbash/scratch built what!! Thought I was aware of all the UP turbines…guess not! What an impressive monster.
