Can a Switcher be used as a Road Engine on a Short-Line RR?

"There was a prototype for everything" is a quote I think I read in MR.  I have seen

articles on short lines that used 0-4-0T tank engines, 44 tonners (center cab diesel switchers), seen a photo of the L&N branch that used a Baldwin switcher to haul a mixed train with a center door combine through my great aunt's farm..,etc.   Rooting through old back issues of model magazines that do articles on protoypes will turn up probably enough choices to have you doing, "eeny, meeny, miney,mo".

Yep.  The Lehigh Valley RR used EMD SW's for everything.  They ran up to 6 of them MU'd for road use.

A short line will use whatever it can afford to buy, and more important operate. 

As to switchers, the entire roster of the Montour RR, a coal hauler near pittsburgh was SW switchers.   I think they had about 6-8 of them.   

It seems to me the Pittsburgh and Shawmut used a lot of SWs also in all kinds of service.  

Shortlines do not/did not have the well defined separation of duties that class Is do.   The same engine that makes up the train, often pulled it.  

In the last few years, there was a shortline written up in "Trains" magazine that was in the Portland OR area and used an SW as its only loco.   

And there was a "Railroads you can Model" article years ago by Kalmbach publications that was about a shortline somewhere down south that had a single EMD F B-unit for its motive power.

I think switchers as both road power and switching would be quite common on shortlines.  

Since size seems to bother you, you probably don't want to consider Alco RS1s or RS3 which got handed down a lot to shortlines also.

Check out an AtlasO SW1200 - IMO it's horizontal single motor drive is as good as it gets for smooth operation in ready built O scale 2 rail.

Ed Rappe

Some manufacturers offered different gear ratios. Low gear ratios to move heavy loads rather slowly and higher gear ratios for greater top speed

Alco offered a T6  for transfer service that looked pretty much like a S series yard switcher. 

EMD also offered a transfer switcher similar to the NW and SW switchers. It was called the TR series. 

EMD's SW1500 were capable of speeds up to 60 mph

Pittsburg & Shawmut MU'd as many as four SW9's for road freights

SP#5115, a GE 70-tonner, hauled a mixed train all over Southern Arizona.  It replaced a very small 1899 Mogul.  The Mogul still exists, and was used in the 1955 movie "Oklahoma!"

CB&Q used a SW1 on the mixed train between Stirling CO and Cheyenne WY.

UP used Alco and EMD switchers on many branclines.

ATSF did too.

ChipR 

I second using an SW, or even a 44-tonner. PHL has a pair of ex-Conrail, at least I think they are (PHL started the "heritage" movement years ago) SW1200's that work the Port of Los Angeles.

The Ashley Drew and Northern (Arkansas) used multiple SW1200.  The Sand Springs Railway (Tulsa OK suburb) bought three new SW9 and still run them today.  I believe the Tulsa Sapulpa Union is also "all SW type" locomotives.

In the case where you are running older rolling stock, you might at least consider the Alco RS-1.  It is not a "small" locomotive when compared to an SW...

CSX runs a "local" every night to service several industries in the area just north of my neighborhood, and 99% of the time the power is a lashup of three MP15s.  They do a lot of switching.

Lehigh Valley was well known for its use of multiple unit consists of dynamic brake equipped EMD SW series units on road trains.

An example:

HEY GUYS,

It looks like my choice would be either the SW9 or the SW1200. 

Both are about 10" long in O-Scale, and with 1200 scale HP and my short consist, they should look and perform OK.

Now if I can find one with a Santa Fe road name and a compatible sound decoder for my DC controller, I'll buy it.

Thanks,

BAD ORDER

Road Switcher such as RS-3. 

DEWEY,

Those ALCO RS switchers are probably great at their jobs, but I don't like their "body styles" as well as the EMD switchers like the SW9 and SW1200.

Thanks anyway, 

BAD ORDER

Here's another one. New Jersey short line Raritan River MU'd SW900s to get trains over its main line between the interchange at South Amboy and yard at Parlin every day. 

The units pictured are pulling out the morning's interchange traffic from Conrail onto the westbound NY&LB main. Once cleared of the switch, they will then reverse direction and shove the train up Bergen Hill on the Raritan River main. There are two additional SW900s at the other end so five of the six units on the entire RRRR roster were assigned to this one train.

Bob

We used this 45 tonner on the Yolo for a few years before the Geeps came on the scene. It would haul 15-20 cars at times into West Sacramento with no problem unless you lost one of the chain drives on the trucks.

Short answer to original question/title:  Yes, they most certainly can be.

I think the Union RR is all SW somethings.

 HEY RAILROADERS,

I want my next Loco to be a Santa Fe Switcher (either SW9 or SW1200), just like this one:

It'll be much smaller than my GP-60 or my GP-35, but as Alan Jackson reminds us:

"IT'S ALL RIGHT TO BE LITTLE BITTY!"

BAD ORDER HAL