O Scale El Capitan

Lets talk

KC Chief, I sent you an email, if you didn't get it my email is in my profile

Matt, if things don't pan out between you and KC Chief, I too have a complete set in storage, that has never been out of their boxes.  I may be interested in selling them.

 I don't have a layout, therefore having all the K-Line stuff I do is just over-kill.

Barstow Depot

I looked for your email address but did not see it in your profile. Mine is in the profile. Do you have any of the K-Line ATSF 4 bay hoppers k-6244-1051 or the 2 bay ATSF Black Bonnet hoppers -6242-1051 that you might be intrested in selling?

Barstow, send me an email

Popsrr, I only have the ATSF 2-Bay Outside Braced die cast hopper types.  I didn't buy any of the Black Bonnet stuff.

Matt, I just posted my email address.

BARSTOW DEPOT, THANKS FOR YOUR REPLY.

So I'm starting to digitize my dads train photos from the 60's and he tells me he has photos of the El Capitan bi-level being pulled by Alco's. when I find them i will share

THAT would be unusual.  I thought the ATSF kept the PA's off the SC/EC by the time the bi-levels came along.

I will see if he can find them this weekend. Ive got a mix bag of photos to do this weekend but I will see what if I can get those in. He says he has them so I believe it, he took thousands of photos back then that nobody has seen

Matt,  those should be some great photos.  I'm looking forward to seeing them, as I bet others are too. Will you be doing a DVD of your photos to sell?

PAs pulling the high level El Capitan would be a beautiful sight.

Here is my consist using Lionel F7s, and Lionel/MTH cars.  Most of the cars are Lionel except for the first baggage and the last Hi-Level Step-down car.  All cars are prototypical numbered.  I based this consist via this web page:  http://www.kls2.com/~karl/rr/atsf/atsf-elcapitan-1956.html

Barstow, I haven't thought about it, my biggest goal right now is to get them digitized and then I can all the info abotu where and when they were taken. My dad is 71 and even though he is in good health and I hope he stays around a lot longer this is something I want to get done. Among what he photographed is big steam on the UP including the big boys at the Cheyenne roundhouse , Turbines on the UP, Santa Fe passenger trains, SP passenger trains lots and lots of PA photos he has thousands of photos all shot on medium format. Once I get them digitized and water marked I will post them for viewing and possible for sale. I would also love to get him to display his builders plate collection and his railroad collection

Allan very nice Santa Fe passenger consit. Thanks for sharing with us.

Matt yhe pictures of your dadswill be a great collection. I have a set of PA's also to pull my various Santa Fe Passenegr cars with. I have been thinking of running a Santa Fe Consit of a couple of bagage dars a transition car, Then Step down Hi Level then several more Ji Levels then another transition car and then Vista domes both fukk length and partial ending it with a partial vista fish tail observation car like the CZ had. It won't be protypical but it is what I would like. I will use the PA's. E-8'sand E-6's in ABBA to pull it.

Pops, its your little railroad you can run whatever you want. I used a coal turbine to pull a passenger trains last month

Matt that is right. it's nice have all the pro typical items but if it makes me happt that's how it will run. I probably have enough 21" K-Line ATSF to make UP most any arrangement I want. I just think they are a beautiful set and to mix various Santa Fe power with them looks AWESOME to me.

Allen, are those high level cars K-line?

 They are not K-Line cars.  They are the 7 car Lionel Set (4-car (6-39129), 2-car (6-15125), Station Sound Diner (6-15397)) plus an extra Coach I converted to the front Step Down car with a new number, and an extra MTH Coach (the last car) I converted to the back Step Down car.  The first baggage car is MTH, and the next two cars (baggage and crew cars) are Lionel cars from their 18" El Capitan sets that I re-purposed for this consist.

Allen, that's a great looking El Cap set.  Are the high level cars 21 or 18 inches. Regardless,  I think they look better than the K-Line cars.

