Alco Alligators

[keeper]

O ooh, I think I can't resist getting the LS&I RSD 15.

[randgust]

Well, finally.   And from BLI, which I regard performance as historically spotty, and at a premium price.   I've seen really nice stuff and way overpriced shelf queens.   Look great though.   And note that the blue ATSF units are all in the 800-series; they were renumbered to 9800's starting in 1970 until retirement for many set in about 1975 or so.  So I'd be looking probably at a repaint, too.

I'd need four matched units that pull like mules to do my unit coal train.   My rebuilt MP units do it just fine now, but I was still hoping that someday something better would come along.  Yeah, Kato would have been nice.  Even Atlas, although they are lightweights for tractive effort.

So....$1200 for an unproved product on reserve?   I'll sit back and see how they do, and I don't need, or want, sound either.

Always amazes me that manufacturers forget that just about every train except a weedy local in N is a multiple-unit venture, and we love long trains.  So we have to afford a batch, and they have to pull.   You can make this approach work with big steam perhaps but diesels are different.   Only two locals on my layout have single-unit power, everything else is 2-4 units due to train length and grades.

[C855B]

... note that the blue ATSF units are all in the 800-series; they were renumbered to 9800's starting in 1970 ... I'd need four matched units that pull like mules to do my unit coal train. ...

Unit coal trains weren't a thing out West that I knew of ~1970. I saw the 800s/9800s somewhat regularly over Tehachapi. Curious what train you're wishing to model this way.

So....$1200 for an unproved product on reserve?   I'll sit back and see how they do, and I don't need, or want, sound either.

Yeah, there's the rub. And "rub" is an operative word here. I have several six-axle BLI locos, one set of five pre-sound, and all have one axle with traction tires. They do not run for crap in MU. I can replace the offending axles, but you know what? It just becomes another project on the roundtuit list.

Always amazes me that manufacturers forget that just about every train except a weedy local in N is a multiple-unit venture, and we love long trains.  So we have to afford a batch, and they have to pull.   You can make this approach work with big steam perhaps but diesels are different.   Only two locals on my layout have single-unit power, everything else is 2-4 units due to train length and grades.

Exactly. Recent power purchases for me have been in groups of three or four, given similar priorities. Atlas has garnered the lion's share of that; Kato hasn't been too cooperative about re-releasing '60s freight power of late given their bent towards passenger trains in the past decade or more.

[randgust]

Santa Fe's York Canyon unit coal train was revolutionary at the time, operated between the coal mine near Raton, NM to the Kaiser steel mill at Fontana, CA.   That put it over some tough territory, and over a railroad that had no tolerance for a 25mph plug in the railroad.  So it had, early on, mid-train remote control units (RCE's) by using a converted F7B body, and specific lead units had the RCE master.   I think it started about 1966.    Power on the train varied from SD24's to the Alco RSD15's, and a 'normal' 90-car train had six on the front, four mid-train.   Empty trains coming back typically had all 10 RSD15's on the front.   The train symbol was YK or KY depending on direction.   It ran one car set on alternating days, and the cars were the equally-revolutionary (at the time) 100-ton rotary dump gondolas with the yellow ends and lettering.   This was really the forerunner train to virtually every unit coal train in the US, maybe the second or third one developed.  It was unique on Santa Fe.

So to model this thing for my era - right at the end before power was moved to SD39's - I have a 30-car unit coal train with four units on the point and 30 custom-painted and decalled Roundhouse thrall hoppers.  I even played with dummy mid-train helpers, too much drag. 
The rebuilt units are MP with Kato five-pole motors from the PA's, rebuilt trucks, traction tires pulled, wire handrails, repainted and weathered, and have been running now for decades.  The plastic axles make them wobble a hair, and they aren't particularly quiet, but man, do they pull, run consistently, and never overheat.  They still have the original flanges, which was a big factor in me moving to Peco C55.  They are very much the last man standing with that issue though.

 They could easily do another 20 cars if that would fit in the storage yard.    These units are the last of their era on my layout, nearly everything else has been upgraded to something, and these still keep going.   But that quartet is where I get the $1200 rule from.  And yes, I tried rebuilding an Atlas B40 mechanism with the C630 trucks, and it had less than half the tractive effort of one of these girls, and I resold the parts.

