The Hustler, #15 and 16, was the afternoon train between Houston and Dallas on the T&NO. One of the two train sets would head north out of Houston and the other south out of Dallas, passing each other somewhere in the middle. It used mostly the same Daylight painted cars as the morning Sunbeam but did not always draw the same streamlined P14 Pacifics. Here a P6 Pacific has the honors.
Good morning from sunny and hot Northeast Ohio! Little late this morning, my wife tripped and fell while hiking in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and ended up breaking her thumb, went to the orthopedic office for x-rays and a brace. Here is this weeks projects! Another Athearn Ribbed side hopper turned into a Panel Side Hopper, car was painted with Scalecoat II Black paint and lettered with Mark Vaughn's decals. The Wabash in 1941 built 25 of these cars for their Ann Arbor subsidiary, they were all gone by the 70's. Intermountain 40' Ice Reefer kit, it was molded in the proper colors so I just gave it a gloss coat and decaled it with Champ Decals. PFE had thousands of these reefers shipping California produce to rest of the country. Athearn NKP GP9's with a general freight running on the Strongsville Club layout. Thanks for looking! Rick Jesionowski
CN FPA2 6707 with matching FPB2 6807 rounding the curve with a couple of express cars ahead of the passenger cars:
I have often wondered why more companies did not mount their bells atop their diesels. NP did it on their GP units. Somehow most opted for under the frame. What was the advantage, if any?
Maybe for safety reasons so as to not have to go on the roof. When I was working for Amtrak most of their bells were mounted under the body.Stand on the ground for a repair or climb on a roof for a repair?
The NKP mounted their bells up high or in nottches in the nose, so they would not freeze during the winter and become unoperational due to being packed with snow and then freezing. Rick Jesionowski
Milwaukee Road had there's on the roof, AND were electric "gong, gong" style. Horrible noise! They ended up with standard bells, but on the fireman's side of the long hoods-had to be kinda' loud right behind your head! NP was smart to use ex-steam loco bells, probably $500.00 saved per diesel.
In CN practice, rooftop bells were only applied to cab units like EMD Fs, Alco FAs and FPAs, and FM C-Liners. From photos I've seen, not all got roof bells but passenger locos nearly all had them. On hood units, the bell was usually placed at the top front, which would be the front of the engine hood above the headlights for the high-nose locos, and at the top front of the cab on the low-nose units (where the bell was mounted below the bracket, and the horns on top of the bracket - you want loud? That's in-your-face loud! ).
The Monon put 'em out there on the nose so that EVERYBODY could hear. [May 1978, Knoxville, TN] The C&NW liked nose mounted bells too, an extra smart notion in commuter territory. [1975, Chicago, IL]
Recently added 4 signals on the layout. Here is an SP double stack train approaching a green on the east bound line. And here on the west bound line.
Two different styles, which when worn, sounded more like "doink, doink, doink...." Otherwise, most were at some time under the frame and remained there the entire time. The exception were late alterations to some SD40-2 units, (maybe a couple of others as well. Too many years now gone...), those hood side mounts you noted.
