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©2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting Prohibited. Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Legal Stuff NOTE: This archive edition covers most single car releases only. Reviews of and commentary on most Micro-Trains locomotives, Passenger Cars, Runner Packs, most Special Editions such as the U.S. Navy Sets and the Canadian Province & Territory cars are available exclusively in the e-mail subscription edition of the UMTRR. © 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. N SCALE NEW RELEASES:
031 00 074, $34.25
Please refer to the April 2008 UMTRR (e-mail and website versions) for a discussion of the C&O Cameo Car series.
056 00 290, $18.80
We turn to the December 2000 issue of Rail Model Journal for Ed Hawkins' article on AAR Emergency Composite 50 Ton Hoppers. Why, when it's a steel hopper we're looking at? Micro-Trains hints at the answer in its car copy: the GM&O car was originally built for the Alton in 1944 as a War Emergency Type. There's a American Car and Foundry builder's photo of Alton 60143 showing the car in gray with black lettering instead of the black with white lettering in which the cars were actually delivered. The Alton was merged into the GM&O and in 1947 the Alton hoppers were officially reassigned to the successor road, however they kept the same road numbers.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
A handy table of all of the AAR Standard composite hoppers accompanies the article and shows the GM&O series 60000 to 60849 through the years as it moved from all composite cars, in the April 1955 ORER; to 794 composite and just two steel cars, in the April 1957 ORER; to the notation "composite or steel" in the January 1958 and January 1959 ORERs; and finally to 740 all steel cars in the October 1961 Register.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
There were still plenty of these cars in the January 1964 Equipment Register-- in fact, 739-- so let's check the entry: inside length 33 feet, inside width 9 feet 6 inches, inside height 9 feet 8 inches, outside length 34 feet, extreme height 10 feet 8 inches, capacity 1970 cubic feet or 100,000 pounds. This series was the largest group of hoppers that the GM&O owned at the time. The July 1974 shows 221 cars remaining with GM&O reporting marks under the listing for successor Illinois Central Gulf, making this three railroads for which the hoppers were in service. However, the count dropped rapidly after that, with 104 in the April 1975 ORER and 57 in the April 1976 ORER. They're gone from the next ORER I own which is April 1981, so a mid-1970's ending for the ATP seems appropriate.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The immediate question I asked when seeing the MTL release was whether the ribside body style was really appropriate for this car. In many cases, the composite side hopper was changed to all steel by substituting steel plate for the wood siding while keeping the frame with its diagonal bracing intact. Thanks to an image of GM&O 60880 found on George Elwood's "Fallen Flags" site we know we're OK. The photo appears to be dated 1970 but could be later given the use of the double panel consolidated stencils. Interestingly, the paint scheme is not the same; the roadname is smaller and is in about the middle of the side versus along the top. A contemporaneous photo of another GM&O hopper in "Classic Freight Cars Volume 4" show the paint scheme that MTL depicted so it seems that these schemes co-existed.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
066 00 030, $22.70
Some things haven't changed in a while. Witness this passage:
"The recent war has done more to arouse interest in petroleum than a decade of the most intensive advertising. Throughout every country in the world today, the search for oil is being pursued with keenness and diligence by men who have the necessary knowledge, and who are stimulated in their work by the universal recognition of its value and indispensableness in the complex and varied activities of modern industrial and social life."
