Thursday, January 30, 2014

1981 Westbound TOFC/COFC led by SD40-2 5022

The SD40-2 5022 was part of a delivery of  38 units, arriving on Santa Fe property in November of 1977. Units 5020-5027 sported the long nose, nicknamed "Snoot" for obvious reasons.  The 123" nose housed Lococontrol equipment as well as a toilet.   Remote control equipment (RCE) antennas were mounted behind the air conditioner.  A larger Sinclair antennae was mounted above the dust bin on the long hood for voice communication. A Leslie 3 chime air horn, rotating beacon, and an air conditioning unit were also mounted on cab roof.  The 5022 was custom painted and weathered.


F45 5924 is a custom model, kit bashed from a Kato SD45 frame and a JnJ body shell.  Construction methods were shown in a previous blogs.  The 5924 has been recently repainted and had air conditioning installed along with a Sinclair antennae.


Weathered SD45 from Kato, custom painted with typical cab roof additions.  5430 had an interesting history, as the original 20 cylinder 3600 hp engine was replaced by a 645F3 16 cylinder engine rated at 3500 hp.  It is essentially a SD40 in a SD45 carbody.  This was done to 12 different units as an experiment to overcome the "quirky" 20 cylinder 645E3 engines.  This experiment proved to be too expensive to repeat on further units.

All flats in this train are Micro Trains, save one.  Custom containers.


Custom 40' containers

Couple of custom 40' trailers

40' C&O trailer from Athearn and a custom NW 48 footer shrunk down to 40".

Athearn Erie Lackawanna trailer and a kit build from years ago. 

Cor Cor Budd trailer with MT wheel sets and another kit build. This flat is an old Rapido model with updated trucks and end platforms, and custom paint and decaled.

Again, an Athearn product and a MT trailer. I believe it is custom.

More Athearn and a custom made MT PFE trailer.

The Co-Op trailer is decades old, with MT wheel set.  The Vermont trailer is stock MT, lightly weathered.

These two MT 40' trailers are custom painted and decaled.

Two stock 40' containers

NOL container is MT, the two 20 footers are custom painted.

Custom WP 40' trailer and Athearn BAR exterior post trailer.

Penn Central exterior post trailer and stock MT trailer


Custom MT Santa Fe 40 footer and RI trailer from Athearn.  Red Caboose offering pulls up the rear.


Thanks for checking out this blog.

A video of this train can be seen on YouTube at:

http://youtu.be/6Zfvb-M7p5k