AMTRAKwannabe
Norfolk & Western Lives
C'mon guys, lets get back in to this!
A&SE GE 44 Tonners in the old scheme, #50-54
A&SE GE 44 Tonners in the old scheme, #50-54
The Alabama & Southeastern RR WIP Thread (Large Screenies)
- Thread starter Southern1581
- Start date
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
Pretty solid rep of my old scheme. The crimson on the nose is a little different, but it's fine with me, we'll call it a variant made for the 44's. 
Now I have to make a friggin' history for 'em...I'll get back to ya on that.
I was just thinking about how dead this thread was myself. Not much to post in my sector, haven't gotten much done on the compact branch I was doing and I haven't gotten very far on the A&SE SD60M's I was doing. If I get some time I'll get back to work on the branch. It's almost (but not quite) screeny worthy.
Now I have to make a friggin' history for 'em...I'll get back to ya on that. I was just thinking about how dead this thread was myself. Not much to post in my sector, haven't gotten much done on the compact branch I was doing and I haven't gotten very far on the A&SE SD60M's I was doing. If I get some time I'll get back to work on the branch. It's almost (but not quite) screeny worthy.
AMTRAKwannabe
Norfolk & Western Lives
Back in 1983 the A&SE was looking for some light switching power and picked up some secondhand 44 Tonners from ATSF (451-465) and painted in A&SE colors, they haven't been repainted because they are reaching the end of their life on the A&SE and are planned to be scrapped in 2016 unless an repower program gets put into action.
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
44 tonners would've been retired a while back. The things are so dang small that they are practically unrepowerable (at least Autumnville couldn't find something to do with them). Btw, the A&SE was founded in 1981, and at 1983 we were saving up for the first 10 SD49's. Let's knock the year down to 1990, when we could actually afford them. We bought them because we needed something to navigate the insanely tight curves at a few of our new customers. There were 4 customers, 50, 52, 53, and 54 each had their own customer, with 51 as a backup/fill-in. We lost one of the customers in 2000 when they closed down, and 53 was put into storage. A second costumer burned down due to an oil leak in 2002, and 50 was stored. A third costumer converted to road service in 2003, and 52 was stored. A derailment severely damaged the last customer's rail loading area in 2005, and they couldn't afford to fix it, so we lost them as a customer, and 54 was stored. 51 and 53 were sold off to museum's in operating condition in 2008, we decided to try a 44 tonner slug with 50, but the attempt proved in-effective. She was slugged in 2007 and retired/scrapped in 2009. 52 was sold to a short line rr (can't remember which), but I do remember that we patched her number as 99. A&SE 54 is still stuck in the Autumnville deadline, retired, awaiting a buyer.
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
I'm slowly in the process of digging this project out of the grave (a deep grave, gonna need a crane). The Alabama Division hasn't been worked on in forever, cobwebs everywhere there. Conrailfan built a model railroad that is looking good, waiting on him to help me with a few dependencies and then I'll start getting screenshots of it out as well, and then probably straight to release. I still haven't shown off any screenshots of that branchline I was working on (to my knowledge at least), look for pictures of that coming soon. I have at least bothered to dust off an old reskin project. For those of you who remember A&SE 7172, the specially painted Gulf Shores High Line unit, I've gone back and redone it on a JR SD45. Screenshots below:
Hope you guys like the paint job. Anyways I'm excited to get back into this project. More to come soon!
Hope you guys like the paint job. Anyways I'm excited to get back into this project. More to come soon!
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
Decided to dust off the A&SE today and get some work in on it. Mostly was working on adding scenery to the town of Oak Grove where the Amtrak station is, and I think it's coming along pretty nicely. Let me know what you guys think.
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
Screenshots continued:
The trains we see here today are F432 north, lead by A&SE SD29-3 2692, SD33-3 3308, and SD50X 7019. As it leaves Oak Grove towards Autumnville, it passes a stopped southbound F498, whose crew has just returned from lunch and starts heading south towards Verbena shortly after the meet with Run 3 SD42-3 7212, Run 2 SD42-3 4278, and SD40-2 8511 for power.