The "recent war" referenced was World War I, and the passage above is the opening paragraph of the introduction to Chapter 1 of the book "Mexican Petroleum," published in 1922 by the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company. (It's available on Google Books, search on "Mexican Petroleum.") The Mexican Petroleum Company (California) dated back to December 1900 and Pan Am only to 1916, however it was the latter which controlled the former. The October 17, 1919 issue of The New York Times included the article "Pan Am Co. Plans Expansion" which detailed a stock swap of Mexican Petroleum Company shares for Pan American Petroleum shares. It was reported in the article that Edward L. Doheny and his family already had control of both companies, so it may have been more of a consolidation and also a method of preventing what we now call a hostile takeover by an outside party. If you know your history better than I do, you might recognize Doheny as the first to drill successfully in the Los Angeles City Oil Field-- or as one of the key figures in the Teapot Dome Scandal. (Speaking of "some things haven't changed"... never mind.) Doheny is also known as a philanthropist, having donated money for a library to the University of Southern California and coastal land to California for a state beach.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The Mexican Petroleum Company and other non-Mexican companies had control of an enormous amount of land and resources in Mexico in the first decade of the Twentieth Century; one source ("Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments and the U.S." , previewed on Google Books) stated that one-seventh of the Mexican land surface was owned by foreigners with United States companies holding more than all other countries combined. All well and good, but that Mexican oil had to get somewhere to be used. Doheny formed an alliance with the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, part of the broken up Standard Oil Trust, but also started Pan American to be able to do his own distribution. I'm leaving out most of the complicated story here, but you get the idea.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The Standard Oil breakup left marketers without production and vice versa, and the Standard Oil Company of Indiana took an interest-- literally-- in Pan American in 1925, paying $37.6 million in what was the largest oil consolidation up to that point. In 1929, that ownership was upped to 81 percent of Pan Am. In 1957 Standard Indiana consolidated its crude oil and natural gas exploration and production into the Pan American Petroleum Company. In 1961 Standard's brand names of "Standard" (used in the 15 states of its original Standard Oil territory) and "American" began transitioning to "Amoco" and in 1985 the entire company became Amoco Corporation. Amoco was merged with British Petroleum in 1998 to form BPAmoco but the name of that company reverted to BP in 2001 as it was clear which of the firms was the "surviving company". As someone pointed out right after the merger, "How do you pronounce 'BP Amoco'? 'BP', the 'Amoco' is silent."
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Somewhere in that corporate history is going to be the end of the Approximate Time Period of this tank car, but at least we know from Micro-Trains what the start of the ATP is. American Car and Foundry built this car as one of four in May 1930 and its Shippers Car Line arm leased it to Pan American. The July 1935 Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER) shows a number of low numbered tank cars noted as "compartment cars" in the Shippers Car Line entry including the group 60 to 67. There's a problem with the scan of the page, though; I can't quite make out whether these are 6000 gallon or 8000 gallon capacity. Ah, no such readability issue in the July 1940 Equipment Register: they are 6000 gallon cars. By that time the group is numbered from 50 to 67. I also note that the quantity of cars in the series is not given... what's with these lessors anyway? Ok, we've got 13 in the group in the January 1945 ORER plus three exceptions with 50 ton capacity versus the 40 tons of the main group.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The story goes on for SHPX 66, although I don't know whether it would continue to be in the paint scheme selected by Micro-Trains-- such is life when attempting to track leased cars. I looked for the series in which SHPX 66 would be contained through the January 1964 Equipment Register, and said series is there, but I would think that by that time Pan Am would have been subsumed by Standard Oil of Indiana and/or the "American" trademark.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
084 00 011 and 084 00 012, $22.40 each
The latest new body style from Micro-Trains could appeal particularly to those of us who model the paper industry during certain decades of the twentieth century. More specifically, we're looking at the time prior to the dominance of the large woodchip cars we see today (although some of those woodchip cars have been repurposed to carry garbage... yecch, but it brings in revenue). As Micro-Trains notes, the prototype for these cars was originally built for the Rio Grande as plain old drop bottom gondolas, and sold to the SP&S, at which time the extensions were added.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
