New focus, new proto-freelance scenario/railroad

[Deleted]

I'm not giving up my Copper State Railway. I am an eastern modeler though and I really want to model my radix in the east. CSR really does not fit an eastern setting though. So I have come up with a new scenario/railroad to model. Not really a new railroad, but a continuation of an existing fallen flag. I am also going to change my focus on the locomotive builder that my road uses. I am a huge Alco fan. I just have not modeled it because there really is not a lot of I formation on it. But I am going to give it a go and see how far I can take it.

One of the things I promised myself is that if I were to proto-freelance, the scenario has to be believable. I am stretching the acquisition of the motive power a bit.

OK, so here is brief summary of it. Monongahela is the road. Basically it goes like this and naturally in my world a few things are not the same as reality. When NS and CSX dismantled Conrail, one of the provisions in the deal was that a private company purchased the old Monongahela line as well as the. Name. Naturally a the motive power was gone from the old MGA. Nowhere in the deal was there provisions for motive power to be assigned to this new company. This is where I am stretching the acquisition of motive power. Conrail still had a number if old locomotives in there storage/dead lines. They still had all 15 of the C636's. Eastern shortlines are notorious for preserving Alco's. same for the new MGA. Nine of them are still in running condition with a little maintenance. The rest are used for spares. MGA purchased all 15 for $30k. The locomotives that were in running condition were towed to a rebuild facility to bring them up to current FRA standards and were given a clean bill of health and a new paint job prior to the NS/CSX deal and made ready for their first day of service. The non running parts units were towed to The MGA shops and are in line to be stripped for usable parts and the rest for scrap.

That is the basics of it. I still need to fine tune the storyline, but that is half the fun.

I have been modeling EMD for so long I also wanted to find a reason to now model Alco. I love the looks of the C636 and with the new Bowser model coming out, thought it is a good time to do it. My time frame takes place in the late 1990's

[catt]

Will you be using the MGA logos or making up your own?

[jbovinette]

I can't wait to hear the rest of the story. Sounds great so far. Love Alco's.

[antlorch]

What if you had a parent company ,say like RailAmerica is ,and you owned both railroads maybe under a common paint scheme but use different names for each railroad with some sub letter for the parent company on the cab side or something. That way if you get tired of modeling one you can change to the other. Just brainstorming out loud. Heck you could keep them both seperate completely and just add sub lettering showing they are owned by one parent company.

The possibilities are endless and that would still be prototypical.

[slowfreight]

You have a lot of room in choosing parent companies, as I recently learned that Alco-owned shortlines are a very incestuous business. Folks who own one tend to own a piece in another. The grand puzzle including GVT, M&E, LA&L, WNY&P, A&M, and B&H all kinda owning a little bit of each other. Feel free to assume 2 or 3 went in together to buy the Monongahela and you can source the C636s from wherever you want.

[Deleted]

Slowfreight, thanks for the information. It is great to be a part of a group that has so much knowledge. Since I do not have any. I will take the position that the "new" MGA is part of this Alco brotherhood in the east and barrowing Alco knowledge to keep the beasts alive.

Catt, I will change the look. The word MONONGAHELA will go on the long hood. PC style numbers on the side of the cab. I am trying to come up with a new logo to be placed on the end of the long hood. The look is going to be somewhat like Penn Central, but I do not know how to incorporate a logo on the long hood end like PC had. I have a lot of time to work it out though.

Anthony, the Copper State Railway is going to stay its own entity. I am still going through with it. This new venture is because my real region that I want to model is eastern and I really wanted a reason to start modeling Alco's and coal hauling.

I have a lot of research to do, but ther eis a lot of information out there on the MGA and I also have the Monongahela book to help with the regional info.

[mandealco]

Hi Brian
What a great idea. More Alcos. Your concept is a little like the WNY&P. It is owned by the LA&L, which supplied the initial power, and as mentioned, they had some common ownership with the M&E.

There are some plausible second hand Alco fleets that could contribute to your big Alco roster. The Cartier kept several "Super-7" style upgraded M-636s, long after the 8 that ended up on the WNY&P.

GE still has an upgraded prototype at Erie that was a former BC Rail M-630.

Several years ago, a leasing company bought back some Hammersley Iron SD-50s from Australia to add to its lease fleet. One could imagine some of the unrebuilt Alcos (Alco/MLW-Goodwin) could have been brought back as well. Some had interesting modifications.

If your Monongahela has an affiliation with the D-L, then some of their power could be there at "start up".

Ed Bowers has a couple of big Alcos in his possession, including IIRC a former Union Pacific C-630, which he bought from the Cartier.

I could go on, but I should do some work!!!!

Awesome concept Brian, have fun with it.

Cheers
Steve
One can never have too many Alcos.

[Randy Earle]

I've been coughing on ALCO smoke all day. Hop in, I'll take ya for a spin.

