Santa Fe Bicentennial SD45-2's 1976 Piggybacks

Bicentennial Locomotives

In 1975 the Santa Fe railroad painted  five  SD45-2’s in a patriotic scheme to honor the nation.  They were split up in order to maximize their visibility,  spotted as the lead locomotive on priority piggyback trains, and seldom seen in pairs.  They were numbered 5700 to 5704.  They were quite popular with employees, shippers, rail fans, and the general public.



Bicentennial Locomotives 5703 and 5702 in front of the Needles, CA station durng a crew change.  Not normally seen in pairs.

Two custom painted MT trailers. the Gelco trailer has been modified with a refrigeration unit and fuel tank below the trailer.



Forty five foot Con Cor trailer  and stock MT trailer.  I put MT wheel carriage and wheelsets on the  Con Cor trailer. Greatly improved the look of the trailer.

Custom silver trailer has framing edges weathered darker than side panels.  Note white trailers have silver panels and roofs.




Custom painted and decaled Preferred 102 trailer.  102 refers to one hundred and two inches wide trailer.  Probably a trailer that did not appear until the 1980's.  The Norfolk Western trailer is a 48 foot trailer shortened to 40 feet.



Forty five foot custom painted Western Express trailer with refrigeration unit added.  APL container mounted on chassis.  Many containers were shipped on the chassis due to limited facilities at origin. 

Another Gelco custom Trailer with refrigeration unit.  The 40' from MSA Lamda is on a trailer from way back when.  The trailer may be Con Cor's first attempt,  Front and rear detail is fine, but the side is completely flat!  Nice decal job and replacement MT wheelsets and landing gear.

Two custom MT trailers, with the Rio Grande trailers revealing a replacement panel.

Another Prefferred 102 MT trailer.  The Santa Fe trailer is a kit of some kind from the 1980's, manufacturer unknown.  The silver portion represents replacement panels, necessary due to some prototype accident, or maybe I screwed up someplace.

Tires should be painted a weathered black, while the wheels shoulod be very dirty.  Note the support edges weather very differently from the van sides as the materials are very different, thus different weathering patterns.

On the prototype, wheels are replaced with whatever is handy. In this case a maroon colored wheel.

 Note: Most trailers in 1976 were 40' trailers and many flat cars were not of the length of the MT 89 foot length. But 1976 is not my area of specialty, so things are not 100% accurate. At least some of the trailers in this train did not really appear til the 80's.

        You can view a 3 minute video of this train on YouTube at:

                               http://youtu.be/z2D8IuKX_so