In reply to NickD :
That paint scheme is so close to the MKT green and yellow scheme.
In reply to NickD :
That paint scheme is so close to the MKT green and yellow scheme.
In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :
It's based off the final Reading Company livery that was used on the last motive power that they purchased; the GP39-2s, the SW1500s and the MP15s. A few older machines were repainted to that livery, but not many, like single-digits. Reading & Northern has revived the livery for their GP38-2s, MP15s and GP39RNs. Prior to that livery, the Reading Company had used the bright yellow with green trim and "Bee Line Service" logo and slogan, and before that, a uniform dark green with plain yellow lettering.
The GP39-2s were actually not outright purchased by Reading Company, but financed by Chessie Systems. In the '70s, one of the government's plans to save the northeast industry was to give Chessie Systems the eastern end of the Erie-Lackawanna (the Western end would be abandoned, since Conrail and Chessie Systems would have other lines to Chicago) and the entirety of the Reading Company and the CNJ, which Reading had control of. It would be the competitor to Conrail, which would be comprised of Penn Central, Lehigh Valley, L&HR and Ann Arbor. In the lead-up to this plan, to prop up the Reading, Chessie Systems purchased the GP39-2s and leased them to the Reading, to retire some of their older oddball power. Ultimately, labor disputes with the Erie-Lackawanna caused Chessie Systems to walk on the deal, and Reading, CNJ and E-L were jammed into Conrail, while the D&H was made the Conrail competitor. The D&H was going to double in size and was given permission to grab motive power from the Conrail pool. The D&H had their own GP39-2s on order and so scooped up the ex-Reading units, and continued to lease them. It wasn't until 1991, when CP bought out the D&H and declined to lease them from Chessie Systems/CSX that they finally ended up on their roster, some 15+ years later.
I think I need a flow chart to keep track of all the mergers in RR history..... I always get lost in the process.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:So let's talk about the branch line I'm considering modeling. I went to high school in Pecos, Tx. It was quite an experience after growing up in San Antonio and San Angelo, but it led to a college scholarship. Anyway the local RR Pecos Valley Southern began operations in 1910. When I was in High School it still moved freight. And today under management from Watch, it is still in use.
The engine I recall seeing was a dingy looking SW switcher. It looked like this.
Here is another photo.
Notice the 8657 numbering on the light housing? That was Conrail's designation during their ownership.
Originally this SW900 was built for Lehigh Valley. It looked like this shortly before Conrail acquired it.
it was originally built in 1957 long before I was born.
Guess what is still in service today? Care to see how it looks? Here is WATCO 950 still in service in Pecos TX today.
This will be the first locomotive I model for the branch. I need to get a HO scale SW8 / SW900 preferably with digital control and sound. Then I will paint and customize it to improve its appearance.
I have a good source of information, photos and track configuration to reasonably model a branch line this small on a long shelf. Real railroads run point to point. The service facilities of the PVS are rather unremarkable as is most of the RR. It might even be within my modeling capabilities.
It turns out this engine started life in 1938 as an NW1 switcher for Lehigh Valley. In 1957 it was upgraded to SW900 specs. It's been in service 85 years! If it's still running in 15 years I will have to go bust a champagne bottle on it to celebrate.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:I think I need a flow chart to keep track of all the mergers in RR history..... I always get lost in the process.
It gets really confusing with the instances where railroads controlled other railroads but weren't merged or showed it outwards. New York Central made it simple: they owned the Big Four, the West Shore, the Michigan Central, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern and others, and those railroads continued to exist on paper, but all their power was just painted for New York Central Systems.
Then you had the more confusing stuff. The CNJ was partially owned by the Reading, which was partially owned by the B&O. The B&O and Reading used the CNJ as their eastern end, but kept it at arm's length to avoid NJ taxes and commuter obligations. It got even messier when the CNJ was forced to sell off it's Pennsylvania trackage to the Lehigh Valley and the Chesapeake & Ohio bought out 70% of the Baltimore & Ohio.
The PRR made an unholy mess of the north with all the stuff that they owned.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:So let's talk about the branch line I'm considering modeling. I went to high school in Pecos, Tx. It was quite an experience after growing up in San Antonio and San Angelo, but it led to a college scholarship. Anyway the local RR Pecos Valley Southern began operations in 1910. When I was in High School it still moved freight. And today under management from Watch, it is still in use.
The engine I recall seeing was a dingy looking SW switcher. It looked like this.
Here is another photo.
Notice the 8657 numbering on the light housing? That was Conrail's designation during their ownership.
Originally this SW900 was built for Lehigh Valley. It looked like this shortly before Conrail acquired it.
it was originally built in 1957 long before I was born.
Guess what is still in service today? Care to see how it looks? Here is WATCO 950 still in service in Pecos TX today.
This will be the first locomotive I model for the branch. I need to get a HO scale SW8 / SW900 preferably with digital control and sound. Then I will paint and customize it to improve its appearance.
I have a good source of information, photos and track configuration to reasonably model a branch line this small on a long shelf. Real railroads run point to point. The service facilities of the PVS are rather unremarkable as is most of the RR. It might even be within my modeling capabilities.
It turns out this engine started life in 1938 as an NW1 switcher for Lehigh Valley. In 1957 it was upgraded to SW900 specs. It's been in service 85 years! If it's still running in 15 years I will have to go bust a champagne bottle on it to celebrate.
