Last Saturday on my way down to Trainfest, we stopped at Horicon to see the 1003 and the Sana Train. To my suprise, sitting next to the paint shop was a freshly painted ex-MNS bay window caboose painted for Progressive Rail. This is the first time I have seen a freshly painted piece of equipment outside of the paint shops. Here’s some pics…
Boy does she look sharp! I like how Progressive Rail still used the MNS lettering on the ex-MNS caboose, and replaced the MNS logo with the Progressive Rail logo. Maybe they will use it on the Wisconsin Northern, eh? We could only dream.
I contacted the MNS Historical Society, and here’s the reply I get:
“The official anouncement will be made this weekend at the MN&S Hist. Society, beyond that I’m sorry but I can not comment.”
They are holding out on us railfans! Secrets here. Secrets there. Secrets EVERYWHERE!!
Well, remember you saw it here, and ONLY here first.
If anyone wants full size 8mb photos, drop me an e-mail
I haven’t seen a bad paint job come out of Horicon yet.
Now, before somebody starts mentioning schemes that they think are bad, all I mean is that WSOR does a very throrough job at painting and masking around details. Kudos, WSOR.
I remember a while ago when we were at Horicon (I was about 8 or 10 years old) and there were 2 partially painted blue engines in the yard area. 2 months later, these engines were running around the US at Union Pacific’s Olympic Units.
It was about 2 years before I realized that that’s what I saw at Horicon.
Also in the shop area was a (Kennecott Copper?) GP something (one of their crazy rebuilds), of which I found out was WSOR’s new engine.
There was also a BN engine, of which I found out is going to be painted for a movie set. I also saw some ex-WC engines back there.
Can anyone tell me if the ex SOO Line GP7 #2411 is still back there being used for parts?
That cab does look really good… They’ve created quite the reputation for painting the last 4 years or so. When the EJ&E started it’s -3 rebuild on it’s SD38-2s, it originally had the first couple of units painted at a shop in Joliet that will remain nameless. Apparently they did a pretty bad job, and they’ve been using Horicon ever since.
The KCC unit (GP39-2) is supposed to be an NREX paint job, from what I heard. WSOR is adding six new units to their roster, but they’re all SD40s.
I hadn’t heard about the movie set for the BN unit, though I do know it is owned by ILSX. Not sure about any ex-WCs…
All of the old “junk” that was sitting around Horicon has gone away, most of it probably being recycled into paperclips by now… [:(] Even some of the more recent junk – the remains of UP 9918 – is being recycled, though with 9918, it is getting replacement parts and becoming WSOR 4053! [:D]
What was probably hiding in the paint shop while you were there was GN 400 – “Hustle Muscle”!!!
The NREX GP39-2 798 was shipped to Horicon to be painted as Dakota and Iowa 2510- Horicon has done the paint on a couple of the DAIR’s other recent acquisitions in the past. NREX chopped down the cab and nose to standard specs after the DAIR purchased it- which was quite the creative hack job because Kennecott units were delivered with special order high visibility cabs for service in their Utah copper pits.
Also, regarding using the caboose for railfan weekend, what we at the NSSR did, was take magnetic lettering and cover up the logo, s it looks real. We borrowed Greg Vreeland’s F7 which is painted GN but lettered WGN and it looked exactly GN.