[georgiaroad]

I would advise moving your history at least back into the late 1980s or early 1990s. In this case, the M was never bought by Conrail in the first place, but purchased by either one of the major coal producers on the lines or a consortium of them. From my google research, after nearly drying up in the 1970s, the M came back to profitability in the 1980s. The cash starved PL&E sold its interest to Conrail, which by this time gave CR the PRR, NYC and now PLE share of the railroad , leaving only the B&O with minor interest. CR simply merged the railroad to increase its own portfolio. That is the real history...

www.american-rails.com/monongahela-railway.html

My advice and freelance suggestion is that Consolidated Coal stepped in and bought the PLE interest, maybe even the remains of the PLE itself (this would effectively give the coal a Great Lakes terminal where it could be shipped out. During this time there were quite a few ALCO and MLW units laying around all over the place, as they were being purged from the Class ones for good (CP and CN were one of the last). As for the logo, look at the original logo on the link I provided...since you are going ALCO, go retro. What you are looking at is your own version of the TTI in Kentucky, which found a niche moving coal from one side to the other on track that nobody really wanted (PL&E leftover which became Fore River Railroad, if I recall correctly) Your history would take over just before the Super-Seven GEs were bought. The fact that M opted for rebuilt power says they were looking a good return without paying out the farm, so to speak. Knowing how coal companies are, a group of ALCOs might be the cheap way out if you had a good shop with ALCO familar mechanics and fitters. One other thing you might consider as the 1990s wore on is being a connection for double stack traffic or something like that if you have connections that fit. The question would be what actually runs on the former M during the 2000s. One of the best examples of the kind of operation you are looking for is the A&O out of Grapton, VA. Trains had an article. The original had its ups and downs, even having WATCO give it up in favor of a CSX backed A&O of PAL family roots, which continues today.

Being a one commodity railroad such as this railroad would be, it is either boom or bust. The MO (new reporting marks, or " The Moe" as the locals call it) would likely look for cost effective ways in motive power and operations to conserve capital for the lean times. The SD38s you like could actually be assigned to the old PL&E lines (maybe the FO or "FOE" as it is known (not the MO-FO for obvious reasons). These would mix on certain trains, or do switching in the yards to keep down the complaint about those "d--n ALCOs smoking up the city all the time banging around coal cars." The ALCOs smoke less at speed pulling, so they would find their way on the unit coal trains more than not. This would require the big ALCOs to pull the tonnage of a modern RD-4 and Top Gon coal trains (what if the Moe bought a bunch of the Top Gons, had had their own in house rebuild like NS...)

Here is an idea that popped into my head. Since you are a kitbasher extraordinaire, how about a train set of ACF coal cars (the blue looper cars on Apache). They could be the gray loopers or some such. I am working on some for the Georgia Road. With Apache drying up, there are about 150 cars soon to be on the lease market...

For a scheme, I see retro M like was on the sharks, or maybe something similar to the BRC scheme, or better yet the old NAR in Canada--they even had a few SD38s I think...




Here is the NAR scheme look at the nose--the MRY diamond could be adapted here...Cool colors too...



With all the natural gas working around the area, you could easily have pipe trains, fracking sand and a bunch of other such moves in current day. I think you ought to buy up all the BCOL MLW and ALCOs--imagine mid-train cabless locomtives---would be something!

H in AL

"We through playin now"---Minne Pearl

[Randy Earle]

I would include the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie also. This would give you access to the dock at Ashtabula Ohio.

[slowfreight]

What time period do you want to model? I've been hearing rumblings lately that Alcos are not hugely compatible with Positive Train Control, and if you had to have your trains run over any PTC-equipped lines you'd have to get creative. One idea that was floated was to create something like a cabbage to couple in the front that was PTC-equipped. It'd just be one more cool thing to have to add to the operation.

Meanwhile, I remember reading that NYS&W tried to buy big C630-type stuff from Conrail to use on the Sea Land stack trains, and they would have run through on CSX. The idea was nixed because the fuel fillers weren't compatible with CSX, but it's one more thing to think about doing with your Alcos.

[EMDX6043]

Wouldn't it be easier to just say ALCo is still a manufacturer??

[Deleted]

On my way back to Greensboro tonight I gave a lot of thought to this new railroad. I am having my own issues with it being that I have to make up to much stuff to make it a viable road for me to model. With the CSR, I only had to change ownership. Infrastructureand customers were already there. With this monongahela, I have to change a lot more and that bothers me. I think this is going to stay on paper for a long time.

[c415rock]

Hi Brian,

I like your idea of the new Monongahela. I would suggest you take a look at the history of the Reading & Northern RR in NE Pa. If you look at there history they come from much smaller roots then what you envision for your Monongahela, but they have grown into a major coaling railroad ( you might even say they are the reason anthracite coal is still alive in Pa ) and a 1st class regional railroad.

They started off with a bunch of rag tagged used diesels EMD & GE and have grown from there. To purchase more modern used locomotives and rebuild them to continue to grow as a railroad. So your Monongahela could have started out with used Alco's and continued to purchased larger higher horse power Alco's to rehab as traffic grew to replace the current fleet.

Another twist is you could have a in house re-builder, someone correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe RMDI re-builder located in the Pittston yard of the R&N is owned by the R&N.
Maybe Rudy knows the answer to this.
So if you wanted you could have a Copper State Railway engine coming or going from rebuild. Which would be plausible in real life.

This goes to show that there is a prototype for what you are looking to do in your time frame. As for the name it would be very plausible for your railroad to have bought the Monongahela name from who ever legally owned it.

Take a look at this link and I think you will like what you read.

www.readingnorthern.com/history.html

Hope this helps to get railroad back off the paper and on to the tracks.

Erik

[milw199]

Oct 19, 2012 17:51:33 GMT -5 EMDX6043 said:

Wouldn't it be easier to just say ALCo is still a manufacturer??

The parts are still available. Have to go through Fairbanks-Morse now.
www.fairbanksmorse.com/locomotive/