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I know this is a rivet counter question but it's bugging me. Bought a beautiful MTH Premier Santa Fe Alco PA ABA set. Detail is incredible. However, they didn't put the number board on the roof of the cab. every picture Ive seen of PA's , have the number board on the center line of the cab roof. Kinda surprised as rest of locomotive is perfect in detail and authenticity.
Has anyone ever seen an ALCO without the roof number on a Santa Fe? Hard to believe they would have missed such an important detail. Thanks Larry
I think that is a ATSF-only detail, most others that I have pics of show the number boards on the front corners.
All Santa Fe PA-1's had the number board mounted in the center of the roof as delivered. The Santa Fe considered the side mounted number boards used by the PA-1 to be useless since you couldn't see the numbers until the engine was passing you. The number boards were never used and were painted over. The only thing the number housings were used for was to hold the class lights. Even the PA-1's sold to the D&H retained this arrangement. I have never seen a mass porduced PA-1 model painted in Santa Fe colors that got this details right.
Hey Folks, Thank you so much for your replies. Great info! Still amazes me with the MTH model. It has incredible detail and accuracy on minor details yet blew it on such an obvious feature. Go figure.
Larry, since the Santa Fe was the only one to use this peculiar numberboard, I think model companies just can't justify the cost of making a completely different mold for just one railroad. I've seen brass models that got it right but that's because they just had to solder a relatively small detail to the middle of the roof. MTH could have included the center numberboard as a detail part, just like things like different plow styles and anticlimbers that are often included in prototype specific details. I think one company, maybe Detail Associates, makes the PA-1 numberboard but it's also not hard to scratchbuild one yourself.
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