An F unit switching freight cars just never looks right!
To us modelers that is true…
To the railroads its just another “tool” to get the job done.
For anyone that’s interested, I found a website detailing the history of the line. The information seems to be lifted straight from the book The Ol’ Hook & Eye, A History of the Kishacoquillas Valley Railroad by John Hartzler. It also contains a roster and a link to some photos. Mr. Hartzler used to run kvrr.net dedicated to the line and his book, but I haven’t been able to access the site for some time.
Shortlines, Where Customer Service Is Key is quite comprehensive at American-Rails with dozens of shortlines including a section for many shortline fallen flags (ex: an old MRR favorite - McCloud River).
RJ Corman Railroad Group (see motive power chart) where GP38s and SD40s are still used today in Northcentral Pennsylvania with 200 miles of track on this one (of nine divisions) between Clearfield and Cresson while interchanging with Norfolk Southern north and south.
Dave,That’s quite a interesting read…Thanks for sharing.
While I am 100% steam, I always had a soft spot for the RS-1. Others have mentioned the SW-1 as well Both are early, useful examples of what might be had on the cheap in the 90’s for short line use.
Richard
In southern Ontario there is a shortline railroad company called Ontario Southland which operates a pair of shortlines in the area. Between the two operations they have a mixed bag of power including MLW RS23s, RS18s and M420Ws and EMD GP7s and GP9s.
Most recently they acquired some ex-CP SW1200RS units, and a trio of FP9s, although the Fs are not currently in service (they need a fair bit of mechanical work). The owner is apparently a bit of a locomotive collector, as they appear to have a fair bit more power than they actually use on a daily basis. (Although with old power spares are always a good idea.) I’m not entirely sure what service the Fs are planned for, but they would make decent road units.
Dave,
I have a small switching layout in a spare bedroom; a point-to-point affair. It is based on a fictitiuous short branch line that runs along a formerly abandoned section of the N & W for about 17 miles. It is located west of Sandusky and east of Toledo, Ohio. The era is the very early Conrail years, when you could see just about any road’s power on any given line; about the mid-1970’s. Back then, it would not be unusual to see switchers used for most of the industrial service. My fictitious line has a single EMD switcher (an SW-9) and a single caboose, in their own paint , as their entire roster. The switcher was purchased from the Erie and the caboose was purchased from the N&W.
Switching moves are also facilitated by the interchanging of cars from the Erie Lackawanna and the Chessie System, using first, and early second generation diesels in their own paint for that.
As has been said on this thread before, you can do just about anything and you’d be close enough to prototypical on the equipment choices. The other rule you have to remember: it’s your railroad, so you are the boss that makes these executive decisions!
Have fun!
The RS1 is one of the best Alco made…Still in the '90s their age was showing and OEM parts was getting hard to come by.
Short lines wised up starting in the late 70s and turned to GP7/9s by the late 80s they was chasing after the rebuilt geeps like the GP10 and GP16.Some opt out for Santa Fe CF7s…
Some newer short lines opt for GP35s but,most wised up again and bought locomotives that filled their needs while overlooking older Alcos and older GE 44 and 70 tonners.