Has your road ever built any weird locomotives or rolling stock? The AOW did in it's HO period. We built a FF-18, or "F-9 Twin". It consisted of a F-9 cab and car-body cut off directly behind the last roof fan and a second F-9 carbody cut directly after the dynamic brake fan. I then grafted the two bodies together and used the B-B trucks. I thought about using A-1-A's or C-C's, but then it would look too much like a streched E-unit. It was powered by "twin prime movers" (two can motors chained together with flywheel drives.) and was supposed to develope 3800 HP. Really, it turned out to be a real dog and looks to go with it! WHAT A SICK BEAST! ------------------ Brent Tidaback, Member #234 BNSF Railfan-to-the Max and a N-Scaler to boot! "Ship it on the Route of The Roadrunners!" The Aransas Odessa & Western, a division of the BNSF
Well, on paper, Western Rail does have one B unit Dash 9 as a result of a wreck... But i wouldn't classify it as a sick beast! My WR rosters quite a few cabless units...
When I was about 12 I built an 0-2-0 steam engine. It ran OK, but Dad laughed so hard I was hurt. I only had the one pair of wheels, from an old Varney switcher, and a pair of wheels left from a Strom-Becker streamliner kit. So It had the two drivers, and two wheels under the tender. But it ran. Ha. ------------------ Watash
I don't mean to steal his thunder, but Catt sent me a photo of an Atlas U25B that he put a Bachmann 8-40CW cab on. Wasn't even repainted yet, and it already looked good. I'll save for him the glory of posting a photo ...
Yes the A&A has: GP7B: Ex-DT&I GP7s that were involved in a wreck before they were sold. The A&A just cut the backs off of 5 of the worst 100 wrecked engined and weled them to gether and put in an EMD 710G class engine producing 4,500 HP. with AC radial B-trucks. BQ23-7: Ex-CSXT 10 were built By GE for the Seaboard system and when CSX got them in the merger, they were repainted and not long after that the windows plated over, and the circuits re wired. The A&A bought all 10 of them when they were retired, and removed the plates, and installed larger front windshields and rewired it back to a standard locomotive. Really Popular with the crews for the comfortness and the view. GP40E: GP30 Roof,GP40 Long hood and backend, & cab, with GP35 nose& trucks. ------------------ Appalachian & Atlantic Model Railroad "QUALITY at WORK with SAFTEY in MIND"
I dont own any strange beast but I have some stories about ones I have seen. F30B A Athearn U30B with a Athearn F-7 Cab AC4400CW with a EMD I cab ------------------ Theres no such thing as having to many coal hoppers or GP40-2 when you model Chessie System LONG LIVE THE KITTEN!!! LONG LIVE BIG BLUE!!! I looked at DCC... and stayed DC! AMD AND PROUD OF IT!!!
My Midland Pacific HO Model Railway Company once owned a locomotive with EMD BL-2 front, F-7 rear. It looked particularly odd where the top portion of the cab "stepped" back inward and had a flat plate to fill in the offset. Sadly, after a couple of years of faithful service, this unique piece of motive power suffered a slight melt down when the antique Varney motor that powered it developed a few shorted windings (guess only old-timers remember Varney; the basic source of this contraption was a Varney F-7).
I mentioned my GG-1Ds elsewhere, but they would definately fit in this category. After removing the pantographs, external diesel fans were installed over the holes to cool the surplus Navy submarine diesel engines that were now the initial power sources. This gives a rather sleek look to the body while still keeping the classic look of the GG-1. We are able to produce just over 4,000 HP with these huge hitech diesel engines that were made surplus when the Navy began making most of their modern subs with nuclear propulsion. The huge interior area of the GG-1 leaves lots of room for these big engines, thus the unusual power output. Imagine the look on peoples faces in cars driving thru the peaceful Arizona mountains when a pair of our converted GG-1s flash by the highway at the head of a long string of copper hoppers! Curt
Jeez fellers, the closest I've got to a BUL (butt-ugly locomotive ) is an RS2 I bashed together from a Stewart RS3 and the long hood from a Front Range GP9 shell. It's painted in Frisco black (and Frisco really had 'em, BTW) and can be found in revenue service on the Chat Pile Line. ------------------ Southeast....Southwest.. Ship IT on the Frisco! Bob T. http://hometown.aol.com/slsf1630/myhomepage/profile.html
Didn't the Rock have some of those too? RoyalBlue is building a Rock unit that seems simular. ------------------ Brent Tidaback, Member #234 BNSF Railfan-to-the Max and a N-Scaler to boot! "Ship it on the Route of The Roadrunners!" The Aransas Odessa & Western, a division of the BNSF
Brent, Frisco had its five RS2s re-engined by EMD in the late 1950s. Katy and Rock Island had their RS3s remotored about the same timeframe. Seems Alco's prime mover couldn't hold up very well, and the railroads tried remotoring to solve the problem. ------------------ Southeast....Southwest.. Ship IT on the Frisco! Bob T. http://hometown.aol.com/slsf1630/myhomepage/profile.html
While we're on the subject of oddball power, I remember one of the guys in my old railroad club in Ft. Smith, AR who had built an F45B (basically two Athearn F45 shells grafted together, with no cabs) that he had put on the original chassis with as much extra weight as he could cram in the shell. The shell was hand-painted lime green, and could pull a house off it's foundation (OK, it's an exaggeration ). It was mega-ugly, but it ran sweet! For you N scalers, remember the famous "Cotton Brute" built by Jim FitzGerald, the Ntrak guru? The body was made of depleted uranium (a cousin of lead, but heavier), and once pulled a train of over 700 cars on an Ntrak layout ------------------ Southeast....Southwest.. Ship IT on the Frisco! Bob T. http://hometown.aol.com/slsf1630/myhomepage/profile.html
