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Welcome to Switcher Saturday!! 10/12/24 Edition

IMG_0663 Celebrating the little engines that do BIG things!  

If you love those do all do anything locomotives that are the backbone of a railroad, you have clicked on THE thread that celebrates all things switching locomotives!   If you are new to this thread please consider posting a photo of your favorite switcher from your layout.  We'd love to see what you have!

A vast majority of us who frequent this thread love those small ( and not so small ) locomotives that can perform all the tasks given by any railroad.   Yep!  Switchers do it all ... switching in yards, at the point of way freights, industrial switching, switching at larger passenger stations, heading a MOW train ... including pushing snow plows, switching tight curvature on city streets & harbor areas, at the point of both commuter passenger trains and long distance passenger trains.  

Switcher Saturday  (SwSat)  welcomes  your photos, videos, and information/discussion  regarding switching  locomotives, steam, diesel, and electric  of all gauges and scales from Z - G  ... and even real life 1:1 scale too!  We'd be honored to have you join us by posting pics and videos of your switchers.  We'd also love reading any information regarding toy, model, or prototypical switchers.

This Monday York week begins!  AND ... with the opening of the fall York show train season is definitely in the air!   I'm soooo excited to be returning to the York Show on Friday, October 18!!   Be assured that I'll take plenty of switcher pics for those of you who are not able to attend the show.  They'll be posted on next week's SwSat.  

Today I'm showing " Switchers from Large to Small " as rostered on the Free State Junction Railway. If you wish, show the largest and smallest switchers, from your railroad's roster.  Have a most enjoyable and safe weekend everyone!!    Please keep in your thoughts the folks who suffer from the aftermath of the two most recent hurricanes.  

One for the road ( also general yard work, passenger commuter trains, road freights, way freights, etc. ) a Fairbanks- Morse Train Master.  This model is by Williams Electric Trains and is a terrific puller and most reliable!  As a young kid, when visiting department stores, train stores, and browsing the Lionel catalogue, my eyes were always drawn to the Train Master and in particular the Virginian version.   As my layout at the time was 027 my dad said that this locomotive would not be able to negotiate 027 curves so I never had a Train Master.    When I began building my railroad about 20 years ago, I knew the Train Master was a "must have" so here it is in all its' glory!

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This C&O 0-8-0 is for heavy yard operations, transfer freights, and even road freights.  Veteran brakeman Jake "The Brake" Willis rides the front step and conductor Ernie Greco stands beside the cab.  This scale model equipped with TMCC is by Lionel and is one of my favorite runners. I purchased this engine new back around 2007.  This locomotive was catalogued by Lionel around 2005 or 06 ( not sure which ) and has proven to be super reliable and a great puller/runner.  It's one of my favorites and will most likely be assigned to the new yard I'm building on my layout.  

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The GE 44 Ton Locomotive for industrial and lite switching operations.  This model is a WbB with sound.  A great runner/puller and very reliable. It doesn't run at super slow speeds, but looks great pulling a short freight on the Mountain Division of the FSJR. I bought this model new at York from Trainworld.  IMG_3762

The Plymouth Switcher has  many industrial applications such as mining operations.   An  0-4-0 C-16 brings a car load of logs across the bridge. This Plymouth model is by K line and is equipped with marker lights and smoke.  The 0-4-0 C-16 Dockside is by MTH.   I bought the K line used at The Great Scale Model Train Show held in Timonium, Md. It's proved to be reliable and I love the smoke output! IMG_1725

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New York Central EMD GP9 #6001 is an MTH Premier model (20-20549-1 with PS3) listed in the 2015 Volume 2 catalog at MSRP $479.95 and shown here on my 12’-by-8’ model railroad.

The New York Central Railroad rostered 176 GP9 locomotives in class DRS-9. They were built between 1954 and 1957 and had a 16-cylinder 567C turbocharged diesel engine with 1750 horsepower. Locomotive weight was 259,500 pounds and tractive effort was 64,750 pounds with a maximum speed of 65 miles-per hour. 3,626 were built by EMD at LaGrange, Illinois between 1954 through 1959.

MELGAR

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Good morning to all you folks out there in Switcherland!  Let us give thanks we’re not among the people harmed by the recent storms and can participate in our favorite Forum topic.

Patrick, thanks for “saving” me.  I didn’t have a chance to prepare some new material this week, but I just happen to have a large and small switcher comparison on hand.  The subjects of my post are my Lionel MPC era Southern Pacific Fairbanks Morse H-24-66 Trainmaster and my Williams Denver and Rio Grande General Electric 44 tonner.

The FM was a gift from a friend who never ran it.  After lubing some very dry gears, I found it’s a prodigious puller with its two Pullmor motors.  Strangely, for a loco that was probably near the top of the Lionel lineup, it’s not equipped with a horn.

My 44 tonner, Patrick, like yours, isn’t a good low speed runner and is prone to jerky starts and stops.  I learned you can mitigate this problem by pulling heavy cars or a longer train.  My DR&GW model pulls ten cars with ease around my O31 curves.

John

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@MELGAR posted:

New York Central EMD GP9 #6001 is an MTH Premier model (20-20549-1 with PS3) listed in the 2015 Volume 2 catalog at MSRP $479.95 and shown here on my 12’-by-8’ model railroad.

The New York Central Railroad rostered 176 GP9 locomotives in class DRS-9. They were built between 1954 and 1957 and had a 16-cylinder 567C turbocharged diesel engine with 1750 horsepower. Locomotive weight was 259,500 pounds and tractive effort was 64,750 pounds with a maximum speed of 65 miles-per hour. 3,626 were built by EMD at LaGrange, Illinois between 1954 through 1959.

MELGAR

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Mel always enjoy your post. I especially like the first pic looks like it’s in the Eastern states some where. Thanks for sharing.

