One of two Alco C 420s bought for the Monon's "Thoroughbred" Passenger train, that ran from Chicago to Louisville and return. These two were different from the rest of the Monon's C 420 fleet, in that they had high short hoods to house the steam generator. The color scheme was gold and black, and made a very nice looking train. Every thing in this photo is easy to model, and fits in the Model Railroader magazine's "Pike Size Train" category. The exception to the "easy" is that high short hood on the C 420s. All Monon Alco C 420s that were on the property at the time of the merger with the Louisville & Nashville went directly into the L & N Alco fleet. While photos of the short hood of these units in the Monon paint scheme may be difficult to find, plenty of photos of them exist in the L & N schemes. The point of my comment is that not all railroads ran Streamlined "passenger" Diesels and light weight Stainless Steel cars. For those model railroaders that have their own road name and paint scheme, this little train is totally believable.
|
| Posted by on February 7, 2010 | |
Nice shot of a great little train, Lin! I never was able to photograph the Thoroughbred with the Alco C420s---one of life's many regrets. Notice the baggage/RPO behind the engine; by the following year, the US Postal Service had really started to ax mail on passenger trains, starting with en route first class sorting (the RPOs), and then "storage mail" (magazines, newspapers, bulk mail, etc.). The number of train discontinuances really snowballed after that, since the "head end" business provided most of the revenue to keep trains like Monon 5 and 6 running. Just ahead is VI Tower, which controlled the junctions with the Monon, B&O and Southern at the west end of "K&I Bridge" in New Albany.
|
|