Well this is my next hair brained scheme. I'm going to recreate some of the 1976 Freedom Train cars to pull behind my Bicentennial diesels. Should be a fun project, and one I've been wanting to tackle for some time. I'm planning on doing some of the cars, and not try and recreate the whole 26 car train. I do want to have a respectable looking consist though. Anyone else tried this before, if so I'd lke to hear how it came out.
Here is the American Freedom Train Museum site. http://www.freedomtrain.org/ They list 32 cars for the 1976 train.
Bill, you may want to join Yahoo's American Freedom Train group, as well. Burlington John and a few other guys (I think) are in process of creating the AFT in different scales. Lots of photos on the site too. I'll come back later with a link.
Here's the link to the AFT group: Yahoo AFT Group Of course, you will want to start with this. I'm not a modeler. Does someone make an SP GS-4 in n scale?
HI Jim: Con-cor does make one or did in N scale. It's a nice replica, but I"m unsure of the running qualities. I would hope they would be great for an engine that costs over 200.00. Thankyou very much for the link, I joined up, and had my main question answered right away after looking through the pictures, talk about a score!
I am working on kit bashing the 1947 version. So far have modified a Rivarossi heavyweight baggage car and a couple Lima coaches. The baggage car had end doors and the coaches had their windows plated over.
Wow, I"d like to see that Russell. I'm planning on doing the 1976 train, but a Freedom Train is a Freedom Train in my book
I will have to finish it one of these days. So far it is all painted white. I have a Life Like PA to pull it with. In this photo you can see the big reefer door type hinges on the front of the ATSF baggage car that was loaned to the train. Click on the image to zoom in. [ 16. February 2005, 22:39: Message edited by: r_i_straw ]
I'm wondering if this is one of the special cars they had for hauling race horses. I seem to remember seeing a picture of them somewhere where that had those big end doors.
No, the Santa Fe had another class of Horse Express Cars designed for that purpose that did have the big end doors too. This car was another class of ten Baggage & Express cars that had the end doors for shipping special loads such as theater backdrops for traveling stage productions.
Here is a quick flat bed scan of the door end of the car so far. I must have moved because some of the hardware looks a little bent.
That looks great Russell. Here is a few pictures of my first car under construction. It's one of the two display cars. Eventually I"ll build them both. I think it will be fun to scratchbuild those displays in them, including an N scale lunar rover.
Unfortunately it was the only odd car I had. All my others are GN Empire Builders, and I couldn't bring myself to cut one of those up I have some cars coming from Walthers though, so I'll be able to add 8 more plus a few 89' flatcars.
Other than Con-Cor, did anyone produce an attempted (N scale) commercial AFT? Hard to believe it's been 30 years since this train ran. Will be interesting to see it faithfully recreated! Boxcab E50
Hi Boxcab: I don't think I've ever seen anything other that Con-cors 1947 version. I know, it doesn't seem that long ago either for me. I was 5 but I remember it well at Fort Lewis, Washington. I still have my program from it and bronze medallion. I was lucky enough to go on it twice, once after that at Springfield, Oregon. I drove through there where we went on it not too long ago and the tracks are now a bicycle trail. Funny how nobody remembers that train except train buffs, kind of sad actually, there was a lot of history in one place.
Here is another angle to pursue on modeling the AFT. 4449 made a trip east in 1975 to get the locomotive position to start the 1976 tour. It traveled with the baggage/support car and a few boxcars for load. I have a photo of it traveling through Weber Canyon in Utah pulling some pristine UP boxcars and a UP caboose along with the baggage car. would be a comparatively easy way to start a model of the train. Concor's GS-4 is close to what 4449 looked like but still has some details that need to be corrected.
The way today's railroads are, we'll probably never see a cooperative effort from them to run a Freedom Train again. So building a model of one may be the only way to see one anymore.
This is a great project! I remember going to see the AFT in San Diego (at Miramar Naval Air Station) when I was in Junior High. I'll be looking forward to your updates!!
