Alaska Railroad Eskimo

Alaska became a state in 1959, so boomers were impacted. Rolling stock started with statehood and not "at least" since WWII. Alaska is somewhat remote and the NW-2 diesel had special equipment. Alaska also represents the projection of US power in the face of Russia, about 50 miles away. Also, we bought Alaska from Russia and got the better of the deal. Alaska has natural beauty. Regarding the Eskimo, that image never bothered me as being inaccurate. Aren't there Eskimos in Alaska? And the guy is waving to us. He's a friend. Hawaii became a state about the same time, but that state has not captured our imagination as Alaska does. Mark

Something like that might be locked inside the paper paywall (i.e. in a book).  I'll check and see if my club has an Alaska RR book next time I'm there.

@barrister.2u posted:

Alaska became a state in 1959, so boomers were impacted. Rolling stock started with statehood and not "at least" since WWII. Alaska is somewhat remote and the NW-2 diesel had special equipment.

The Alaska Railroad also had the only "streamlined" Alco RS-1's.  The were modified from ex-U.S. Army units.

Rusty

The Alaska Railroad also had the only "streamlined" Alco RS-1's.  The were modified from ex-U.S. Army units

Sorry, I thought you were referring to Lionel cars. You are correct: the prototype RR harkens back many decades. Mark

I didn't know Alaska had F7's either. (behind first set), in Rusty's link.

@Cheap&NothingWasted posted:

Something like that might be locked inside the paper paywall (i.e. in a book).  I'll check and see if my club has an Alaska RR book next time I'm there.

A reminder:  Don't post ANY pictures from books or any other source as they could be copyrighted unless you have written permission to do so on this forum.  In addition, you have to provide that permission in your post.

Found it on some trucks.

https://www.alaskarails.org/pi...A-service/index.html

@RK posted:

Found it on some trucks.

https://www.alaskarails.org/pi...A-service/index.html

Yeah, that's all I've ever been able to find. Nothing on actual rolling stock though.

I'm currently on the same path Tom M was on three years ago.  I found a picture of it on a truck but no rolling stock or any other Alaska Railroad items.  Has anybody ever seen it in any pictures of Alaska Railroad trains?

RMT will be offering 2 ALASKA related items, with the new trucks/couplers, available later in 2024...

Thanks for looking.

Walter/RMT

These are Atlas (IIRC) - I picked them up in 2021…

@barrister.2u posted:

Alaska became a state in 1959, so boomers were impacted. Rolling stock started with statehood and not "at least" since WWII. Alaska is somewhat remote and the NW-2 diesel had special equipment. Alaska also represents the projection of US power in the face of Russia, about 50 miles away. Also, we bought Alaska from Russia and got the better of the deal. Alaska has natural beauty. Regarding the Eskimo, that image never bothered me as being inaccurate. Aren't there Eskimos in Alaska? And the guy is waving to us. He's a friend. Hawaii became a state about the same time, but that state has not captured our imagination as Alaska does. Mark

Well said,Mark....

So, the Alaska Railroad "At your service" Eskimo is all over the toy train world, the Lionel 614 and 8154 switchers, Paul's hoppers, various boxcars and even this Lionel bunk car.

This tool car was a LRRC 1989 offering that I was converting to ARR.  I had some yellow ARR HO decals and even a set of 614 "decals" with the Eskimo that I thought I could cobble together to match the bunk car, however the 614 decals turned out to be stickers on clear background that may work fine on the flat side of a switcher cab but not so fine on the wood side of the tool car.  I went in search of the logo on the internet that i could copy to make decals, came up with this thread, plenty of pictures of O gauge trains and one picture of a tractor trailer but no logo alone and no pictures of any rolling stock adorned with that logo.  Is this a case of Lionel taking a little used but whimsical logo and using it to sell toy trains and years later the whole industry has latched onto it as real paint scheme?  In any case I believe I will have to change direction and use some white ARR boxcar decals instead of yellow on blue to be complimentary to the blue on yellow.

SPEAKING OF ALASKA. THE L.C.C.A. will be offering this DOODLEBUG BEAUTY in the fall to our members.  We will will start taking orders in October. GG1GUYY

Pretty snazzy!

Here is a picture of my 9758 Alaska box car.

K-Line had one that looked like that also and I believe MTH did that scheme on a boxcar.  There were also tank cars, hoppers and other rolling stock made by our toy train manufacturers that sported the "At your service" Eskimo logo but I can't find pictures of it on any prototype rolling stock.