WOW.     I can't wait to see those.  When I was a kid, growing up in Forest View Illinois,  our house was just 1/2 block north of the Santa Fe main line.   I seem to have a memory of at least one occasion seeing the "El Cap" heading west out of Chicago being pulled by Alco PA's.  

This sticks in my mind since seeing Alco War Bonnets were VERY rare.  I have been a Santa Fe nut for over 60 years and I have never seen a picture or film of Alco's on the "El Cap".  This would be a real treat and also justification for purchasing an A-B-A set of Alco's

for the point on my El Capitan.

If you could email me a picture or two I would be forever grateful.

Thanks in advance.

Now, some of the High Levels did get of the SAN FRANSCICO CHIEF, and the TX CHIEF.  The TX CHIEF did get the passenger GE's.  Did the SFC get Alcos?  The PA's tended to migrate to the FAST MAIL.  The SFC did follow the route of the FAST MAIL.

The Lionel Cars are 18".  Per their web page, they studied the real car plans and builders photos when designing the cars, so I think they are pretty accurate other than being 3 inches shorter than the prototype.

Was looking brought the pics today and sure enough the west bound was pulled by the Alcos, obvious by the cloud of black smoke following the train and the east bound was pulled by the f units both trains a mix of bi levels and super chief cars taken in New Mexico 

Matt what configuration were the PA's and F Units running? ABBA, ABA, AA?

I will let you know as soon as I get them into the computer. I was looking at contact prints with a magnifying glass so it was not that easy to see. I will say this, my dad took a lot of great photos. El Cap in Raton Pass was on the same sheet. Its a shame that film and developing cost so much back then or there would be so many more. I will see if I can get through the book I have by friday and get into the book with the El Cap this weekend.

Very nice video Barstow!!  Both Lionel and K-line used the Amtrak Superliner cars to produce their Hi-level El Capitan cars.  If you compare the Superliners with the Hi-level prototype you will see right away the differences.  Regardless, both the Lionel and K-line cars are nice.  By the way, I think Allan a couple of posts above meant that the Lionel cars were three inches shorter than full length cars.  This would make them 12 feet shorter than the prototype...

Alan

Allan do you have any pictures of the transition car you created? I would like to build one myself as I refuse to pay $600+ for the K-Line car, when I can find one. 

I emailed Scott, if you're interested in a set, you should do the same.

Doug,

Here are some pictures.  What I did was cut out the doors and the space below it, glued the door at the bottom of the hole I created, and moved the diaphragm to down.  Lastly, I used Styrene to cover the hole at the top where the door used to be.

The pictures below are of an MTH undecorated Super Liner that I changed to the step down, painted, decaled, and added people (RMT People).  If you want, I can take some pictures of the Lionel car I moved the door on this evening. 

Thanks Allan,

Do you have any pictures of the transition car? What did you use to make the piece for the roof of the car?

Doug,

I forgot to include the Crew Car. I made the cowling out of Styrene with an inner rib structure.  I have it affixed to the car using double sided tape.

Here are the pictures - the second one also shows the Lionel Superliner I converted to a step down car.:

Nice job Allie.

I think williams did a set of bi-level cars for ATSF and Amtrak.  But i don't think they were scale, and if they were for Bilevels or Superliners.

As promised here is the first photo I cam across of the El Cap behind PA's. This is somewhere in California in 1966 behind an A-B-B-A set. According to my dad, he saw the El Capitan behind Alco's on 4 or 5 separate occasions in a one year period. It was not that "rare" of a site to see them pulling the El Cap.  The Santa Fe rarely if ever mixed equipment so they were almost always in a complete consist.

A BIG, BIG THANK YOU TO BOTH YOU AND YOUR FATHER.

158' high in O scale... now this is an El Cap i'd really like to see modeled!

Actually, El Capitan is about 3,000 feet tall on its tallest face.  There are 48 O-scale feet in one actual foot.....so....3,000 divided by 48 equals 62.5 feet.  If modeled in O-scale, the El Capitan model would be 62.5 tall....still something that would most likely be the focal point of anyone's model railroad!!

Alan