But this example series is far from the only set of these type of cars owned by the Spokane, Portland and Seattle. The Morning Sun Color Guide to the SP&S provides photos of cars of multiple groups, all but one being converted from other cars. The SP&S' own fleet of gondolas was the starting point for some cars, as were purchased Union Pacific solid bottom gondolas, acquired Santa Fe Caswell gondolas, and several transfers from SP&S parents Northern Pacific and Great Northern of both steel and composite side gondolas.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Let's narrow things back down, though, and check out Page 59 of the Morning Sun Color Guide. It's duly noted that even though there were only seventy-five cars in the group purchased from the Rio Grande, the SP&S still managed to paint two different schemes on them! The one that Micro-Trains chose is shown on the 22410, one of the road numbers MTL has released, with the reporting marks on the left and a large "SP&S" with the ampersand on the extension sides. The other version is manifested on the 22449 and the 22424, with reporting marks centered at the very top of the side of the original gondola and a large "SPS" without the ampersand on the extension sides. What, did they lose a stencil or something? Actually, it was noted on TrainBoard that these cars were painted in batches of 15 with varying schemes, some of which don't have any large initials at all. Repeat after me: Follow On Releases. Anyway, it's also noted that the 22449, when photographed in 1974, has a white band at the very top of the ends which I'll wager warns of an Excess Height Car; the shot of the 22410 from 1973 doesn't have this.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The April 1970 Register already has the Burlington Northern absorbing the SP&S, but it's the closest ORER I have to the acquisition date. The MSCG mentions that 66 of the 75 cars were still in service in 1970, and sure enough, there they are, in a series described as "Wood Chip, Steel, Drop Bottom" with AAR Classification "GSS" and trimmed to the number series 22400 to 22466. The inside length was 42 feet 5 inches, inside width 9 feet 9 inches, and inside height 11 feet. The outside length was 47 feet 4 inches and extreme height 15 feet 3 inches, and capacity 4549 cubic feet or 100,000 pounds. A notation adds that the cars exceed Plate C dimensions and an end note adds that "cars... are furnished with racks furnished by consignee." Could they mean the extensions?
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Well, no, probably not. The July 1974 ORER shows a split between the cars 22400 to 22410, 11 cars with "racks furnished by consignee" and the cars 22411 to 22466, 52 more cars without that notation. But in the April 1976 ORER all cars once again have the racks; 10 in the first group and 40 in the second. It's also noted that the cars exceed Plate F dimensions; Plate F is larger than Plate C. It seems that they've grown by an inch in extreme height also, to 15 feet 4 inches. Winding up the lookups, only four cars are left in the April 1981 Equipment Register.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
114 00 070, $16.75
I've been lacking commentary for the last few iterations of this car-- how much can even I discuss various log loads?-- but with the introduction of this new timber load I thought I finally had a few more bytes to add.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
And the first thought I had was, is Micro-Trains kidding on this one? A 'net search confirmed my contention that it's difficult to prove the absence of something. For example, there are several different offerings of loads of this type for model railroad flat cars in various scales. No, that doesn't go far enough to prove that they really existed, but let's go on.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
How about this: United States Patent 5,410,970, for a "Railcar adapted for hauling tree length timber and long logs"? The abstract of this patent includes: "A bulkhead is affixed to each end of the central support member and a plurality of cross members extend from the central support member, to which a plurality of stanchions are affixed. Thus, the cross members and the stanchions preferably form substantially "U"-shaped structures that are in a spaced-apart relationship..."
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
OK, my head hurts already.
Certainly the U-shaped structure appears on the Micro-Trains car, although I wouldn't call two a "plurality" of fixtures. What takes this particular patent out of consideration, though, is that it was issued in May 1995! Hmm, that's probably 100 years later than I would have expected. How about a "car stake," though: Patent 930,623 was issued on August 10, 1909 and is referenced by the above 1995 patent. No mention is made of what loads cars equipped with such "car stakes" could carry.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Meanwhile, on the website "Steam in the Woods" there is a shot of a CI&L flat car being loaded with what I would call roughly hewn timbers. They're a lot larger than the MTL load's timbers on the height and depth dimensions but probably about right on the length. Again, does that mean that this load isn't appropriate? Not necessarily, but again, it's difficult to prove the absence of something.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Also on that site is a set of pages from the Climax Locomotive Works, advertising "Logging Cars - Made For Any Gauge". The illustration of their product shows a design similar to that MTL used; although of course Climax didn't use Magne-Matic couplers on their version!
