[John Garavaglia]

Gary:

The link has a photo of them on the sprue…and I’ll have them primed to enhance the detail on them.

Been rather busy in September. My Dad passed away on Sept 8…and I’m his executor.

[John Garavaglia]

Saw them in person at STL RPM…Chris P and Co. did an excellent job on them…with help from Brian Banna…

The SD40 is now firmly in Athearn’s Camp, IMO. All that is needed is a nice tread plate kit for the decking…and your off to the races.

[John Garavaglia]

Beautiful!!!!

[John Garavaglia]

Those units look really nice, BTW…they did a great job on the new SD40 shell, Cab, and frame.

It is set up for a Genesis Motor upgrade, too…if desired by the modeler.

[John Garavaglia]

Goreville (?) Hill? in Southern Illinois was a stumbling block at times…and in the early 1970’s crews were known to double that hill if necessary. This hill is on the Joppa Subdivision in Southern Illinois…on ex-C&EI track.

The BN stationed a pusher there from time-to-time for its’ longer and heavier coal traffic…this pusher stayed between Neilson Jct (on BN track) and Goreville (MP track)…and usually cut off at Goreville IL…after cresting the hill.

Gorham IL is on the Chester Subdivision…and was (and still is) a major point where block swapping occurred in the late 1970’s…had a nice yard there…where blocks of cars were interchanged…depending on destinations on their way south or southwest.

[John Garavaglia]

It may indeed be difficult…but the point remains “don’t believe everything you read”…The roster in the journal shows the cars being delivered with MP initials…and in fact they were T&P cars.

[John Garavaglia]

Got out to the Scheller car today.

The battery boxes are as follows:

28″ long;
20″ wide;
18″ tall;

They have 3 steel straps on them…each is 12″ long from the top of the box…extending 4″ below the box…and are bolted together with the bottom strap that goes across the bottom of the box.

These straps are steel that is 2″ wide; and they are placed as follows:

1st: at the very end of the box; (looking under the car) (might be a couple of inches from the end)…
2nd: 6.5″ inset from the end strap.
3rd: 6.5″ inset from the second strap.

These are the boxes put under Sedalia, KO&G, and T&P steel cabooses put through Sedalia in the 1970’s…and the car I measured today was last shopped in 4-84.

[John Garavaglia]

Getting ready to get back on my kits…The MP installed battery box looks very similar to boxes under Sedalia-welded and T & P cabooses…as rebuilt by MP in Sedalia…in the early 1970’s…

I was going to measure the KO&G caboose in Chicago a couple of weeks ago…only to find out it had been scrapped recently…and removed.

There are two MP cabooses in the area around Centralia…a T&P car is at Mascoutah, IL…and there is an MP Home-built Sedalia caboose near the Pinckneyville IL subdivision tracks in Scheller, IL.

Both still have the battery boxes under them. I am going to attempt to photograph both or one of these cars…to get accurate measurements of the battery boxes…as I want to do the KO&G cars like Nate is doing…after rebuilding by MP.

[John Garavaglia]

The ScaleTrains 4566 cars are replicas from photographs of MP cars…and were scaled from blueprints from GATC. They will also include rotating roller bearing trucks.

The same holds true for the ScaleTrains 4180…They are apparently offering four different versions; the 4 largest production versions…would be my guess.

Tangent Scale Models Air Slides are superb models, as well. The three versions that Dave Lehbach has offered all include possible MP cars in future runs.

[John Garavaglia]

These are indeed correct. Athearn confirmed them…Check the Morning Sun Book “MP Color Guide to Freight Equipment”; Page 96.

Should have Ellcon National Brake Wheels, too.

The number series they are using shows the following cars:

MP 780575-780635 built July 1970; PC&F; Freight Saver 20″ cushion EOCC;

I don’t have any listed with TP as the reporting marks…especially the PC&F type-RBL’s. It appears that there is an error on the freight car listing…as the color picture clearly shows the TP reporting marks.

[John Garavaglia]

Beautiful!!!

[John Garavaglia]

Mike Lowe and Tom Stolte?

[John Garavaglia]

They weren’t welded…Those were bolted to allow servicing without a cutting torch…and probably any necessary cleaning…a lot of oil showing on that unit!

[John Garavaglia]

Update on these:

No undecorated versions. But, they are fixing the numerals to match photos…there are different fonts of MP numerals…in the post 1974 paint scheme. The Spark Arrestors will be corrected when they receive the pre production model.

The fuel tanks will not be corrected on these…but might be in the future. Too bad we don’t have the clout that SP modelers do. They are getting new shells for their SD40Rs!!

Anyway..these will be just fine to use as “runners” until I get around to shopping them one at a time.

I ordered two numbers.

[John Garavaglia]

Athearn informed me today…they are correcting the font on the numerals…and the spark arrestors will indeed have base plates installed on them.

There was no mention of the fuel tank gauge…just passing along information.

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