Ahh, any Rio Grande fan knows of this locomotive. She is the last non-vandalized.....I mean patched Rio Grande locomotive left. She survived both the Southern Pacific Mergers and the Union Pacific Merger. She was until recently operating out of Utah. She was retired....sort of....and moved in a freight to Cheyenne.
I went on Saturday to tour the steam shop and roundhouse. I was surprised to see 5371 sitting inside the steam shop behind one of the E9B units.
nice to see her indoors, I had heard she was there, but did not expect her to be inside (let alone see her at all). her paint is in pretty poor shape I must say. It seems to be melted near the radiators. Feels almost like a turtle skin when you run your hand across it. Looks like she will need to be sandblasted and have a grinder across it in order to repaint the unit.
I asked the steam shop guys what the plan for the Unit was. First response was "Paint it Yellow?"
Haha, not funny. They are hoping she will remain in the heritage fleet for a while, they wanted to use her as a switcher. But they said that the thinking was that she will end up at the museum in Utah. I personally am hoping she will end up in Golden, but after reading some forums, Union Pacific did not seem thrilled to "donate" the locomotive. So if anyone has a few thousand dollars lying around to keep the Last true Rio Grande Unit in Colorado, maybe its time to pop up. Either way, they did say that she would NOT be scrapped, so don't worry too much about her
For now, she is safe and indoors
didnt get any pictures of the cab, but I have exterior shots. although I can say that a hole in the roof panel was fixed with a piece of duct tape
And the magnetic patch over the cab number, and the logo for 844 below it
Me and my friend Justin wanted to take it off and hide it make the Rio Grande people happy, we decided against it
I must say, 5371 looks a lot better then this poor F? B unit next to the roundhouse
Anyone want to help me reskin a model of the SD-40T? not sure if there are any good looking SD40T for Trainz, but I would like to do a reskin none the less
Another edit, here is a close up of the damaged paint....in case anyone wanted to see it up close
and I have a bunch more pictures if anyone wants me to post them
I went on Saturday to tour the steam shop and roundhouse. I was surprised to see 5371 sitting inside the steam shop behind one of the E9B units.
nice to see her indoors, I had heard she was there, but did not expect her to be inside (let alone see her at all). her paint is in pretty poor shape I must say. It seems to be melted near the radiators. Feels almost like a turtle skin when you run your hand across it. Looks like she will need to be sandblasted and have a grinder across it in order to repaint the unit.
I asked the steam shop guys what the plan for the Unit was. First response was "Paint it Yellow?"
Haha, not funny. They are hoping she will remain in the heritage fleet for a while, they wanted to use her as a switcher. But they said that the thinking was that she will end up at the museum in Utah. I personally am hoping she will end up in Golden, but after reading some forums, Union Pacific did not seem thrilled to "donate" the locomotive. So if anyone has a few thousand dollars lying around to keep the Last true Rio Grande Unit in Colorado, maybe its time to pop up. Either way, they did say that she would NOT be scrapped, so don't worry too much about her
For now, she is safe and indoors
didnt get any pictures of the cab, but I have exterior shots. although I can say that a hole in the roof panel was fixed with a piece of duct tape
And the magnetic patch over the cab number, and the logo for 844 below it
Me and my friend Justin wanted to take it off and hide it
make the Rio Grande people happy, we decided against it
I must say, 5371 looks a lot better then this poor F? B unit next to the roundhouse
Anyone want to help me reskin a model of the SD-40T? not sure if there are any good looking SD40T for Trainz, but I would like to do a reskin none the less
Another edit, here is a close up of the damaged paint....in case anyone wanted to see it up close
and I have a bunch more pictures if anyone wants me to post them
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She's a real beauty. They'd better take proper care of her.