7mm American O scale Southern Pacific Motive Power and Rolling Stock

[Yorkshire Dave]

Jordan, if a consist of these came up at a decent price, I'd be hard pushed not to indulge - you are spot on the livery is legendary! Did they haul freight in this livery? Dont answer that question, I don't need any more distractions in Chicago....

I will......

ATSF F units did haul freight - but it was their Silver/Yellowbonnet or Silver/Bluebonnet (both later all over Blue) liveried versions which were assigned to these.

Photos from Railpictures.net - copyright as noted.




And of course there's the SP 'Black Widow' livery.

 

[Stephen]

I will......

ATSF F units did haul freight - but it was their Silver/Yellowbonnet or Silver/Bluebonnet (both later all over Blue) liveried versions which were assigned to these.

Photos from Railpictures.net - copyright as noted.
View attachment 253244


And of course there's the SP 'Black Widow' livery.
View attachment 253246

ah…. Thankfully that Freight Livery isn’t half as striking as the red war bonnet livery!

indeed, the 90 day count down to closure of orders for the 3rd Rail F7 has been noted, in particular the fact they are doing another run in the SP Black Widow livery…..

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

ah…. Thankfully that Freight Livery isn’t half as striking as the red war bonnet livery!

Yes, not as eye-catching, but they still look smart with the silver - better than the later ATSF livery applied to these units.

 

[MarkR]

A big favourite of mine, albeit in HO!
It's an A-B-B-A, sad to say its never been run!

 

[mickoo]

As a general rule:-

F units = Freight (Negating really early days where F was passenger and FT was freight)
E units = Express

Rare to see E's on freight (I'm sure hundreds of pictures will turn up now ) but often F's were seen on passenger in earlier days (typically A-B-B-
A lash ups) until the E's arrived, the give away is boiler fitting on F units, no boiler = freight diagrams.

F units were often retained on passenger duties where axle weights were a consideration.

In short Stephen, you're excuses are running out.....

 

[Scale7JB]

In best pantomime form - "Oh yes we have!!"

Topeka, KS will be the same Topeka as in "Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe". Even non-believers in the UK have heard of that railroad!!!
..and they'll have seen pictures of the 'classic' American train livery, and I do have to admit, probably the best-ever livery to adorn an EMD F-Unit (and many others!!)
View attachment 253242
Photo via American-Rails.com, Warren Calloway collection.

I beg to differ of course....

JB.

 

[Stephen]

In short Stephen, you're excuses are running out.....

My excuse box has a greater storage capacity than my money box!

I beg to differ of course....

JB.

View attachment 253298

That’s a damn close second without a doubt.

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[Northroader]

I was a bit unsure of ”E for express”, as in American speak express usually refers to parcels delivery, and so checked up. As introduced by EMD, E was for eighteen and F was for fourteen. The pioneer passenger units were boxcabs, but as they were working long distance passenger streamliners, they were superseded with tarted up units, with the bulldog nose, and fancy paint schemes. These were the E, and had two 900hp diesels, giving the 1800 rating, and were on A1A-A1A bogies, and with steam heat boilers. The freight unit F followed, with a single diesel of 1400hp, and on Bo-Bo bogies, and copying the styling of the E units. A multiple set of these did demonstration runs across America, proving their worth. Next thing the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and a Board controlled diesel production, all F’s and no E’s, particularly lines to the Pacific coast. In 1945, freight eased down, and the Western roads found F units, all axles motored, were better for operation through the mountains, with steam heat added.
As to paint jobs, this is the standard Santa Fe freight scheme, later the bean counters decided the red pinstriping was too fancy, (pity) and it was simplified. The blue and the yellow warbonnets with silver were more of a gimmick, the passenger F units usually had the red warbonnet.

 

[Stephen]

Bit more work today on the box cars - firstly received the Sarah G printed parts in the post - massive thanks to @Boyblunder for printing those out - they have come out brilliantly, so have already lined up a few more box cars tp have the walkways fully replaced.



I then spent a bit more time adding the grab rails to the North West Pacific Box Car.