The trains we see here today are F432 north, lead by A&SE SD29-3 2692, SD33-3 3308, and SD50X 7019. As it leaves Oak Grove towards Autumnville, it passes a stopped southbound F498, whose crew has just returned from lunch and starts heading south towards Verbena shortly after the meet with Run 3 SD42-3 7212, Run 2 SD42-3 4278, and SD40-2 8511 for power.
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
Made some more progress today, I've finished adding trees down one side of a 2 or 3 mile stretch of right of way between Autumnville and Brierfield, which is on its outskirts. I also touched up a bit of scenery in Autumnville itself, before gearing up to run some trains. Here are a few now, and I'm still going, so more to come later today!
With the winter months finally fading away, many of the winterized units have been laying over in Autumnville awaiting maintenance before being scattered back into the system until next winter. This means that the Autumnville dead line is full of sleeping SD29T-3's and SD60's. Also present are some Union Pacific visitors in the form of a SD60M and a SD70M, A&SE Saluting Our Troops SD41-2 8595 (you don't see that one too often...because it's camouflaged
), A&SE (FURX patched) SD40-2 6899, and several others.
Another shot from the Yard Tower. Also shows SW1500 1655 sitting on the MOW track with a short maintenance train.
More units on the deadline. SD39M 3845 is in town for its 92 day, and parked behind it are 2 of the 7 A&SE SD50X's. 7009 is in to have a traction motor replaced, and behind it is 7019, who was pictured just a few days ago on F432. Later on, the day the pictures were taken, 7019 suffered an engine failure just past Montevallo. They were unable to set out 7019, so instead they shut the locomotive down, and requested for a second set of helpers. SD49's 8935 and 8929 came about 30 minutes later to help get the train up Cheaha Pass to Summit Yard, where 7019 was set out. She returned to Autumnville two days later with southbound stack train I608, and has been laid up in the dead line since.
SW1500 1655 gets called up to take 3845 over to the shops.
1655 drags 3845 over Main Street towards the Autumnville Shops.
1655 parks 3845 in Shop 3, stall 3 for maintenance. Shop 3 has always been the primary rebuild shop for the A&SE ever since the shop complex was built back in 1991. In more recent days, the A&SE rebuild program has slowed, with only limited production of the run 3 SD42-3 still going in stalls 5 and 6 (A&SE 7219 is currently in progress in stall 5). Given the lack of rebuild traffic, Shop 3 has started doing 92 day maintenance to help the main shops keep up with the traffic coming down from Summit. Once that dies off, Shop 3 won't be doing too terribly much besides continuing the limited rebuild run of the SD42-3, and building new 18N-745E2A prime movers for the upcoming resumption of the SD77I program. 7700 won't be alone for long, 9 more SD75I's will be on their way to Autumnville soon for rebuild.
With the winter months finally fading away, many of the winterized units have been laying over in Autumnville awaiting maintenance before being scattered back into the system until next winter. This means that the Autumnville dead line is full of sleeping SD29T-3's and SD60's. Also present are some Union Pacific visitors in the form of a SD60M and a SD70M, A&SE Saluting Our Troops SD41-2 8595 (you don't see that one too often...because it's camouflaged
), A&SE (FURX patched) SD40-2 6899, and several others.
Another shot from the Yard Tower. Also shows SW1500 1655 sitting on the MOW track with a short maintenance train.
More units on the deadline. SD39M 3845 is in town for its 92 day, and parked behind it are 2 of the 7 A&SE SD50X's. 7009 is in to have a traction motor replaced, and behind it is 7019, who was pictured just a few days ago on F432. Later on, the day the pictures were taken, 7019 suffered an engine failure just past Montevallo. They were unable to set out 7019, so instead they shut the locomotive down, and requested for a second set of helpers. SD49's 8935 and 8929 came about 30 minutes later to help get the train up Cheaha Pass to Summit Yard, where 7019 was set out. She returned to Autumnville two days later with southbound stack train I608, and has been laid up in the dead line since.
SW1500 1655 gets called up to take 3845 over to the shops.
1655 drags 3845 over Main Street towards the Autumnville Shops.