@lee drennen -  Lee I just wanted to say how cool it is for me to know someone who feeds sheep, plays with Lionel and has a rooster crowing in the background.  I am a lifetime "city boy" and the closest I ever got to a farm was the Children's zoo and the picture of a cow on the milk carton. I love it!!  

Now for today, my switcher is the Williams 44 Ton center cab , this one in the livery of Southern Railway.  Southern is a common visitor to my railroad since I set it in Savannah, Ga where we have a family summer place.  Here we see the brakeman helping to get the locomotive ready for the day's chores.

Williams 1951 Southern 45 Ton Switcher

Here she is working the mornings switching assignment in the industrial area near the "Door and Sash" factory

Williams Switcher trackside scene

Best Wishes everyone

Don

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My wife and I took a trip up to Honesdale, PA to take a ride the Stourbridge Line fall foliage train. I was surprised at one of the engines being used - an ugly duckling - an EMD BL2. The former Bangor & Maine #54. I had never seen a real one. The BL2 brought us back to Honesdale while an EMD FP7 took us down to Hawley.

Charlie

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Here's a photo of the FP7.

PRR-9880

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Last edited by cpowell

I was trying to decide what to run today; and then UPS dropped off this giraffe car. So I decided to add it to the other cars waiting to go to the Christmas ready room.  So here’s my WBB PRR 44 tonner with a reindeer, elephant and giraffe in tow. Engineer Burt is hoping that he isn’t switched off the main; then he would have. to handle a watering stop.

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@lee drennen -  Lee I just wanted to say how cool it is for me to know someone who feeds sheep, plays with Lionel and has a rooster crowing in the background.  I am a lifetime "city boy" and the closest I ever got to a farm was the Children's zoo and the picture of a cow on the milk carton. I love it!!  

Now for today, my switcher is the Williams 44 Ton center cab , this one in the livery of Southern Railway.  Southern is a common visitor to my railroad since I set it in Savannah, Ga where we have a family summer place.  Here we see the brakeman helping to get the locomotive ready for the day's chores.

Williams 1951 Southern 45 Ton Switcher

Here she is working the mornings switching assignment in the industrial area near the "Door and Sash" factory

Williams Switcher trackside scene

Best Wishes everyone

Don

Thanks Don for your complement. It was a beautiful Early morning so I left the door open to the garage but I forgot about the Rooster going to crow while recording. The 44 tonner looks great your really getting good capturing some great scenes. Thanks for sharing.

@cpowell posted:

My wife and I took a trip up to Honesdale, PA to take a ride the Stourbridge Line fall foliage train. I was surprised at one of the engines being used - an ugly duckling - an EMD BL2. The former Bangor & Maine #54. I had never seen a real one. The BL2 brought us back to Honesdale while an EMD FP7 took us down to Hawley.

Charlie

BAR-54

BAR-54_Nose

Here's a photo of the FP7.



Hard to pass up a F body diesel but as a dedicated BL-2 fan I'm all in

Thanks for sharing Charlie.

@cpowell posted:

My wife and I took a trip up to Honesdale, PA to take a ride the Stourbridge Line fall foliage train. I was surprised at one of the engines being used - an ugly duckling - an EMD BL2. The former Bangor & Maine #54. I had never seen a real one. The BL2 brought us back to Honesdale while an EMD FP7 took us down to Hawley.

Charlie

BAR-54

BAR-54_Nose

Here's a photo of the FP7.

PRR-9880

Charlie - Thanks for posting these pics .. especially the BL2!!!   As the old saying goes " beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and when I laid eyes on  your pic of the BL2 pulling the Stourbridge Lion I saw nothing but pure beauty!!!  I love the EMD BL2!!!!  Now I have a fantastic reason to revisit Honesdale, Pa.!  

By the way, I have a very good friend whose  great great great grandfather was the engineer on the original Stourbridge Lion.  

Last edited by trumpettrain

I like the "large and small" theme for today, Patrick, and I'm going "large" for today's SWSAT Sunday supplement. Though I featured my MTH PS-1 Train Master last week, I'm featuring her again because she's gotten "new and improved" LED headlights. Here she is pulling a "Blue Comet" excursion featuring beer for the lounge car and various stops along the way:

The new headlamps are, once again, Evan Designs 5mm solid "bulb" LED 7-19V universal kits, originally suggested to me by @Sitka and @WesternPacific2217. I'm not sure why MTH set the lighting up as they did on this loco, but the original headlights consisted of GOW bulbs that, supplied with less than 1.5VDC, were the dimmest of all the lights on the loco. This had always bothered me. Before and after:

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It took some doing to find a good power source on the "motherboard" which turned out to be an open socket associated with the battery charging system allowing me to avoid cutting any wires. An added bonus is that the 20 mA headlight LEDs serve to monitor the BCR charging without affecting its performance. The only downside is that the LEDs are not directional, but the far more realistic intensity is well worth both headlights being on while the locomotive is in operation, especially when running at night. I also had to adjust the lighting mounts on the chassis to get the LED's perfectly aligned with the headlight openings on the shell from which I removed the lenses. I stayed with chassis-mount for the LEDs so that the shell could still be lifted completely off for routine maintenance.

Bottom line, though, is that I'm even happier with my Train Master now!

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@cpowell posted:

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Unless I saw one as a child in KC MO/KS and just didn't know what I was seeing... I've never seen a BL2 in reality. Pictures only.

They are a very interesting engine and historically significant. (The transition engine between EMD's car body F types and their hood GP types.)

I would like to see one up close and personal "one of these days".

I've read in railroad mags that the crews that ran them thought of the BL2 as "kept everything bad about a covered wagon, and made it worse.".

LOL!

I can see how they would think that!

Andre

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