New Kato Tease!!!!

[Mark5]

Now that we know, lets let Kato know! 

[bbussey]

Right coast ops are easier to find if you start with Page 51 and move backwards...

http://rrpicturearchives.net/modelthumbs.aspx?NumCols=4&mid=260&View=1&id=AMTK

Pics of the units in Phase I and Phase III paint, and of units laying over in New Haven waiting for Boston-bound consists in 1980!  So I can pick up a pair regardless of what paint scheme Kato chooses to release.

[nkalanaga]

The Amtrak Empire Builder was almost exclusively Fs until the SDP40Fs came out.  The BN had inherited a large fleet of F units from the GN and NP, and the passenger units were leased to Amtrak.  After the SDPs arrived, the Fs went back to BN, and most were regeared, repainted, and put in freight service.  That's part of the reason the BN had Fs running until 1980 or later. 

The GN tried E units on the original streamlined EB, and they just didn't work in the Rockies.  The NP never tried them, using Fs from the beginning on their passenger trains.  I saw one E unit on Amtrak's EB, although there may have been others in used, but they were definitely very rare in the west.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were used on the ex-CB&Q/MILW routes between Chicago and the Twin Cities.

Another reason was that traffic was growing faster than they could buy new locos, so they HAD to keep running them.  The Fs wound up in Washington, and in the late 70s it wasn't uncommon to see trains with 5 or 6.  40 ft boxcars were also still common out there, used in grain service on branches with light rail, so it looked a lot like 1950s railroading.

As others have said, a generic Amtrak train could be as simple as putting leftover stock in a box.  A baggage, two coaches, diner, and two Pullmans would make a nice starter train, and they could include a couple 4-car expansion sets, one each for the east and west.  The west would get a pair of domes, another Pullman, and a dome-obs.  Since most eastern roads didn't run domes, they could get another pair of coaches, a Pullman, and a lounge car.

Of course, many purchasers would buy just the locos, and make up a train with what they already had.  After all, that's what Amtrak did!

[sirenwerks]

The Amtrak Empire Builder was almost exclusively Fs until the SDP40Fs came out.  The BN had inherited a large fleet of F units from the GN and NP, and the passenger units were leased to Amtrak.  After the SDPs arrived, the Fs went back to BN, and most were regeared, repainted, and put in freight service.  That's part of the reason the BN had Fs running until 1980 or later. 

Not completely.  I found a number of photos like this, with SDP40F and post-merger F units in tendem.

[jmlaboda]

E-unit on the Empire Builder?

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=319292

How 'bout one with an F and SDP40Fs?

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=440680

[Scottl]

This thread has taken quite a tangent, given that Kato is actually going  to put out a SD70M-2.  You can't have enough toasters.

[EspeeGoldenState]

To do it right would take a new Budd dome coach, meaning new sides for the stainless steel version they make, a new dining car if they don't use the UP car they already have, and preferably a Great Dome Lounge car.

If they did the GN Great Domes, they have plenty of paint schemes for it later on. Heck I would pick up a couple to do both a Phase IV version and the current retro Phase III versions.

Could also do BNSF 30 Glacier View, thought fluted sides and a theater window done on one end.

Chris

[nkalanaga]

Oh yes, the SDP40Fs and earlier F units ran together for a while.  I didn't mean that the Fs all went back to BN the day the first SDPs arrived.  In fact, I have pictures of them together.  But they didn't overlap for very long.  The units I can find renumbering dates on, which aren't very many, all seem to be in 1976.

Chris:  I've seen the Great Dome Lounge cars in both EB and Illinois Central paint, letter for current owners.  I don't know if it's two cars, or the same car repainted, because I haven't seen them together, and haven't bothered to look it up.  But there's two schemes for modern modelers who don't want Amtrak.  You're right - these cars have had more schemes since the GN disappeared than they ever had under it.

[Ike the BN Freak]

Could also do BNSF 30 Glacier View, thought fluted sides and a theater window done on one end.

Chris

I'd rather they do the BN version, either green with white stripe or green and cream. The fluting looks so bad, being the original car was a smoothside.

[davefoxx]

Nah, we don't need no SDP40F, we need a P30CH (Pooch!).   

DFF

[nkalanaga]

River View ran in BN paint for both the BN and Amtrak, while Ocean View had an experimental BN-style GN scheme.  The main difference was that the white stripe extended to the roof line, and it was lettered in the usual BSB passenger style.

The other four were still in BSB paint, all having been repainted from green and orange before the merger.  Throw in an Amtrak version, and one has four different schemes, on only six cars, all running on the same Amtrak route.  They could make a collectors set of just those.

As long as I'm wishing for an Empire Builder, how about one of the GN's steam generator cars built from an F unit?  They had a bunch built in B unit shells, complete with locomotive trucks, and they also lasted into Amtrak service, receiving both BN and Amtrak paint, along with the BSB.  I saw them on the EB after the F40s arrived, since the EB at that time was still steam heated.  An F40/SDP40F/steam car consist looked a little odd.  Those could also be used by freelancers needing a little extra power for their train, simply by putting a mechanism in one.  The GN's weren't self propelled, the use of a locomotive was partly because it had the frame strength and tracking ability of an F unit, and partly because it came with a built in fuel tank, compatible with locomotive fueling facilities.  I believe, but won't swear, that they were built by EMD.

Even odder was the F40, SDP40F, and an E A unit, windows blanked out, and converted by Amtrak to a steam car.  F40 219, SDP40F 635, and E unit/steam car 673, sometime in late spring or early summer of 1978 (we moved at the end of July).  It looked like a 3 unit consist, until one looked closer.  The F40 and E were in Phase 2 paint, while the SDP40F was still in its as-delivered Phase 1.  Most, if not all, of the cars were in Amtrak paint by then, but they could still come up with some strange combinations.