Was getting a bit frustrated that some of grab rails weren't sitting exactly square, but then found an interesting prototype photo:



I really could go to town, but I'll stick with what has been done. Hopefully get this one finished over Christmas, then can think about adding it to the every growing list of items to be painted. Already have the transfers/decals, so should be a nice change to the usual AAR 1937 40ft Box car.



For years many people (including some of the top SP authors) thought the NWP 'Overnight' box cars were black like the SP box cars, but recently it has been confirmed that they were actually a very dark green livery.

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[garethashenden]

As a general rule:-

F units = Freight (Negating really early days where F was passenger and FT was freight)
E units = Express

Rare to see E's on freight (I'm sure hundreds of pictures will turn up now ) but often F's were seen on passenger in earlier days (typically A-B-B-
A lash ups) until the E's arrived, the give away is boiler fitting on F units, no boiler = freight diagrams.

F units were often retained on passenger duties where axle weights were a consideration.

In short Stephen, you're excuses are running out.....

In the opposite corner of the country, northern Maine, the Bangor and Aroostook had two E7s. When they discontinued passenger service these were regeared and used in freight service for about 5 years before being traded into EMD for new GP38s.

 

[Stephen]

Happy New Year All!

The Christmas break has been productive:

The ATSF Box Car has had construction completed, and the roof repainted black. Only remaining element to undertake is painting the roof walkway and then add it to the list of freight cars to be weathered. Usual assistance supplied during working sessions:




I'd also purchased another ATSF Box Car off a fellow WT'er for a peppercorn fee. It needed work, so whilst in a Santa Fe mood, thought I would crack on with it.





IM plastic roof walkways removed, in preparation for plasticard/3D printed walkway to be installed. The underframe also had a few parts broken/missing as above, so the spares draw was raided and parted duly installed.

The box car was then masked up to allow the underframe and roof to be primed, ready for painting into black which was the standard for ATSF Box Car.





Some more progress has been made on the rungs for the NWP Box Car. Looking at the ends of the box car the rungs were mounted on a metal bracket, so using a spare IM ladder, I added the brass rungs, glued, then cut away the IM plastic rungs and have trimmed back the brass tails from the rungs. The fetching teale green indicates it was possibly from a Pennsy Box Car, could stand corrected on that though.



Hopefully get the second one constructed, then both installed in due course.

I had a trip to see @JasonD before Christmas - never seem to walk away from there empty handed! Although they have never been on the agenda Jason offered me a very cheaply priced IM 8000gallon Tank Car kit, so I obliged and took it away. The prototype was pretty basic, and the kit reflects this but still detailed to a good standard:



Decided to have a bash at this one and has been started:





Where the straps meet, there will be a visible gap, so this will need to be filled prior to painting. Additionally at the end of the main frame there is a moulding 'dimple' which will also need to be filled.



Still need to finish the rest of the underframe and then add ladders etc. Not too sure what final livery this one will go into - there wasn't an SP prototype, so I'll see what Protocraft offer and then pick something up from them at Chicago in March.

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[Big Train James]

More likely NYC Jade Green, given the era. Or possibly Penn Central, if the cars lasted in service long enough and were also repainted after the merger. A quick check on google indicates that their were 40' cars that made it into PC paint. So it depends what Intermountain offered.

Jim

 

[Stephen]

More likely NYC Jade Green, given the era. Or possibly Penn Central, if the cars lasted in service long enough and were also repainted after the merger. A quick check on google indicates that their were 40' cars that made it into PC paint. So it depends what Intermountain offered.

Jim

I think Penn Central is what I was thinking about in retrospect Jim, but got lazy not realising ‘Pennsy’ refers to its predecessor predominantly! But as you say could be NYC as well.

It’s a shame the IM box cars were produced way before people started keeping archives of websites, so there could have potentially been a record of all the liveries they produced, but then again makes looking through Roger Lewis’s stand at MoM more interesting.

Cheers,
Stephen

 

[Stephen]

More sporadic progress – really does come in fits and starts recently….I decided to take another one of the ‘peppercorn’ fee box cars I purchased off a fellow WT’er and decided that the paint job needed a complete strip down. Regretfully, I didn’t take a photo of the original item, however I purchased a correct sized sealable box and duly dumped the box car in there with a lot of Dettol.