1655 parks 3845 in Shop 3, stall 3 for maintenance. Shop 3 has always been the primary rebuild shop for the A&SE ever since the shop complex was built back in 1991. In more recent days, the A&SE rebuild program has slowed, with only limited production of the run 3 SD42-3 still going in stalls 5 and 6 (A&SE 7219 is currently in progress in stall 5). Given the lack of rebuild traffic, Shop 3 has started doing 92 day maintenance to help the main shops keep up with the traffic coming down from Summit. Once that dies off, Shop 3 won't be doing too terribly much besides continuing the limited rebuild run of the SD42-3, and building new 18N-745E2A prime movers for the upcoming resumption of the SD77I program. 7700 won't be alone for long, 9 more SD75I's will be on their way to Autumnville soon for rebuild.
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
Alright! I'm done with my railfanning in the Autumnville area, time to see what I caught:
The crew for southbound C582 gets their power ready to go. However, the UP SD60M won't crank (in other words I think I messed up the engine spec), so the crew sets it in the dead line, recranks the helpers from its journey to Autumnville, and leaves the ready tracks to go collect its load.
After collecting its cars, C582 heads south towards Verbena behind A&SE SD60 5998.
C582 leaving the yard, passing some of the fresh scenic work I did today.
Now out of the yard, C582 starts to build up speed.
C582 blasts through the suburb of Brierfield at track speed.
After this, I leave C582 and head back to Autumnville to see what I can catch next. It was all quiet for a while, but my patience was eventually rewarded as C40-8's 6306 and 6310 left the ready area to go to the Autumnville East Yard.
6306 backs down onto its train. Now it becomes train L223, the second of 2 daily interchange trains that work the A&SE West Yard, where the A&SE interchanges with CSX.
L223 slows drags out of the East Yard.
Up to yard speed now, L223 glides through the Main Street crossing.
Parting shot of L223 as it goes down the Central Yard bypass to the mainline, where it will cross over to main track 1 to go to the West Yard.
The crew for southbound C582 gets their power ready to go. However, the UP SD60M won't crank (in other words I think I messed up the engine spec), so the crew sets it in the dead line, recranks the helpers from its journey to Autumnville, and leaves the ready tracks to go collect its load.
After collecting its cars, C582 heads south towards Verbena behind A&SE SD60 5998.
C582 leaving the yard, passing some of the fresh scenic work I did today.
Now out of the yard, C582 starts to build up speed.
C582 blasts through the suburb of Brierfield at track speed.
After this, I leave C582 and head back to Autumnville to see what I can catch next. It was all quiet for a while, but my patience was eventually rewarded as C40-8's 6306 and 6310 left the ready area to go to the Autumnville East Yard.
6306 backs down onto its train. Now it becomes train L223, the second of 2 daily interchange trains that work the A&SE West Yard, where the A&SE interchanges with CSX.
L223 slows drags out of the East Yard.
Up to yard speed now, L223 glides through the Main Street crossing.
Parting shot of L223 as it goes down the Central Yard bypass to the mainline, where it will cross over to main track 1 to go to the West Yard.
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
Screenshots continued! Because all of my non existent friends (and viewers for that matter) on this forum want to see more screenshots! Yay!
After following L223 out of the yard, I catch some movement out of A&SE 8595. I catch it here with a drone shot, showing both the train and the yard, as well as the Autumnville skyline.
8595 and company roll past the original Autumnville shops. After this, they don't go too much further before stopping.
It is night time before 8595 does anything again. Here they are seen collecting a train in the Autumnville South Yard. Now they become southbound F373.
F373 departs the South Yard for Mobile, passing by the signal tower as they duck under the overpass.
F373 hits the crossover to access main 1. From here they will highball south. By tomorrow morning they should be on the approach to Mobile Yard.
That's all for now!
After following L223 out of the yard, I catch some movement out of A&SE 8595. I catch it here with a drone shot, showing both the train and the yard, as well as the Autumnville skyline.
8595 and company roll past the original Autumnville shops. After this, they don't go too much further before stopping.
It is night time before 8595 does anything again. Here they are seen collecting a train in the Autumnville South Yard. Now they become southbound F373.
F373 departs the South Yard for Mobile, passing by the signal tower as they duck under the overpass.
F373 hits the crossover to access main 1. From here they will highball south. By tomorrow morning they should be on the approach to Mobile Yard.
That's all for now!