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
028 00 120, $12.75
The CDS Lettering "Railway Equipment Diagrams" guide gives quite the impressive Approximate Time Period for this car series: 1923 to the mid-1970's! And, well, it's not that long. This is because the Arch Bar trucks which come mounted to the model were outlawed from interchange service in 1941 (and boy did it take me a while to dig that fact out of the "incremental info" archives). Flip to Bettendorf trucks and you can go out to the end of CDS' estimate, but for our purposes we'll stick to the ATP driven by the trucks.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
And that brings us to the usual checks of the Accumulation of ORERs: The April 1928 book has series 230000 to 233499 listed as "Box, Consecutive Numbers, Steel Frame, Hopper Doors" (which I'll get back to) with inside length of 40 foot 6 inches and outside length just four inches longer. There was a six foot door opening and an unusual capacity of 120,500 pounds. There were 3,495 cars in this series as of that issue. The hopper doors, mentioned in MTL's copy, are certainly an interesting feature, although not modeled. They'd probably make for an aftermarket detail part opportunity-- although I've not seen any of those thermostatically controlled underslung alcohol heaters for MTL models of CP plug door box cars yet, either. Meanwhile, the January 1940 Guide shows 2,859 cars remaining in the series, still with the hopper doors. And while well out of the ATP of the Arch Bar trucks, the January 1964 ORER shows a series 234005 to 238534 of "Box, Steel Frame" with 927 cars, so a little renumbering and retrucking could get you into the 1960's. Through all of this, the AAR classification for these cars remained "XM," probably because the hopper doors could be covered from the inside and the cars could be used in general service, as MTL noted.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Plain box cars are always a resource to those of us who like to redo lettering and this one is an ideal candidate. With the roadname and reporting marks way over on the left, and all in one place, it's a snap to unletter or repaint with a suitable shade of red oxide and add decals of your own choosing. Many shortlines had fairly beat up versions of this car hanging around the shops, as did most if not all of the Class I's. My own Wilmington and New York could use a couple of these 28er's for the work train, and remember, the arch bar truck ban doesn't count if the car doesn't leave its home rails.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
108 00 060, $16.95
Coal, coal, coal, lots of coal. The Rio Grande owned almost 2400 hoppers of various types to transport black diamonds by 1970, including the series from which this model was taken. This was a big change for them, according to information on the RPI site, as they'd used drop bottom gondolas for coal hauling until 1952. In fact, there were still more than 1500 of those on the Rio Grande's roster in 1970 as well. Two series delivered to the Rio Grande in 1966 were built to the Pennsylvania Railroad's H-39 design by Bethlehem Steel according to the Rio Grande Modeling and Historical Society. These had three bays, thirteen ribs and rivets and were used for coal and stone service. They were numbered 14600 to 14799 and 14800 to 14999.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Based on other data from RPI, I've concluded that this is the "as delivered" paint scheme. By 1967 the reporting marks had been switched from the Roman style serif font depicted on the MTL model to a sans-serif Gothic font. The "stacked" Rio Grande logo-- the one that goes with the "Action Road" slogan-- was also introduced in 1967 (that long ago?!?) on a series of RBL cars.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Let's go to the April 1970 Register and check the dimensions of this series 14800 to 14999: inside length 39 feet 10 inches, outside length 40 feet 11 inches. Extreme height is 11 feet even. My measurements of a 108 series car show that it's a little longer and a bit taller than the D&RGW car, but not bad. Capacity is 2600 cubic feet or 154,000 pounds; that's just 77 tons, but the truck capacities have something to do with that as well as the actual car frame. There were 196 cars in this group out of the possible 200. Going on to April 1976, we find 195 cars. By April 1981 this series had been combined with the adjacent one, giving 374 cars from road numbers 14600 to 14999. There were 348 cars in this group as of in July 1989 and 313 in October 1996. Of course by this point the cars may have been brought up to date with the Action Road paint scheme, but there's photo evidence on George Elwood's "Fallen Flags" site that the original scheme still existed into at least into the 1980's. In fact, there's a 1994 shot of car number 14627 with restenciled reporting marks and consolidated stencils, but also carrying the as painted speed lettering herald. There remained about 200 cars in multiple series with DRGW marks under Union Pacific ownership as late as January 2000, but seems to me that the ATP for "as painted" would have been over by then.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
500 00 551 and 500 00 552, $19.65 each.