The box car was turned a couple of times over a 24hr period and with a bit of scrubbing the majority of the paint came peeling off.





The roof walkway required replacement to something more suitable, and there was a fair bit of glue present on some of the grab rails, ladders, underframe etc, so I decided that I’d strip the car right back to the bare bones and raid the spares boxes again for a top to bottom rebuild.



Removing the old doors also allowed me to discover the amount of Dettol that had seeped into the box car when submerged!





Once stripped back, a bit of filling was undertaken followed by the required sanding. I’m using 3D printed doors from Sarah G’s website, that were kindly printed out for me by @Rob R a few years ago in exchange for some OO scale wheels.



The doors are really crisp, with the locks, latches and runners displaying a greater level of detailed than anything provided with IM kits.



New underframe detail has been added, and the ends re-detailed with a variety of coloured spares. Once the doors are added, it will be put in the queue for priming when there is slightly warmer weather.

Aside from the above I spent a few hours putting up some basic picture shelves which have been adorned with various O Scale freight cars. I had the desire to start having some of the completed (bar weathering) freight cars on display, so I can actually enjoy the fruits of the labour rather than have them stuffed in boxes 24/7.



I’ve also made a daft purchase, which I hold @Scale7JB utterly accountable for……



It’s a DRGW ‘Prospector’ Budd Railcar…Its not SP, it never ran anywhere near the SP, and only ran for about 9 months between 1941/42, and was a complete flop of a prototype…..but there I something quite stunning about it. I didn’t even know the prototype existed until March last year where JB purchased an identical model at the Chicago meet. I think I’d said at the time, I’d like first refusal if he ever decided to part company with it….alas one came up for sale from a vendor in Germany on ebay and to my surprise I was the winning bidder….

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[Rob R]

Stephen,
Nice to see the door prints are still holding together. Must be the best part of 3 years ago now?
R

 

[Stephen]

Stephen,
Nice to see the door prints are still holding together. Must be the best part of 3 years ago now?
R

I reckon so.....my modelling moves at such a fast pace!

The smaller parts were initially slightly brittle, but after soaking them in warm water for about 25minutes, a bit of flex came back into them and all's good!

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[Stephen]

Like Richard, Mick and JB, I also had a session in Chicagoland for March-O-Meet. I headed over a day early and visited the Fox Valley O scalers, for another running session. Apologies that the photos are similar to last year, but they layout is none-the-less still impressive.






The running session lasted for about five hours, and although there were some operational issues it was enjoyable as ever.

A quick video from the running session:

On the Friday I look a trip over to the Illinois Railway Museum with Jim, stopping at Des Plaines Hobbies. A few shots of some of the items at IRM:



And then it came to the main event on the Saturday....

My spending mainly happened prior to the trip away with a number of items coming up for sale on ebay that I managed to have sent to Jim, who duly brought them along to the meet:

A pair of Atlas F3A units - One powered, one unpowered were purchased that now gives me a classic A-B-A line up. Plenty of debate as to whether I move one of the powered trucks to the unpowered unit and add a sound decoder, so then technically all units would have power and provide audible pleasure.



Next up a bit of a bargain - A Reb Caboose SP GP9 - its still basically in kit form, but has been 'balanced' on the trucks for the photo. Was priced thus that I could not leave it behind, and does give a bit of variation to the Atlas GP9s that have slightly different light clusters. Plenty of time to work out whether I add power to it, or simply use it as a dummy to be dragged around by something else. Will have to spend some time looking through the Red Caboose GP9 thread on this forum in due course.



A few box cars were 'purchased'.....well more 'gifted'....a few of the vendors at the show really didn't want to take unsold items home, so by pure chance I was given a few freight cars by two vendors to 'help them out'.....can't argue with that.