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
I remember back in olden times when I actually would've been surprised to see no one show up to comment on the A&SE's progress. Now, I've just accepted that no one cares but myself, but I'm gonna keep posting anyway, because that makes me happy, and maybe sometime or another, someone will pick up interest.
Originally, today I was going to work on the Eastern side of Autumnville, which at the moment has no buildings and was originally going to be more woods. I got a road or two laid and put a new base texture down on it for its new purpose, but then I got bored and went to go finish the Autumnville engine shops. I'm actually really starting to get back into the lore of my fiction rr, so here's the story of the Autumnville shops.
When the A&SE first came into being in 1981, based on an old Southern RR branch line, they inherited a small, 6 track yard in Autumnville (which today has been greatly expanded and has become the Autumnville South Yard) as well as a small locomotive shop. They fixed up that little shop, and it served them well for a good while, its 2 stalls and extra track along side the shops handled the slowly expanding A&SE roster quite nicely. However, during rebuilding of the initial batch of SD42-3's (7170-7179), it became very obvious that larger shops would be needed. In 1990, construction started on the new shops on a plot of land near the Autumnville Central Yard. In 1992, the brand new, 10 stall Autumnville Engine Facility was opened. At that time, stalls 1-4 were for rebuilds, stalls 5-6 were the paint booth, and stalls 7-10 were general maintenance. We had another two tracks next to it which had our overhead crane for taking heavy parts off the locomotives. We also had a two track refueling pad on the other side of the shops. This setup prevailed until 2002, when we opened up Shop 2, the new rebuild facility. It had 6 stalls and could rebuild up to 10 locomotives at once, with an extra track on the side where the could strip down another 5 and have them ready to go. Our old crane was moved to this track. Then in 2008, we opened up another small building, Shop 3. This 4 stall building was added next to the first shop to aid in inspections and maintenance. In 2011, we opened up another building nearby to Shop 2, and at this point things get confusing. Due to the location of the new shop, a lot of the shop's trackwork had to be redone to get to the shop. Also, at this point, many of the shops were renamed. The 1991 shop remained Building 1, while the rebuild shop was renamed from Shop 2 to Building 3. Shop 3 became Building 4, and the new shops became Building 2. I don't know why it happened, ask corporate. The new shops were nice though, with 7 stalls with very nice capacity, and another overhead crane was added. At this point, all rebuilding work in Building 1 was suspended and relegated to Building 3's better suited shops (previously they collaborated to do the work), and stalls 1-4 in Building 1 basically became a covered storage area for engines waiting on maintenance or paint. The remaining functions of the shops remain the same.
Here are the original shops which we got in 1981 when we bought the branch. They are comfortably nestled between the East and South Yards. The tracks were maintained for a while for use as a storage area after the shops closed, but that discontinued in 1997, and the tracks have lay in ruin since.
This glorious assortment here is the current shop complex. The building up top is Building 3, the one on the far left is Building 2, the huge grey & white one in the middle is Building 1, and the small building to 1's right is Building 4. Next to 4 is the 4 track refueling pad for locomotives passing through.
I took some shots shuffling engines around in this facility. I'll post those separately shortly.
Originally, today I was going to work on the Eastern side of Autumnville, which at the moment has no buildings and was originally going to be more woods. I got a road or two laid and put a new base texture down on it for its new purpose, but then I got bored and went to go finish the Autumnville engine shops. I'm actually really starting to get back into the lore of my fiction rr, so here's the story of the Autumnville shops.
