I have been modeling the Northern Pacific in 1953 and in HO. HO might have the the most locomotives representing the Northern Pacific and 1953 is the heart of the transition and allows me to model both late steam and early diesels. As well as S-4, W-3 and other steam locos, I love F units, RS-1s and RS-3s GP-7s some Baldwin locos, Alco S-4s and NW switcher units. I'm wondering if there are other Northern Pacific Modelers here at the TrainBoard?
Yup. Am in N scale, but live on the old NP, Glendive, Heart of the Yellowstone Division. Just wish I had seen and heard the Yellowstones blasting and pounding away out of here....
I'm a hard core NP fan too, however I model in Z Scale, the absolute worst scale for model availability. My favorite locomotives are the W-3 class Mikes, and the F unit Loewy F Unit Passenger. I am modeling the NP Mainline at Lester WA the summer of 1956, because I want to include the coal dock which was torn down in spring 1957. It has taken lots of research, and several rebuilds of models so far, but I am shooting for as accurate a representation as possible. It don't help that Lester is completely gone, but my latest research dug up photos from a 1940's King County Tax Assessor, which triggered my current structure rebuilds.
Diesels are not to hard to find for the N.P., my latest was an Atlas FP-7 for the N.P. This loco was manufactured with Horn Hook Couplers meaning before DCC was even dreamt of. I had to convert to Kadees and install a decoder to get this loco the way I wanted. I paid $75.00 for it off Ebay, that was probably a little high considering all the work I needed to do to it to get it to run with DCC and Kadee Couplers. However, it was the Pre Lowey paint (Butter Knife; or, Pine Tree Scheme) and I had not seen this scheme offered before, so had to spring for it. Right now it runs; but, the coupler boxes interfere with truck swing so it needs more work. I have three Athearn Blue Box F-7s A-B-A set, repainted from the green to black as it should be. Two LLP2K GP-7s and a LLP2K NW-2, an Atlas RS-1, Bachmann RS-3 and Alco S-4 and a Baldwin VO 1000 all in N.P. Livery. I'll run through my N.P. Steam in my next post.