The depiction of a car from the first production PS-1 series makes its way down to Z Scale this month, and hey, how come the 1:220 folks get two numbers while the 1:160ers only get one? Anyway, last month we covered this release in detail, but I'll "reprint" some of that here. I will also note that the door on the Z Scale version is the Superior type, which matches the prototype, whereas the N Scale car came with a Youngstown door. Oops!
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The January 2008 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman contains an article on early PS-1 boxcars by noted freight car scholar Ted Culotta. It's the 40th installment in his "Essential Freight Cars" series for RMC. Featured in that article is the Lehigh Valley boxcar number 62000, the very first production PS-1 boxcar delivered by Pullman-Standard in June 1947. Culotta notes the chain of changes made to the PS-1 design over time, which perhaps for the first time lets me place the Micro-Trains model as an example of PS-1s from 1949 into the mid-1950's. This does mean that there are minor differences between the model and the prototype.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
I am a bit surprised that Micro-Trains didn't go for the very first PS-1 delivered, road number 62000, but instead chose other road numbers. No matter: the start of the Approximate Time Period is the same. The closest issue of the Official Railway Equipment Register I have to that date is from July 1950. It shows the series 62000 to 62499 of 499 cars described as "Box, All Steel, Wood Lined" with AAR Classification "XM" and these dimensions: inside length 40 feet 6 inches, inside width 9 feet 2 inches, inside height 10 feet 6 inches, outside length 41 feet 10 inches, extreme height 15 feet 1 inch, door opening 6 feet and capacity 3899 cubic feet or 110,000 pounds.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
I jumped right to the January 1964 ORER where there were 473 cars in the main series, plus the 62082 which had been fitted with hatches for rock salt service. However, boxcars delivered in 1950 did not have the "Black Diamond" slogan and instead had a bolder stenciled roadname. It's certainly feasible that these cars were repainted into that scheme and I'll therefore call the ATP at the early sixties. For the record, by April 1970 the original series of 500 cars was down to just seven. But the LV had been contracting out rebuilding of some of its boxcars to the United States Railway Leasing Company, and the result was with jade green and white paint and without roofwalks, similar in appearance to that modeled by Micro-Trains back in September 1978 and April 1991 (Catalog Number 24020, Road Numbers 66201 and 66205).
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The other piece of history referenced by this car is the "Black Diamond" noted in the slogan. This is not a direct reference to the extensive coal hauling that the LV once did, but to a passenger train. The "Black Diamond Express" debuted on May 18, 1896 and was unabashedly dubbed "The Handsomest Train in the World." The original version of the train was pulled by 4-4-2 Atlantic steam locomotives and outfitted with Pullman-built cars, including a combination baggage and cafe car with library and smoking room, day coaches, and observation parlors. Train Number 9 left Jersey City at 12:14 PM and arrived in Buffalo at 9:55 PM; Train Number 10 left Buffalo at 12:10 PM and arrived Jersey City at 9:56 PM, just under ten hours. Later versions of the train would be hauled by Otto Kuhler-streamlined Pacifics and American Locomotive Company's PA diesels. The Black Diamond ended 63 years of operation on May 11, 1959 and the Lehigh Valley was completely out of the passenger hauling business by 1961.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
524 00 041 and 524 00 042, $19.85 each
The July 1974 ORER shows both the original Burlington series 94000 to 94049 with a total of 41 cars, and the BN series 630800 to 630849 with just seven cars. But that's enough to start up the Approximate Time Period in the early 1970's for this group of flat cars. While I'm in the ORER, let's check the vital statistics: inside length 60 feet, inside width 9 feet 1 inch, outside length 66 feet 7 inches, extreme height 4 feet 9 inches, capacity 154,000 pounds. All but one of the BN series were equipped with tie downs, as were 33 of the 41 cars in the CB&Q series. The CB&Q cars with tie downs carry the additional notation "Caterpillar Service," which I assume to be the heavy equipment manufacturer, not the predecessors to butterflies.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
