Galloping Goose


RedRyder77

Member
I was browsing around on Trainworld looking through the MTH stuff and I saw a few of the Galloping Goose units. I'm really just getting familiar with MTH O gauge stuff and I've been a Lionel guy my whole life--I don't ever remember seeing Lionel put one of these out. Very unique and cool looking "engine" if that's what you would call it.

I began to read it's history and I was a bit confused. It sounds as if these were cars developed by and for RGS to get around track that was poorly maintained. When I saw the picture it looked as though it was coupled to a small freight car but the more I read it's looking like this was a passenger only vehicle. So I'm guessing this was to get maintenance workers to where they needed to be on the rails?

I was also slightly thrown off by the road signs. I saw the RGS, then an M&M's version, which is obviously a novelty of sorts--but then Alaska. Is this just done for the sake of having it in Alaska's sign and colors or did Alaska actually utilize them? Going back I thought they were solely for RGS. Was RGS tied to Alaska at any point?

Thanks!

Jess
 
This perfectly illustrates the "problems" in making a one off unique model. Any Galloping Goose that is not in RGS paint is what we call a "foobie". This is a model painted into a RR scheme that the prototype never had. In this case it's doubly a foobie as the Alaska RR doesn't have any narrow gauge track. Manufacturers do this to try to sell more models to offset the cost of the dies and molds needed to make the model.

Just about all manufacturers, at one time or another, have made foobies. Many of them, even in this age of prototype specific models, still sell foobies for the same reason.
 
I was browsing around on Trainworld looking through the MTH stuff and I saw a few of the Galloping Goose units. I'm really just getting familiar with MTH O gauge stuff and I've been a Lionel guy my whole life--I don't ever remember seeing Lionel put one of these out.
That is because Lionel is at least realistic enough to NOT produce narrow gauge equipment. Galloping Geese units run on 3 foot wide rails. If MTH is producing one it is WAY beyond a foobie and into the just plain umm ummm ridiculous category.

I began to read it's history and I was a bit confused. It sounds as if these were cars developed by and for RGS to get around track that was poorly maintained. When I saw the picture it looked as though it was coupled to a small freight car but the more I read it's looking like this was a passenger only vehicle. So I'm guessing this was to get maintenance workers to where they needed to be on the rails?
Your first sentence is closest to the truth. They did have poorly maintained rails but during between the silver busts, and the depressions the passenger and express package business was low. It was unreasonable to run a locomotive and passenger car for the 5 or 6 people and 10-20 bags of mail, and a couple boxes of freight. So they built smaller more economical vehicles to run.

Going back I thought they were solely for RGS.
They were built by the RGS, so in that regard they would be solely for RGS. I think the geese are the most preserved unit, percentage wise, of any railroad equipment. I believe all of them are still in existence and at least 6 of are still running. They did a Goose convention somewhere a few years ago.
 
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Necessity is the Mother of all invention and the Geese were certainly a necessary piece of rollingstock. Many other railroads of all sizes and uses built one off units to fill specific needs. "Critters" are always of great interest to "modelers" in any scale. The Geese are probably some of the best known and most produced of these units.

Steve
 
Some Geese had bus bodies, and some had boxcar bodies. As far as I know, all started life as some form of Pierce-Arrow vehicle.
 
Thanks for the all the great replies. As much the Alaskan paint scheme is nice, I think it would be better fitted for equipment that it actually ran.
 



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