Happy Birthday Amtrak

[Mike Kieran]

Today is Amtrak's 42nd Birthday. It doesn't look a day over 43.

[Green_Elite_Cab]

[jwb]

Some SDP40Fs staring at a P30CH, Redondo Jct 1981
   
Amazing how many loco types Amtrak has had that didn't work out!

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I just saw a Kaslo SDP40F kit on Ebay, complete with a sacrificial Athearn SD50 to power it. I'd ALMOST do it. I like the SDP40F, but they have no business under wire, and I gotta keep my costs low.


The P30CHs are cool too, American GK was supposed to make one along with their E60 kit, but they were not continued when Walthers bought them. In fact, there are photos of not only a P30CH model, but an imaginary "F30B", a 4 axle locomotive stylized off the P30CH.

Speaking of American GK and Amtrak designs that didn't work, #610 seemed to last long enough (I think it is the future for your #955!) to make it to the 2003 retirement of the E60s, though rebuilt as an E60MA in the meantime.

[jwb]

Los Angeles had some of the last SDP40Fs in service, running MU with F40s providing HEP:
   
Atlas did some Amtrak pointless-arrow GP7s in the old yellow box, but I never got one. All three ran in LA at various times: