GGD El Capitan

YIKES.... that surprises me big time. I thought many more people would have reservations in for Amtrak than that.

I just cancelled my reservation for 3 Amtrak H-Level coaches & replaced it with an 8-car set in ATSF colors. I waited until MTH released their latest catalog. I prefer Amtrak & I was hoping to find a suitable 2-rail Amtrak locomotive that I could use with the Hi-Level cars but that didn’t happen. I am not adventurous enough to attempt the conversion of a 3-rail Amtrak locomotive to 2-rail. The way I saw it I had greater options in finding suitable 2-rail locomotives in ATSF colors in the Used market in different price ranges.

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

Just wondering (out loud) how many Santa Fe El Capitan sets have been ordered from GGD to date? 

 

Bueller?...   Anybody?...  Bueller?  

10X

My conversation with Jeff at JDs trains at York sounded like he was going to send all his orders in at the same time. So I suppose its possible that there's more Amtrak orders coming from dealers... I confirmed my Amtrak set with Jeff at York on thursday.

Curious.... if there's only 30 ATSF sets, whats the actual minimum for the Amtrak sets to be a go?

 Probably at least 10 sets or maybe at least 100 individual cars.  Let us hope dealers are holding back on orders because the current total is not sufficient for the project at all.

 

For all the hype this thread engendered it still does not equal the 1000 car minimum the builder demands.

 

 

 

All depends on Scott's ability to negotiate the builder into combining projects.  All previous combinations have been of similar cars (smoothside, single level) so whether the builder might require 500 or 750 or all 1000 to be the same because they are so unique remains to be seen.

We have about 50 sets reserved so far, which is a good indication we should be able to be up to 100 by the time these are in production later this year. Amtrak is another story, only 3 orders out of 50 for Amtrak. Not enough to bother with if it remains so low.

 

Scott - China

Oh crap Scott i forgot to get back tou you about my reservation. Ill get on that now

Hi I am really intrigued by this set but I have a few questions, (I'am glad that Scott has changed the line up). I model mostly , if not all Canadian Pacific, and am new to the ATSF.  With modelling The CP Rail I ended up having a lot of F units, both GM, and ALCO and FM. So I would like to know how correct a 1950's scene would be if the EL Capitan was pulled by ATSF PA's? The one engine I've wanted to get that I don't have.

I have photos of the Alco's pulling the El Cap. I happened mostly in the off season with the shorter and mix trains

Thank-you Matt, That is the helper reason to buy the GGD set, if could use/buy Pa's with it.
  Can you post some of your pics? They hard to find with the El Capitan. There are a few with them pulling other ATSF name trains.
cheers w 

If you go with Lionel PA's, go with the earlier set. The later ones have a huge white background under and around the Warbonnet emblem on the carbody.

YES.  ALCO PA's were used on rare occasions to power the El Capitan.  Shortly after I placed my order for the full 12-car El Cap set from GDD I bought an A-B-B-A set of the MTH Santa Fe Alco PA's.  I am currently adding sound to the B units and removing all 8  blind wheel sets and replacing them with metal flanged 44" wheels.  Then I will run the power/sound cables through the diaphrams so they are totally hidden.  After that I will add KD's and be good to go. 

Here is a thread we had about this train a while back

 

https://ogrforum.com/topic/o-scale-el-capitan

 

It has the requested photos in it on page 2 and 3

 

 

Thx people for all the help and reply's, it is much appreciated.

To add the sound to the "B" units, besides the speaker are you also adding a sound board ( what make?) or are you using the sound board in the "A" units. (the speaker ohms would be cut in half then and would be hard on the board life)
cheers w

The best engine to pull the GGD El Capitan is the MTH FP-45 30-2460-1.  This is the correct passenger version, produced only once.  A new one is one the bay right now.

FYI.

I had a look, thanks for the heads up on the FP-45 listing. $499.00 Dollars for a railking proto 2 (2005) is out of my league. I can get the new MTH ALCO PA 20-20311-1 set of 3 diesels with proto 3 for 200. dollars more (list price 729.00) if I wanted to. 
cheers w

I would jump on the MTH ALCO PA's      

 

That is the same set I bought and was able to pick up a matching B unit (20-20311-3) on ebay for $125.  (msrp is 199.95)

Early Christmas present from Scott Mann at GGD. The El Capitan cars may be delivered by February or March.

This proves that you have been a good boy this year as Santa does not want you to have to wait very long in 2015 to get yours, Jim. 

This has been a great thread with lots of information for those that want to model this train....thanks to all of you guys!!

 

Alan

So I saw in another thread that the Amtrak version was back on. I emailed Scott and he confirmed that ITS ON, and extremely small number are being made. The other thread says 6 sets.

 

Are any of the other 5 people on this forum?

Good for Scott. Now, what kind of diesel units do you plan on pulling that train with?

Until something else comes along.... Warbonnet F-7s. Either A-A-B-B-A or A-B-A-B-B

 

Don't quote me on the 6 sets.  That was the number I heard as an estimate.  I don't believe it is many more than that though.  I was not prepared to do diagrams in Amtrak and found out Amtrak would run about a month before painting diagrams were done.

 

As to power to pull these, the Yellowbonnet F7s were leased to Amtrak until 1973 for use on the train.  I've also seen numerous photos of these trains being pulled by Amtrak E8s on other routes where there are as little as 2 hi-level cars in an otherwise single level consist of cars.  The former El Cap cars seemed to have wandered a bit on the western routes prior to the introduction of the Superliners.  

 

An SDP40F would be ideal, but I don't think any of will see a mass produced one anytime soon.  Only three paint schemes that I know of - Amtrak, Santa Fe and EMD. 

Wouldn't that technically make 6 paint schemes? SDP40Fs were painted in Phase I, II and III, Didn't Santa Fe do them in blue and yellow before painting them in SuperFleet? Plus the EMD testbed loco in blue and white. I would love to see them done. Asked Scott about it at York one time and he said they could be done in brass for some astronomic price. 

Some kind of run of FP45, F45 and SDP40F would probably get you the requisite numbers if a builder is willing to accommodate the variations and do it all at once.

 

I'm just going to go with standard red nose warbonnets. There were so few Yellowbonnets (wasn't it just 3 or 4 of them?) that most of the photos you can find online are the red nose units.

True.  The SDP40F did receive Phase I, II and III paint.  I don't believe these got painted into the Super Service traditional Warbonnet scheme although they did serve until 2001.  However they did get the ill fated Kodachrome scheme. 

 

I ended up ordering my set in Santa Fe and picking up MTH Scaleking FP45s for power.  While the FP45s need a lot of work to make them more accurate, I will live with them for now.

glad to see this thread active again. Are we getting close??

The El Capitan is entering production now and will be complete the end of March, for an April Delivery. Add a few more weeks for the debacle at the ports.

 

Scott Mann - China

Jim,  can you pst a couple of pics of your MTH PA's?

Jonathan,

Just what was the Kodachrome scheme?

Norm

 

I'm going to have to correct myself.  No SDP40Fs (Designated SDF40-2 by Santa Fe) got the Kodachrome scheme as near as I can tell.  That was on FP45s in the 5900 numbering system.  However, interestingly enough I did find one painted in the Maersk scheme.  Interesting how much Santa Fe modified these units after receiving them from Amtrak.  Where are the Santa Fe experts when you need them?

The Maersk scheme was a one time photo shoot deal using a brand new GP60M #146 [primer paint fromEMD]painted in the Topeka shops for filming Maersk ads with a matching string of intermodal cars and containers at Cajon Pass site. Just after filming it was repainted to Warbonnet colors.BNSF Railway Brian Solomon pg 205 nice color pic. You are correct in that NRE painted a non operating SDP40 #6976 in the Maersk scheme.

SDP40Fs; 2 phase I and one phase II, all painted phase I.  Will actually be a combined train including a few Atlas Amtrak CZ cars per Amtrak's early whatever philosophy.

Scott Mann, with all the pics posted on the forum of the fantastic ToT, I'm getting a bit excited for the EL Cap cars, any new production updates or pics coming soon? 

 

Joe

MTH premier SF PA a-b-b-a set with 11 K-line 21" aluminum passenger cars.  Got all of them when they first came out, whenever that was!

MTH:

PA set came as A-B-A and bought another B.

K line had:

original 4 car set

one baggage car

hi level pass sets (2 sets , 4 total cars)

hi level pass set (2 cars, one a transition car)

Needless to say, being all aluminum, they are very heavy (K line even put people in them).  Makes a cool train.  They smoke pretty good pulling all that weight.

Sorry about the poor picture quality. (hey, it's mid-night, dark in here!)

 

MMM: obviously, I'm doing something wrong: I deleted the incorrect pictures yet they are still showing on the post!

That's better, figured it out.

 

 

 

 

So, for the 2nd run the Lounge is reservable as a standalone car.