Finally another PSC 60" Harriman Standard Coach:



This is 60-C-10 'Shopped' Coach, I have two of these now which will form part of a modest 5-car passenger train. The term 'shopped' means that the transom windows were removed during overhaul and simply plated over. Like the other passenger cars, this will be finished in SP Green with delux yellow lettering.....however there is a slight problem. Whilst I can obtain decals (transfers) for the lettering for 'Southern Pacific' above the windows, I can't find anyone who makes transfer for the word 'coach' or 'chair' which will be required. Protocraft only make decals for headend vehicles, and speaking with the owner at MoM, being 84 years old, he has no desire to produce any further decal packs. So it looks like custom artwork will be required.

The photos below shows the 'Coach' next to a 'Chair' car which is also 'shopped'.


Whilst I'm not completely knowledgeable on the differences between a 'Coach' and a 'Chair' is it down to the seating configuration within each vehicle, but as with the examples I have there are also physical external differences such a window sizes. The Chair car below - previously purchased and also awaiting painting and an availability of decals.



There were a few other items which are currently still in Chicago that were additionally purchased prior to MoM. I'll do a post on these in due course when they arrive in the UK, with one item probably more interesting than all of the above.

Alas there weren't any of the SP Steam Locos on my 'wish list' for sale at MoM, but both Mick and JB did their best to try and get me to purchase some SP Mt 4-8-2 loco, which was undoubtedly a cracking model, but far too big for my plans.

I'll finish with my usual recommendation of March-O-Meet, although with a small caveat. The event is essentially a four day event, wth various layout tours planned, and although I only usually head to Fox Valley, others have recommended heading to the others in future years. The open day at IRM is always good to have free range to wander around the 80 acre site. Okay, there isn't usually anything running, but if you've never stood next to a Union Pacific DDX40 or N&W 2-8-8-2 you'l never have an appreciation of their sheer size. The tours of the workshops are always worthwhile as well - as you can see from the photos above, the restorations carried out on the interurban cars are excellent.

However....the 'quality' of items on offer for the meet this year was probably weaker than compared to previous years. Don't get me wrong, as you'll see from other people on WT who attended we all gained bargains, but the sheer variety and quality of previous meets just wasn't there. Would it stop me going again? Probably not. This being my third year I've made new friends over in the states, some of who model UK prototypes so it’s good catch up with them. As you walk around the show, the 'British Invasion' are recognised by some of the vendors, and there were certainly fewer people this year who asked 'which part of Australia you from'......

G'day, sorry, Cheers,

Stephen

 

[Ian@StEnochs]

I don’t think I have seen so many Kilchoman boxes outside of the distillery shop!

 

[Stephen]

I don’t think I have seen so many Kilchoman boxes outside of the distillery shop!

Although the boxes in the Distillery shop would no-doubt be full....

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[Stephen]

Part Two of the (pre) March-O-Meet purchases:

Firstly a Car Works Limited Pacific Electric 1200 Interurban Car.






Remember back to my first post about this whole American O scale being a side project with just a 2-8-0 and a few freight cars….well it has been a very slippery slope. But an enjoyable one none the less, which is what it really should be.

Anyway, this was purchased a few months ago, and safety stored in Chicago prior to being transited to the UK a few days ago - thanks again to Richard for finding suitcase space.

It has now been passed to Mick D, along with some Q Car powered trucks, which are to be installed along with a DCC sound unit. Then in the long run this can traverse an interurban branch along with the SN Steeple Cab loco.

Also freshly arrived in the UK is this pair of 3rd Rail Sunset F7A&B units. These were a bargain price (combined price less than a single unit for the forth coming re-run) so had to be purchased.



The gloss finish is a bit odd and there is one heck of a contrast to the too flat Matt finish on the Atlas F units. But that’s a problem to worry about when it comes to weathering them.

These are DCC sound fitted, so I’m finding my way down the path of DCC at a cautious rate, but next steps are to start looking at pairing up all the F units into two A-B-A consists…. I think I might be challenging Jordan for the title of ‘F Unit Mad’ before too long….

Once I’ve decided on what’s going with what, it should be an ideal time to start looking at the inner details of DCC ‘management’ and ensuring all the characteristics of each unit within the consists are matched up for peak performance.

Seeing as these units are fitted with QSI decoders they do not have a stay-alive element to them, so there is also the option going forth as to whether I fit them with LokPilots to give that stay-alive performance.

Plenty to think about going forward.

Cheers,
Stephen