When the A&SE first came into being in 1981, based on an old Southern RR branch line, they inherited a small, 6 track yard in Autumnville (which today has been greatly expanded and has become the Autumnville South Yard) as well as a small locomotive shop. They fixed up that little shop, and it served them well for a good while, its 2 stalls and extra track along side the shops handled the slowly expanding A&SE roster quite nicely. However, during rebuilding of the initial batch of SD42-3's (7170-7179), it became very obvious that larger shops would be needed. In 1990, construction started on the new shops on a plot of land near the Autumnville Central Yard. In 1992, the brand new, 10 stall Autumnville Engine Facility was opened. At that time, stalls 1-4 were for rebuilds, stalls 5-6 were the paint booth, and stalls 7-10 were general maintenance. We had another two tracks next to it which had our overhead crane for taking heavy parts off the locomotives. We also had a two track refueling pad on the other side of the shops. This setup prevailed until 2002, when we opened up Shop 2, the new rebuild facility. It had 6 stalls and could rebuild up to 10 locomotives at once, with an extra track on the side where the could strip down another 5 and have them ready to go. Our old crane was moved to this track. Then in 2008, we opened up another small building, Shop 3. This 4 stall building was added next to the first shop to aid in inspections and maintenance. In 2011, we opened up another building nearby to Shop 2, and at this point things get confusing. Due to the location of the new shop, a lot of the shop's trackwork had to be redone to get to the shop. Also, at this point, many of the shops were renamed. The 1991 shop remained Building 1, while the rebuild shop was renamed from Shop 2 to Building 3. Shop 3 became Building 4, and the new shops became Building 2. I don't know why it happened, ask corporate. The new shops were nice though, with 7 stalls with very nice capacity, and another overhead crane was added. At this point, all rebuilding work in Building 1 was suspended and relegated to Building 3's better suited shops (previously they collaborated to do the work), and stalls 1-4 in Building 1 basically became a covered storage area for engines waiting on maintenance or paint. The remaining functions of the shops remain the same.
Here are the original shops which we got in 1981 when we bought the branch. They are comfortably nestled between the East and South Yards. The tracks were maintained for a while for use as a storage area after the shops closed, but that discontinued in 1997, and the tracks have lay in ruin since.
This glorious assortment here is the current shop complex. The building up top is Building 3, the one on the far left is Building 2, the huge grey & white one in the middle is Building 1, and the small building to 1's right is Building 4. Next to 4 is the 4 track refueling pad for locomotives passing through.
I took some shots shuffling engines around in this facility. I'll post those separately shortly.
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
Thanks!
As mentioned previously, I do have some shots of the shop switcher doing a bit of work. Here they are:
Shop switcher 1652 cranks over and gets ready to do some work.
First on today's to do list is grab SD29T-3 2501 from Building 2 and bring it to Building 3. Here is 1652 grabbing 2501 from stall 6 to bring to Building 3 for a bit more work before being released for service.
Here 1652 is seen shoving towards Building 3, passing both of the shop's overhead cranes.
After parking 2501, 1652 heads off towards the ready tracks near the South yard to pick up a delivery and take said delivery back to the shops.
Here, 1652 backs down toward the first 5 of an order of 9 SD75I's for rebuild. These will be rebuilt with 18 cylinder, 4750 hp 2 stroke prime movers, and all new electronics, to become SD77I's. The A&SE already has one, 7700. These here will be 7701-7706.
1652 crosses Main Street with the SD75I's in tow towards the shops.
1652 now pulls the 5 lumbering units towards Building 1 to clear the lead for Building 3.
1652 shoves the units into position under the overhead crane on the strip down track, track 7 of Building 3.
1652 breaks off from the 5 SD75I's and goes off in search of its next task. The SD77I's will be stripped down here on track 7 over the next few weeks, the they will be moved by the shop switcher into the stalls of Building 3, which should be finished with their inspection work on all of the winterized units by then. In the next few months, these beasts will come out even more powerful as the mighty SD77I. Which means that I have some skin work to do.
Hope you guys enjoyed.
As mentioned previously, I do have some shots of the shop switcher doing a bit of work. Here they are:
Shop switcher 1652 cranks over and gets ready to do some work.
First on today's to do list is grab SD29T-3 2501 from Building 2 and bring it to Building 3. Here is 1652 grabbing 2501 from stall 6 to bring to Building 3 for a bit more work before being released for service.
Here 1652 is seen shoving towards Building 3, passing both of the shop's overhead cranes.
After parking 2501, 1652 heads off towards the ready tracks near the South yard to pick up a delivery and take said delivery back to the shops.
Here, 1652 backs down toward the first 5 of an order of 9 SD75I's for rebuild. These will be rebuilt with 18 cylinder, 4750 hp 2 stroke prime movers, and all new electronics, to become SD77I's. The A&SE already has one, 7700. These here will be 7701-7706.
1652 crosses Main Street with the SD75I's in tow towards the shops.
1652 now pulls the 5 lumbering units towards Building 1 to clear the lead for Building 3.