Amtrak has a 1941-built SW1 (Ex-New York Central) that is still on the roster, the oldest piece of equipment they currently operate. It mostly hangs out at the Wilmington shops as the shop switcher, so it doesn't get photographed often, but it's still kicking. They rebuilt it a number of years ago with 645 power packs and modern electrical gear. Hopefully, when it gets retired, someone saves it. The big thing is that if you want retired Amtrak equipment, you can't hope for them to donate it, you have to go out and contact them to buy it. There is some sort of weird wording in the Amtrak charter where they cannot donate any equipment, it has to be outright purchased from them
The two eras of Ann Arbor ownership are evident in this photo. The caboose on the left is distinctly Wabash in heritage, with the angled steel cupola. The GP35s wear the solid bright red-orange livery and billboard-sized lettering that the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton used on their motive power. The Ann Arbor was an all-Alco railroad under the Wabash, but the DT&I was an all-EMD railroad, and so they purchased GP35s for the AA. The AA still had some Alco FAs loitering around on the roster, and they were deemed not as useful, due to their carbody construction, and were traded in on the GP35s, explaining the Alco trucks under them.
In reply to NickD :
Kind of ironic that Ford owned a railroad and it ended up all EMD.
A comparison of Ann Arbor GP35s and DT&I SD38s. You can see how they have the same basic livery, right down to the compass logos on the cabs. Funny enough, those two DT&I SD38s ended up over on the Reading & Northern as their #2000 and #2001.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to NickD :
Kind of ironic that Ford owned a railroad and it ended up all EMD.
Ford originally purchased GE 132-ton center cab switchers for use at the factories, and they were pretty cool. They had car-style grilles and chrome handrails. But later on, they ended up buying EMD switchers to use at their factories as well. I do find it a bit interesting that Ford never followed EMD into the railroad market, but then again, Ford never diversified as much into the heavy industry side of things as GM.
Two of the Ann Arbor's RS-2s that they acquired secondhand from the Green Bay & Western at their Toledo facilities in 1984. By this point, the Ann Arbor had been split into several portions, one of them operated by Michigan Interstate, the other two operated by the Michigan Northern and the Tuscola & Saginaw Bay. The SW8 to the right is from the Ludington & Northern, which had been Michigan's shortest common carrier railroad in the US, at just 2.69 miles in length. That SW8, #16, was the Ludington & Northern's sole diesel diesel on the roster, but by this point the Ludington & Northern had been abandoned for 2 years. The #16 had been sold to a lease company, and Ann Arbor/Michigan Interstate was leasing it for use.
The Ann Arbor RS-2s pass over the Grand Trunk Western at Durand, Michigan. Sadly the two RS-2s ended up being donated to the Lake Superior Railroad Museum but were both scrapped in 2005.
A number of years ago, Trains did an amusing comparison of the various Conrail members to the Brady Bunch. The Ann Arbor was deemed to be Cousin Oliver: it only showed up briefly, it didn't really have a home, and nobody remembered it was ever there. The Ann Arbor, placed under the care of the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton after the PRR relinquished control of the Wabash, went bankrupt in 1973. Plans were made for the Ann Arbor to be added to the list of railroads incorporated into Conrail, and on Conveyance Day, Ann Arbor was there. But even before April 1st, 1976, the state of Michigan was already making plans to buy the Ann Arbor themselves. They were worried that the Ann Arbor, with it's relatively low traffic density and the operational difficulties posed by it's carfloat operations, would be abandoned wholesale by Conrail in the opening days. Conrail operated the Ann Arbor, under subsidy from the state, for the first six months until a designated operator could be found. Michigan Interstate took over and operated the line as the "Ann Arbor Railroad System" in October of 1976. In 1982, the state split the operating contract among Michigan Interstate from Toledo to Ann Arbor, the Tuscola & Saginaw Bay Railway from Ann Arbor to Alma, and the Michigan Northern Railway, who was also operating the former Grand Rapids & Indiana with a collection of Alco RS-2s, Baldwin RS-12s and the ex-D&H RF-16s, from Alma to Elberta. In 1984, the state ended Michigan Northern's contract, and designated Tuscola & Saginaw Bay as the operator on that portion. In 1988, Watco took over the Toledo-Osmer segment and revived the Ann Arbor Railroad name in full.
Michigan Interstate/Ann Arbor locomotives at the Michigan Northern facilities in Cadillac, Michigan
A Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Geep runs long hood forward under the concrete arches at Taylor, Michigan. These are a leftover from the Henry Ford days of DT&I ownership. As part of his pursuit of efficiency, Ford had dreams of electrifying the entire railroad and rather than your standard steel catenary, he designed these concrete arches to string the wires from. The arches were constructed at Fordson concrete plant within the Rouge Plant complex, using 95 cubic feet of Ford concrete and 257 feet of rebar made at the Rouge Plant steelworks. Power was generated first from the Ford power plant at Highland Park, but later the Rouge Plant generators came online when more power was needed. Ford had Westinghouse build him two boxcab electric freight motors to test on a small segment from Detroit to Flat Rock. His great hope was to build an extension from the southern end of the DT&I to the western end of the Virginian Railway, electrify the whole railroad, and then eventually buy out the Virginian. This would have resulted in a single electrified line from Detroit to Roanoke, funneling coal north and completed automobiles to Atlantic ports. The plan never came to fruition: for starters, the DT&I used 22kV 25Hz AC, the wrong voltage for interoperable equipment with the Virginian's 11kV AC. Around the same time it was becoming clear that the ICC was never going to let Ford do things his way, and he decided to get out of the railroad business. Pennsylvania Railroad ironically had no interest in Ford's electrification program, and yanked down what wire had been strung, and instead ordered new steam locomotives and even sent a few of their H10 Consolidations up there to work. Quite a few of the concrete arches, which never saw electrified catenary wire hung from them, remain in place since they were too expensive too demolish, although a few have been removed in the years since.
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