08-31-2012, 08:16 AM
Your idea of painting Bachmann 70-tonners got me pretty interested, and I checked my file of magazine articles. There have been major articles on the M&ET, one in MR and two in RMC, all covering the 70-tonner era. What they say about the use of the locos is that the line runs three shifts daily, two jobs per shift. Each job normally used two or three 70-tonners in MU, exactly how many depending on the work each job had. One job switched the industries, and one job handled the runs to the SP/UP or ATSF interchanges. When the locos were MUed, they always ran with cabs at the ends of the consists for grade crossing visibility. It seems to me that for the locos you now have, you're in good shape to have two locos on one job and three on the other. Photos indicate the M&ET is very similar to the LAJ in scenery and industries.