1652 shoves the units into position under the overhead crane on the strip down track, track 7 of Building 3.
1652 breaks off from the 5 SD75I's and goes off in search of its next task. The SD77I's will be stripped down here on track 7 over the next few weeks, the they will be moved by the shop switcher into the stalls of Building 3, which should be finished with their inspection work on all of the winterized units by then. In the next few months, these beasts will come out even more powerful as the mighty SD77I. Which means that I have some skin work to do.
Hope you guys enjoyed.
My shortline holding company, Tennessee Pacific, along with R.J. Corman, jointly purchased the old Clinchfield line, and my railroad are now using the shops at Erwin as our new maintenance facility. We've been rebuilding old SD60's into almost identical clones of Norfolk Southern's SD60E's, but we call them SD60DCe and SD60ACe. The SD60DCe's use D.C. traction, and are intended for general freight service, while the SD60ACe's use A.C. traction and are used on our coal trains. SD60DCe's get the 61XX series numbers, while the SD60ACe's get the 62XX series numbers. Our fleet of old GP50's are getting rebuilt into two different groups: the ones in better condition get rebuilt into GP33ECO's, being numbered in the 33XX series. The GP50's in the worse condition are rebuilt into RSE-4C road slugs (RSE-4C = Road Slug, EMD, 4-axle, Cab-equipped) and are used on local freight services. The RSE-4C's are being numbered into the 34XX series. The only difference between our road slugs and other road slugs are that our road slugs' fuel tanks are used as an extra fuel tank for their GP33ECO mothers, using the same principals as the auxiliary tenders used by steam locomotives. Our old GE Dash 8-40BW's are getting rebuilt into Dash 8.5-40BW's, with the replacement of their old FDL engines replaced with newer, EVO engines. These are being numbered into the 41XX series. Some of our C30-7's are being rebuilt into AC30-7CW, equipped with AC traction, wide cab, and a GEVO engine. These will be used to haul coal trains, along with the SD60ACe's. These are going to be numbered into the 31XX series. The remaining C30-7's are going to be rebuilt into C30-7W, DC traction with a wide cab and an EVO engine. These will be numbered in the 32XX series. Some of our SD40-2's are being rebuilt into SD40-3's, SD41-2's, and SD42-2's, and SD33ECO's. SD40-3's are rebuilt SD40-2's. These retain their original numbers. The SD41-2's are rebuilt with a Caterpillar C18 and C175 engines, and numbered in the 42XX series. The SD42-2's are prototypes equipped with EMD's new 16-cylinder 1010 engine, and numbered in the 43XX series. The SD41-2's and SD42-2's are being used in an upcoming program to equip our SD40-2's with more fuel-efficient engines. The SD33ECO's are being used for yard service, coupled to YSE-6 (Yard Slug, EMD, 6-axle) yard slugs, rebuilt from second-hand SD40's and SD38's.
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Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
Nice stuff. A 265H in a SD40 (basically what the 1010t is) though...that poor SD40. That engine will murder it. Might work in a super modified SD60 with SD80 style radiators and the electrical system of the century though.
The A&SE Alabama division actually reaches up into Tennessee, so depending on where your line ends, we could interchange somewhere on the northern end of the line. And we will have some free stall space soon if you need help with those rebuilds.
The A&SE Alabama division actually reaches up into Tennessee, so depending on where your line ends, we could interchange somewhere on the northern end of the line. And we will have some free stall space soon if you need help with those rebuilds.
I made a few typos on my post. First, I would like to say that the standard 12-cylinder 1010 makes about 366.66666666 horsepower per cylinder. Because of that, the SD42-2's are equipped with a 8-cylinder 1010, which produces 2,933.33333333 horsepower. However, we managed to squeeze 66.66666667 horsepower out of the engine to get a total of 3,000 horsepower, producing the same amount of horsepower as a standard SD40-2. When the SD40-2's were rebuilt into SD42-2's, things such as enlarged radiators and upgraded electrical system were also taken care of. Also, the AC30-7CW is renamed CW30-7AC.