By the April 1981 ORER, there were twenty total cars with BN reporting marks, of which eight had tiedowns and twelve, specifically including the 630843, didn't. And twenty five cars still had CB&Q paint, of which 12 were still with tiedowns and working in Caterpillar service. Five years later in October 1986, just two CB&Q painted cars remained while sixteen were in service with BN paint, only four of which had tiedowns. And five years after that, six cars remained with the BN, two with tiedowns. The end of the ATP is later than I thought and past the forty year rule that should have been invoked given the 1956 and 1957 build date of these cars given by MTL; in fact five cars make it into the BNSF merger and three remain in the January 2000 Equipment Register. How about that? Of course, it's possible that the forty year rule was sidestepped by a rebuild of some sort or the use of the cars on BN or BNSF rails only.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Many of the sixty foot CB&Q flat cars that went to the BN do not really resemble the MTL flat car model. They are more straight sided with heavy fishbelly underframes. However, I was not able to find a prototype photo of the precise series we're interested in, in either BN or CB&Q paint. I did see BN 630850 in April 2007 on RailcarPhotos.com in paint similar to that MTL used, but that car is not part of this series, and there have been models of BN 60 foot flat cars in other scales similar to that Micro-Trains has done here. I'm fairly comfortable in assuming that we are at least close on the fidelity here, but if there is Incremental Information available I'd be happy to accept it.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
538 00 070, $17.80
Please see the commentary above on the N Scale release of this car.
982 01 081 and 982 01 082, $185.95 each
I think it's safe to say that the Guilford Rail System has been one of the more controversial entities in North American Railroading. Beginning in 1981 with the purchase of the Maine Central, Timothy Mellon sought to consolidate much of the New England operations into one company. The Boston and Maine followed the Maine Central into Guilford in 1983, and the Delaware and Hudson was brought in after that.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
And then there was the Springfield Terminal. A tiny, obscure part of the many railroads that went into the Boston and Maine, the ST was a legacy interurban line with different work rules from most railroads. Key among those work rules was a smaller required crew. Someone at Guilford figured out that if the rest of the railroads' operations could be leased to the ST, the entire Guilford system could be operated under the legacy interurban rules. And the rest is history... of substantial and bitter labor disputes, to be sure, but the plan did go into effect nonetheless. The D&H did not last as part of Guilford, having been forced into bankruptcy with the Susquehanna becoming the designated operator before sale to the Canadian Pacific. The Boston and Maine and the Maine Central remained as part of the "Guilford Rail System," both substantially smaller than before with Guilford's shedding of many secondary lines of both railroads. The original Springfield Terminal was among those lines shed; it's now a rail trail.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The two Geeps modeled here by Micro-Trains are evidence of how Guilford began to paint its power. Preceding this "Phase II" scheme was a similar decoration with the "Big G" logo and the original roadname on the long hood-- a roadname that increasingly became "Springfield Terminal" in keeping with the reverse takeover of operations. Starting in 1995, the individual roadnames gave way to the single designation "Guilford Rail System".
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
There are several rosters of Guilford Rail System motive power out on the 'net, but it appears that they all have not been updated for several years. They all agree on the information on the two diesels of interest here, however. ST 52 is a GP9R, former Boston and Maine 1827, and ST 54 is a GP9, former Boston and Maine 1723. Both units have dynamic brakes The paint scheme MTL chose matches the prototype and is classified on at least one site as a "Phase II" with the appropriate railroad's initials on the cab along with the road number and "Guilford Rail System" on the long hood. Prior to that, the roadname was used on the long hood; there's at least one photo on the net of this for the 54 dated 1990 on RRPictureArchives.net.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The Fallen Flags site has a ground level shot of the 52 picking its way through some rather weedy trackage in 1999. RRPictureArchives.net has numerous shots of both the 52 and 54 including an image from 1990 with the 54 still reading "Springfield Terminal." The photos go into 2007 so I think it's safe to say that "to present" is included in the Approximate Time Period, even though the "Guilford Rail System" name has been changed to "Pan Am Railways" as of 2006, complete with the heritage logo of Pan American World Airways.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
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