Santa Fe F Units Unveiled

tomgears · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 2:02 pm

Not my photos, they just came through on railpictures.net. They are heading to Galveston RR Museum

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 151&nseq=4

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 155&nseq=0

cood101 · **Joined:** Tue Jul 05, 2011 1:18 am **Posts:** 198

They look really nice. Are they to run or be used as a static display?

DuesyJ29 · **Joined:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 7:52 pm **Posts:** 95

WOW those look great!!

elueck · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 9:30 pm

Since they are fully serviceable, I do believe that the museum will be using them on their daily trains at least occasionally.

Overmod · **Joined:** Thu May 24, 2012 1:37 pm **Posts:** 2492

Something to note about them is how neatly and carefully the 'modern' appliances have been added -- the ditch lights, in particular. Someone attentive to F-unit aesthetics did these.

Personally, I like the horn type and position, and would welcome any opinions pro and con about fitting a modern chime horn there as opposed to 'historical' equipment...

Mount Royal · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 10:11 am

Overmod wrote:

Something to note about them is how neatly and carefully the 'modern' appliances have been added -- the ditch lights, in particular. Someone attentive to F-unit aesthetics did these.

Personally, I like the horn type and position, and would welcome any opinions pro and con about fitting a modern chime horn there as opposed to 'historical' equipment...

I believe that the "modern appliances" were added by PAT or CDOT while in commuter service.

Pictured here in Thomaston, CT at RMNE. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2128464

...and enroute to be refurbed.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2551978

Unit heritage for the pair- ex-SP 6443, ex-WAG 2200, ex-PAT 6690, ex-CDOT 6690, RPCX 6690, and now ATSF 315.

ex-SP/TNO 365, ex-WAG 2300,ex-PAT 6691, ex-CDOT 6691, RPCX 6691, and now ATSF 316.

davew833 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:01 pm

While I realize that neither are historically accurate and while I love the warbonnet, I'm sorry it had to come at the expense of the F-units losing their previous McGinnis New Haven colors.

Mount Royal · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:25 pm

davew833 wrote:

While I realize that neither are historically accurate and while I love the warbonnet, I'm sorry it had to come at the expense of the F-units losing their previous McGinnis New Haven colors.

If it's New Haven F units you'd like to see, we (RMNE) have three FL-9s in the collection, including the very last F unit ever built (NH 2059). Go to rmne.org for more info.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:36 pm

From Trains Newswire today:

Quote:

[Museum board member Dr. Don] Harper said chair cars being refurbished for the museum in New Orleans, and they may link up with the F units and be brought to Houston in freight service, then make a special run from Houston over BNSF to the museum.

There are no solid plans for the units to operate, but they would be available for special excursions, or could operate over the museum’s quarter-mile track.

MEC_557 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 7:10 pm

Mount Royal wrote:

davew833 wrote:

While I realize that neither are historically accurate and while I love the warbonnet, I'm sorry it had to come at the expense of the F-units losing their previous McGinnis New Haven colors.

If it's New Haven F units you'd like to see, we (RMNE) have three FL-9s in the collection, including the very last F unit ever built (NH 2059). Go to rmne.org for more info.

Keep in mind too that 2 of the 3 FL9s we have ARE in McGinnis paint. 2002 and 2019 are in New Haven colors.

2019 sees service often on our train. 2002, the oldest surviving FL9 is currently stored in need of some minor work.

RMNE FL9s current numbers and thier original numbers:

CDOT 2002, originally 2005
CDOT 2019.............2049
Metro North 2033..........2059

Chemungvalleyrail · **Joined:** Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:12 am **Posts:** 90

As much as I love the Santa Fe, I personally would have had these two painted in original SP Black Widow paint as SP did go to Texas (one unit was originally T&NO), and the lack of BW painted cabs as of the moment.

The Arizona Eastern E8 is shedding BW for IC colors and the A-B pair at Sacremento looks very questionable.... There were 8 SP F7A cabs and 5 B's surviving - did we officlally lose a few?

Mount Royal · **Posted:** Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:22 am

I too would have preferred Southern Pacific paint, but Galveston was a Santa Fe town and the museum doesn't have any real SF power. I just hope they atleast give the units' heritage a "tip of the hat" on a sign or something.

Misteslaus · **Joined:** Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:41 am **Posts:** 1

The Museum will certainly tip its hat to the actual history of the units with a display board about each of them. The Museum is headquartered in the old Gulf Colorado and Santa Fe building at the end of the Strand in Galveston. GCSF was the Galveston based railway that eventually linked with the ATSF and became the Texas subdivision of Santa Fe. Trains 15 and 16 were the Texas Chief running to and from Chicago. (Hence the 315 and 316 numbers).

Galveston was served by a number of railways, but none with quite the style of Santa Fe. The Texas Chief ran with F units and with PAs. In the era of AMTRAK operations there were Yellow Bonnets too. While the Board knew that these would not be the perfect prototype ATSF locos, they are indeed beautiful to see. We might even post a "can you see the differences?" display to honor these locos and the actual Santa Fe ones. The GCSF often was served with left over units from other places which were very nicely kept up with - but sometimes not quite the same as delivered (the old Orient LInes steam engines for instance, never looked better than when running on the Gulf Division).

Stephen Duncan

Wowak · **Posted:** Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:34 pm

They look great. Hope they used Rustoleum.

filmteknik · **Posted:** Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:13 pm

Hope they don't scrap them because of a little water damage.

Steve