Mail Call! Railway Post Office, commonly abbreviated as RPO has rolled in!

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Picked these up yesterday, couldn't find any in the US or Canada, but these were 15 miles from me in the UK, go figure. :rolleyes:

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Bought this on a Black Friday sale. Finally got it yesterday after bouncing around the USPS system for 11 days. Well worth the wait.

Its an Athearn Genesis P42 with DCC/sound. My first Genesis locomotive, but not my last! :D

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Nice! Have you tried it yet? If so, how does it perform? On a somewhat related side note, I heard that Amtrak P42 161 was apparently destroyed in a fire on Nov. 25 in Amtrak's D.C. maintenance yard. What a shame.😥
 
Nice! Have you tried it yet? If so, how does it perform?
I have not run it much. Just a ways forward and reverse to test sound and lights. Its a heavy beast so pulling my 6 Superliners shouldn't be an issue for it.

I heard that Amtrak P42 161 was apparently destroyed in a fire on Nov. 25 in Amtrak's D.C. maintenance yard. What a shame.😥
I had not heard that, so I went and looked it up, yep looks like it might be a total loss. As you said, a real shame. Maybe another one will be painted up, or some other heritage scheme will be done up.
 
Bought this on a Black Friday sale. Finally got it yesterday after bouncing around the USPS system for 11 days. Well worth the wait.

Its an Athearn Genesis P42 with DCC/sound. My first Genesis locomotive, but not my last! :D

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Very nice Mike, I think when you get this running with your passenger cars you'll be more than a happy man, I find the Genisis are really smooth and quiet with great pulling power.
 


Decided to post here since my first ever pre-order came in the mail today. Ordered from Athearn back in May 2023 (my first Athearn locomotive).

Got a Fort Worth and Western Railroad (FWWR) SD40-2 named "Dallas County" (FWWR names all of their locomotives). Looks and runs great with the limited trial run this evening. The FWWR is a Class III short-line railroad that began in 1988. FWWR interchanges with three Class I railroads, Union Pacific, BNSF and CPKC in Fort Worth and one short line railroad, Texas Pacifico at San Angelo Junction. They also have a pretty cool paint scheme! Welcome to the roster 2030!

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Just did the NMRA Christmas party where we did a white elephant gift exchange. Ended up with a Windows 95/98 train related computer game. About building a transcontinental line across the US. Well, when I opened the box and was looking for instructions and the like, some sneaky person had included two BLMA block signal, dual head, lights in it. They look really nice.

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An afterthought, I decided to research a little bit on the SD70's to educate myself and share with all of you.

Even though Athearn shows this SD70 as a SD70I........ that I just acquired recently. It is incorrect!

SD70I (1995)​

The SD70I is a version of the SD70 which has been fitted with a cab that is isolated from the frame of the locomotive with rubber gaskets (officially known as a "WhisperCab"). The isolation reduces noise and vibration from the prime mover. A seam is visible across the nose and on the long hood where the cab connects with the body. 26 examples of this model locomotive were produced, all for Canadian National. The WhisperCab feature was incorporated into some SD70MACs and was standard on both the SD80MAC and SD90/43MAC models.



Sooooooo.......

SD70M (1992–2004)​


The SD70M has a wide nose and a large comfort cab (officially known as the "North American Safety Cab"), allowing crew members to ride more comfortably inside of the locomotive than the older standard cab designs. There are two versions of this cab on SD70Ms: the Phase 1 cab, which was first introduced on the SD60M, and the Phase 2 cab, which is a boxier design similar to the original three-piece windscreen on the SD60M, which is shared with the Phase 2 SD90MAC, SD89MAC, and SD80ACe. The Phase 2 cab has a two-piece windscreen like the Phase 1 windscreen but the design of the nose is more boxy, with a taller square midsection for more headroom.

The SD70M is equipped with D90TR DC traction motors and the 710G3B prime mover.[2][page needed] They are capable of generating 109,000 lbf (480 kN) of continuous tractive effort.[2][page needed] From late 2001, the SD70M was produced with SD45-style flared radiators allowing for the larger radiator cores needed for split-cooling. Split-cooling is a feature that separates the coolant circuit for the prime mover and the circuit for the air pumps and turbocharger. There are two versions of this radiator: the older version has two large radiator panels on each side, and the newer version has four square panels on each side. This modification was made in response to the enactment of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Tier 1 environmental regulations. Also the truck was replaced with HTCR-4, instead of HTCR-I on former model.

Production of the SD70M ceased in late 2004 as production of the SD70M-2 model began (the EPA's Tier 2 regulations went into effect on 1 January 2005). 1,609 examples of the SD70M model were produced. Purchasers included New York, Susquehanna & Western (NYSW; part of EMDX order no. 946531[3]), Norfolk Southern and Southern Pacific (SP; now part of the Union Pacific Railroad), but the vast majority were purchased by Union Pacific.

In 2000, an order of SD70Ms made history when Union Pacific ordered 1000 units of the model (UP 4000 through UP 4999, inclusive, although 4014 was renumbered 4479 to accommodate Big Boy 4014 in 2019[4]). This order was later extended by nearly 500 additional units (UP 3999 and below, UP 5000 and above, except for 3985, which was left vacant for Challenger 3985).


I found this all very interesting to me. I got all the information on Wikipedi


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD70_series#SD70ACS_(2009–present)
 






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