My 1972 trip on the Amtrak Chief passed the westbound YK in a siding somewhere in Arizona, not sure where, I just remember seeing the flash of a LOT of locomotives a LOT of coal cars with yellow ends, and engines running in the middle....   Yeah, had to model that.

[Chris333]

I bought a pair of BLI PA's and quickly sold them. I now have a $15 buck Life Like PA that I did a few mods to the body. It runs great!

And people used to say DCC and sound don't add to the price...

[Kentuckian]

So this project is going in the drawer for now. If I build one or buy one I’m still looking at an ESU decoder to get the correct sound file for an RSD-7. Now my workbench only has five “active” locomotive projects!

[randgust]

I won't say I'd never get one, just that I'd never reserve one.   I did test run one of the original PA's on my layout, total fail, derailed, electrical pickup etc.   And yeah, now I have a set of LL PA's ABBA that I've painted and custom decalled.  Could never afford that in BLI.    I also had the experience at Altoona of watching the Baldwin Centipedes stall out about everywhere, yet I think it was the E-7 that had some of the most magnificent diesel sound I've ever heard.   And there were a lot of 4-8-2's flying around flawlessly with equally 'wow...' sound.   That inconsistency is the bug as much as anything.   

I normally upgrade power as a matter of practice, my original Kato F's (that replaced Minitrix...) just got replaced by new ones.   Quiet, smooth, excellent performers, and the shells are swappable.  Sold.   Third generation power.

[Glenn Poole]

.........  I even played with dummy mid-train helpers, too much drag. 

For my mid-train helpers or rear pushers, I take out all the gears  except one or two leaving just one or two axles under power barely leaving enough power to push or pull its own weight down the track.  Actually sounds nice as it whines at the end of a train.  Works very well and doesn't push the cars in front of it off the track.

[reinhardtjh]

So this project is going in the drawer for now. If I build one or buy one I’m still looking at an ESU decoder to get the correct sound file for an RSD-7.

Mostly correct, at least.  ESU has ALCo 244 prime mover sounds but only the 12cyl ones are recorded off a real engine.  The 16cyl for the PA and RSD7 are faked from the 12cyl 244 sounds (I believe).  There are no known 16cyl 244's left in running condition to record from.  They also haven't released the V4 16cyl 244 in LS 5 format yet.  Though you can put the V4 in the LS5 decoders.

[C855B]

Santa Fe's York Canyon unit coal train ...

Ah. OK. Surprised, yet not surprised. Since I wasn't driving until 1970 and wasn't allowed to drive the 45 minutes to Cajon* (only Mojave and Tehachapi), I obviously missed the golden years of the YC train. By the time I was independently mobile, Kaiser was shutting down due to pollution control mandates. Also missed 'fanning the corresponding Kaiser ore on the SP through San Timoteo Canyon.

* - Home to Cajon was via CA138. It was, and still is, a fairly dangerous stretch of road. I can't blame my parents for the restriction.

[...sigh...]

There were a lot of "just missed" in those heady days, including an offer of a cab ride in an F45... Edison to Mojave (that is, over the Loop), and my railfanning buddy would have picked me up at Mojave. Had to turn it down out of fear of parents' wrath on returning hope way after curfew. 

[Kentuckian]

Mostly correct, at least.  ESU has ALCo 244 prime mover sounds but only the 12cyl ones are recorded off a real engine.  The 16cyl for the PA and RSD7 are faked from the 12cyl 244 sounds (I believe).  There are no known 16cyl 244's left in running condition to record from.  They also haven't released the V4 16cyl 244 in LS 5 format yet.  Though you can put the V4 in the LS5 decoders.

ESU has until September, supposedly.

[propmeup1]

PRR

[reinhardtjh]

Had to turn it down out of fear of parents' wrath on returning hope way after curfew. 

I can hear it... "But, Mom!  It's Tehachapi!!!" 

[randgust]

Wait.... I've been in the cab of GBW 2407, what an experience, during one of the IRM members days.   If you think everything rattles on an old Alco S2, this is about 4X the racket.

And that's a 16-cylinder 251.  But a 16-cylinder 244?   Yeah, that might be extinct as an operable engine.

https://www.irm.org/cgi-bin/rsearch.cgi?diesel=Green+Bay+&+Western=2407

[mu26aeh]

Uh oh.

https://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/photos/cr-6812-camden-nj-11-23-76

Something else I noticed from that photo, you could probably use the last 2 CSX family releases, as they both have SCL reporting marks.  If you didn't get them already