I spend a lot of time on the EL in the 1970s, Meadville PA to Union City PA, only 20 minutes away, all I ever seen was CB&Q, GN, and later BN.
Hey Jim, did you ever see a copy of the internal study that ATSF did on acquiring the Erie-Lackawanna? I have a copy. I knew there was a good reason why I was a fan of both. My territory for EL railfanning was Meadville-Salamanca out of Jamestown. Rode the Phoebe Snow as a kid once out to Dearborn - 1965. I've seen lots of pictures on western stuff showing up on E-L, but in my college years and living on the line post-CR I never saw very much. Same thing on the ATSF, you'll see a few pictures but it was still an event rather then regular practice. For the record, I have enough EL stuff to assemble a full train, if you want to see a picture of NY-100 rolling through Flagstaff!
Randy, I was trying to show an example how a manufacture would see the task of manufacturing a RSD15. IMO, most model railroader would not purchase a ATSF RSD15 for there railroad if they modeled a different road, of course some buy anything. The ATSF RSD15 on Erie Lackawanna was only an example, and I see things kind of got out of hand. Yes, I know a little about the Erie Lackawanna and yes knew about NY-100. Anyway the subject was about ATLAS manufacturing the RSD15 and I would be very surprised if a ATSF RSD15 ever made it to Meadville PA. I have a picture of 2 UP U30Cs pulling a EL coal train. Yes, once in a blue moon you would see a western road on EL, but most were being delivered, junked or sold.
Randy, Great video. The folks over at the Santa Fe Historical and Modeling Society I think would love to know about this video as well as the elegant height of your prototypical adherence and accuracy for Santa Fe 1972 in Arizona.
If you count the virtually identical RSD7 there were 104 units built for seven original owners and if you add the many roads that bought units second hand as well as different paint schemes of the original owners the RSD15/7 is comparable to or even beats other Alcos Atlas have made.
And, of course, there is the question of whether a chassis could be designed so that you could also produce the MT6's built from retired RSD-15's.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the MT-6's built on RSD-12 frames? They were considerably shorter than RSD-15's. Cheers Steve
4 were from PC RSD-15's (Conrail #1125-1128). CSX and NS got two each. Frankly, that's why I'm a little surprised that you can still find the old RSD-15's since I would expect them to be gobbled up by modellers turning them into MT6's
Hi, all, Well, after 2.5 years, finally got the Santa Fe RSD-15 #800 blue/yellow and Santa Fe RSD-7 #601 done. The photos are in this album: http://www.pbase.com/atsf_arizona/n_scale_rsd15&page=5 And here's a couple of shots:
This is one of those models which would best be done by Atlas. The best 'hood' units are made by Atlas and this is a perfect fit for them. The mechanism/parts mentioned by others are already available to Atlas and would just be a matter of creating the bodies to fit. I'm surprised they have not gone forth with this project from the time they created those other mechanisms/parts.
They look good. I finally got my two from BLI the other day. Looks like it is about time to head back into the train room and play.
Randgust let me know that he ran my RSD-15 (B40-8 with C628 trucks mechanism) with his dynamometer car, and got some surprising results. He expected it to come out more or less about the same as the Atlas C628, which he'd proven to be a lightweight and unsuitable for his heavy duty York Canyon coal train duty. First surprise was that the B40-8 frame is heavier, not tremendously so, but heavier than the C628. Second surprise was that the pulling power is at least respectable in the 13-14 gram range. Not exactly equal to what Randgust's MRC RSD-15s with Kato motors can pull (retested them and they again hit 22g on the same track/equipment) but certainly above the anemic 9g that the Atlas C628 did. FYI.
The Santa Fe RSD-7's handrails got painted: Amazing how painting the handrails makes such a difference: http://www.pbase.com/atsf_arizona/n_scale_rsd15&page=5 (before the handrails were painted):
On a side note to all of this about the RSD-7 and RSD-15... can anyone explain why ALCo would have made a locomotive with such a long 'snout'. Usually there is a purpose for the design concept. It seems unlikely on the RSD-15, in particular, what that reason would be to have the elongated short hood.
Apart from great looks, I guess it could house a steam generator in the high hood configuration. Cheers Steve NZ
That's what Wikipedia says: "The dynamic brake system was mounted on top the long hood, leaving room in the short hood for a steam generator."