As for railroads in Tennessee, the closest one is the Tennessee Central Railroad, which runs from eastward from Ashland City, Tennessee, thru Nashville, and on over Walden's Ridge to connect to Norfolk Southern's 'Rathole' route at Harriman, Tennessee. Using a short Norfolk Southern route connecting Harriman to Knoxville, Tennessee, there's now a direct line between Nashville and Knoxville. This means trains travelling between the two cities no longer have to pass thru Chattanooga to get to each other.
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Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
Alright, so your line basically exists to bypass the northern terminus of the Alabama Division, which ends at Chattanooga.
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
No shots today, just a quick skin update. I've started the skin process on redrawing all the textures on the srs SD75I so I can make the A&SE SD77I's. Naturally I was planning to save all my work when I finished for the night, so naturally about 5 minutes before I planned to stop, gimp decides not to work anymore and I basically lost most of last night's work. Guess that means I just have to start again today.
I'm going to go ahead and clarify some more things in my original post. Once we determine which engine wins, the Cat C18-C175 combo, or the EMD 1010, the rebuilt SD40-3's will be rebuilt with the new engine and will become the same model locomotive that the prototype locomotves are. So, if the SD41-2's Cat C18-C175 combo wins, the SD40-3's and SD42-2's will be rebuilt into SD41-2's, and renumbered in the 43XX series. If the EMD 1010 wins, the SD40-3's and SD41-2's will be rebuilt into SD42-2's and will also be renumbered in the 43XX series. Also, I made another typo in my original post. In reality, the Dash 8.5-40BW is renumbered in the 42XX series, while the Dash 8-40BW's are numbered in the 41XX series. The SD41-2's are numbered in the 43XX series, to not conflict with the Dash 8.5-40BW, and the SD42-2's are numbered in the 44XX series, to not conflict with the SD41-2's. The SD40-2's are numbered in the 40XX series. The SD33ECO's are equipped with a regular 710 ECO engine and are being numbered in the 35XX series and the YSE-4's will be numbered in the 36XX series. Our ex-UP and ex-BN SD60 'Triclops' are being renumbered in the 63XX series. Our ex-BNSF SD75M's and SD75I's are being renumbered also. The SD75M's are being renumbered into the 75XX series and the SD75I's are renumbered in the 76XX series. All rebuilds, and the SD60M 'Triclops', SD75M's and SD7I's also get some new features while in the shops.
A microwave to heat up your lunch
A small refrigerator/freezer to keep your lunch cool
A coffee maker so you can have some coffee to wake you up
An air freshener next to the toilet in the short hood
Desktop control stands replaced with AAR type control stands
Finally, the C30-7W's are being reclassified as CW30-7's.
A microwave to heat up your lunch
A small refrigerator/freezer to keep your lunch cool
A coffee maker so you can have some coffee to wake you up
An air freshener next to the toilet in the short hood
Desktop control stands replaced with AAR type control stands
Finally, the C30-7W's are being reclassified as CW30-7's.
Southern1581
Pineapple approved!
Seems kinda cost ineffective to rebuild the same unit multiple times in a short span of time. From my point of view it would be simpler and easier to leave each set of units as it was rebuild the first time instead of re-engaging in a second costly rebuild program a few months later. Take the A&SE for example. All told, we have I believe 7 different rebuild variations of the SD40 and SD40-2 as well as a healthy fleet of regular SD40-2's. Instead of standardizing the rebuilds, we give each a unique role so it can make the most of what it was rebuilt to be. For example, the SD29-3 is a slightly lighter, 2900 hp version which has been regeared and optimized for high speed operations (although because I love the 29's so much they wind up doing other things), so a lot of SD29-3's wind up on hot shot intermodal service on the GSHL. The SD41-2 was a follow-up to the older SD31-2 project. Nothing came of it, so it's just a slightly heavier, slightly stronger SD40 with a special paint scheme (8595 is the only 41-2). The SD40A-4 is a version with higher generator output, 3200 hp, lower speed gearing, and increased cooling power, as well as stronger dynamic braking power. Originally, they were developed for braking use on the downhill slopes of Cheaha Pass, however we soon found them to be better suited to NoW use, so we put them in a light green version of the classic maroon scheme, and turned them loose, with the SD36X-3, another well developed variant which went through two phases, being our dedicated helper unit. There's more on the various A&SE rebuilds earlier in the thread if you're interested.