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Bill:
I don’t have an exact date, but didn’t the Wichita-Denver sleeper make it into 1964? It would have operated with a 6-6-4 most of the time, in the lightweight era. Route was on 411 Wichita-Geneseo, then 11 into Denver, and reverse route was train 12 Denver-Geneseo then 412 into Wichita.
RG7
Like these?
[attachment=0:24l12j8c]161-36 Aug 73 crop.jpg[/attachment:24l12j8c]
RG7
Let me see if I have the consist right — behind the power is a baggage car, two coaches, a diner, two St. Louis lightweight sleepers and the Wichita heavyweight sleeper.
I have an October 31, 1943 timetable that shows this consist, but also with a grill coach, presumably heavyweight and located ahead of the diner, two 6-6-4 lightweight sleepers, the 8-1-3 heavyweight Pullman from Wichita and, interestingly, another 8-1-3 from St. Louis, which is noted as “Operates every other day”. I assume these were the three Tower cars, Shrine Tower, Temple Tower and Beacon Tower, which later became Thrift-T-Sleepers.
At this time there were still trains 23-24, the Royal Gorge, which operated St. Louis-Pueblo and connected with the Rio Grande train through the mountains, but, with an eight hour or so layover in Pueblo, would also get you to Denver. Presumably this train carried the RPO during this period.
Ron Merrick
Probably smoother than the technique I’ve been using.
RG7
That would be a good idea. We need a genuine ART font. There are several good reefer stenciling drawings in the book also, that clearly show the details of this distinctive font.
I’ve found that the lettering comes off well enough with a gentle scraping. Haven’t tried Solvaset. Although I haven’t tried one of the ART cars yet, I did a Wm. Kelly Milling (Hutchinson) with a Dan Kohlberg set, just only replacing the lettering I needed. Started with an Athearn GACX un-assigned (no lettering beyond the minimum) car. I’ll be doing a couple other Kansas-appropriate ones as I have time.
RG7
OK, good news. We’ll see what numbers mine end up having.
RG7
In that case, I’ll be happy to support my LHS since I still have one. That’s where I bought the GP9s a couple of years ago.
I do occasionally buy a car that’s just been released and I haven’t ordered it somewhere else (Walthers comes to mind, when they make stuff that’s prototypicala0. And I buy rail and track supplies, but then the monetary value starts to go downhill from there. But if there’s something like this that I can pre-order, I’ll be happy to do it.
If the MPHS company store is likely to order it, that’s where I’ll go. But if not….
There is no railroad hobby shop in Wichita anymore. So I may still end up supporting this one in Houston.
RG7
My question would be exactly what color these engines would have. I’d hope it would be the new, clean, fairly dark Jenks blue.
And further to the winterization hatches, lots of the geeps without winterization hatch showed up in Kansas, at all times of the year. Basically, although engines were bought with good intentions, after they’d been on the property for a few years, Katy bar the door. Sorry, railroad related pun.
The engines that were bought with dual control stands so that they could be used on branches and make it possible to scrap the turntables, same thing. They showed up randomly. But even by 1970 I don’t remember seeing single units being sent out as road power.
I need to look closely at the four-digit ones to see if I can backdate them. The spark arrestors, which are on all four, may be an issue. But I don’t want perfect to be the enemy of the good.
RG7
Pat:
To answer your second question first, no, you wouldn’t have needed the winterization hatch in Louisiana or south Texas. So the GP7s ordered for I-GN and StLB&M did not have them.
If you’ll look on the roof of one of these Gulf Coast Lines geeps, you’ll see four fans. The blank space on the roof between the exhaust stacks is where the dynamic brake would be, if MoPac had needed it. So, on the series of geeps bought for MP proper, on the roof to the rear of the unit you’ll see one exposed fan housing, and ahead of it a box maybe a foot high, almost as wide as the hood and twice as long as it is wide. This is the winterization hatch. There’s a square grille covering the fan (the third fan back from the cab) which, in warm weather, allows exhaust air from the fan to pass through. In cold weather this box can be changed over, through a set of louvers, so that the square grill is partially blocked off and some of the warm air is redirected into the hood to keep the guts of the locomotive warm.
In later years this box became less common, except in really far northern locations. For MoPac units, only the GP7s had them.
You can see this feature from the side, as a silhouette.
RG7
Pat, I didn’t put a link out there in the first place, just laziness on my part. But here’s one….
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=ATHG+GP7&CatID=THLD
It notes these units as having the side skirts cut back, which all of them did by the early 60s. But it looks like all of them have the winterization hatch, which I know is correct for the three-digit ones. It looks like everything is proper for eras from early sixties to retirement, if you pick the right numbers.
RG7
And, the lettering is good. It’s the as-built lettering from 1945.
RG7
Should you be passing through San Antonio (80 miles south) to and from Austin, you can see the I&GN station, excellently preserved as a credit union, just west of downtown. Of course, just east of downtown is the Sunset Route station, also well preserved, and a cute little Amtrak station just to the south. There’s a Colorado Eagle diner, plus a really nicely restored station, at Rockdale, as well as a nicely redone, albeit sadly kicked out of its original site, joint MP-SP station in Hearne. Look for it on the opposite side of the track from its original site.
Several other smaller MoPac sites are well preserved along highway 79 which parallels the MP main from Palestine to almost Austin. Along the T&P, besides Abilene, there’s Baird, which is on the other side of town from the interstate exit. And in Ft. Worth, you literally can’t miss seeing the T&P station, general office building and warehouse. And if you’re coming from really far west, the El Paso Union Station is still in operation.
There could, emphasize could, be good train-watching on the stretch from Waco all the way to Navasota and beyond on highway 6. The line is visible for miles at a time in places. From I-35 you can see the MoPac here and there off in the distance. The towns of San Marcos and New Braunfels are interesting, once you fight past the malls and tourist attractions.
RG7
Book came yesterday. I read it cover to cover (I started early afternoon). Congratulations, guys, you produced a great book, even more so considering what happened to it along the way.
RG7
Here’s the other side of the 1069 in Wichita. Guess I can’t really say I hadn’t ever seen this one before…..
RG7[attachment=1:2wh2ciku]90-03 Jul 71.tif[/attachment:2wh2ciku]1070 is similar. These are both MI, and had the sublettering stencils in the early 70s.
[attachment=2:2wh2ciku]102-04 Mar 72.jpg[/attachment:2wh2ciku][attachment=0:2wh2ciku]179-32 May 74.tif[/attachment:2wh2ciku]
I never photographed the 1078.
RG7
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