Oh boy, I'm going to be in trouble now......

ModelRailroadForums.com is a free Model Railroad Discussion Forum and photo gallery. We cover all scales and sizes of model railroads. Online since 2002, it's one of the oldest and largest model railroad forums on the web. Whether you're a master model railroader or just getting started, you'll find something of interest here.


flightops

flightops

Active Member
My missus told me the other day no more train stuff for a while. I (or ourse) agreed. And I genuinely meant it, not one of those cross your fingers and agree things.

Then an email notice showed up today. A seller was offering an Athern Fairbanks Morse H24-66 for 20 bucks. I had a search setup on ebay and hadn't yet deleted it (as per wife request to not buy more train stuff for a month or two).

Then I made the mistake of viewing the offer:

1.jpg


2.jpg


3.jpg


13.jpg


Used for sure, but original packing at least gives some hope it's been fairly well taken care of. Check out the seller and it seems to be one of those estate sale people. You know, they buy a lot and sell it off as "smalls". This is the only train thing.

After shipping and taxes (ebay charges tax for Canadian sellers and buyers in Canada, it's a gov't law type thing).

Should be here within the week.

Wife is at work today but I'll have to come clean and ask for "penance" when she gets home, but I just couldn't pass up the price.

Dominion Central was a rail line in central Canada around mid 50's IIRC. We had an Atlantic Central Rail line here, but they never used this particular Diesel Loco, they used Alco S-3's and replaced them with SW1200RSes. But the era of the Athern model is at least right.

DAR, even though the SW tracks were pulled up in about 86 and the line was totally defunct province wide around 2010, it did play a significant role in WWI and WWII, shuttling Soldiers from our major training camp to Halifax, where they would cross the Atlantic. Before WWi it was a "luxury passenger" line, ferrying people between steamship ports and similar after WWII. Local industry had problem and ridership trailed off and the rail eventually failed/became unprofitable. Same old story most places where rail lines eventually get pulled up I'd guess....

I'm thinking I'll do a "fantasy" Dominion Atlantic Rail train with it and some era correct Pullman cars (which DAR did use). DAR was also a subsidiary of CP Rail, which did use some H24-66 diesel Locos. I do already have a CN Pullman passenger caboose car....

So if you squint real hard and look a little sideways out the corner of your eye, all the while with your hand up and through your fingers, an H24-66 on the DAR could have been a possibility/fantasy.....;)

​

 
Last edited:
Hold on a second, I think that's a GP38-2 shell, not the H24-66 they called it in the auction. Maybe it's on an Athern H24-66 chassis as it is a 6 wheel boogie.

I didn't pay close enough attention to the pictures I guess.

Oh well, doesn't really matter to me either way!

:)
 


Gary B said:
Always be leary of buyers who don't know what it is their posting to set. But you're a big boy so you know that 😉. Good luck with the wife.
Click to expand...
yeah, I saw 20 bucks and figured not much to loose. Bit of a "knee jerk reaction" buy.

Looking closer the loco sure looks like the SD40, the included parts list says gp38-2 and the description is H24-66. Seems it is a collection of someones leftover bits.

As long as it runs at all, I'll be ok with the price I paid for it. I'll have to see what's under that shell when it gets here. Hopefully it's no "gutted". But it is what it is now. If nothing else, it can be practice piece for painting, weathering, etc.

CN had lots of SD40's in their livery, so I may just go that way with it...assuming it runs that is....:rolleyes:

Seems I always have to get "burnt" once or twice when starting a new hobby before I learn the basics to look for when buying used stuff. At least I knew enough to make sure it's at least HO scale.....lol!
 
Last edited:
bnsf971 said:
….And so it begins…
Click to expand...
Actually, I think it's having quite the opposite effect.

I promised my missus it would be at least several more months before I bought anything else and breaking my word to her in a little more than 48 hrs later has left quite a bad taste in my mouth. And I still have yet to "fess up" to her (she's at work).

I actually feel more like I want to step away from it all for a while now....
 
kjd said:
You only bought a loco, I bought a car. And I don't even have a job at the moment.... oops.
Click to expand...
It's no t what I bought or how much it was, it's breaking my agreement that feels "bad".

She'll be fine with it overall, but I'll still feel like I've...I dunno..... let myself down as much as anything else I guess.
 


flightops said:
It's no t what I bought or how much it was, it's breaking my agreement that feels "bad".

She'll be fine with it overall, but I'll still feel like I've...I dunno..... let myself down as much as anything else I guess.
Click to expand...
You think she's going to be disappointed in you for not keeping your word, and you're disappointed in yourself for disappointing her.
 
Well, she let me off the hook easily. She understands my...."personality".....and knows I was torturing myself more than she ever could. She also appreciates up front honesty.

Good woman. Good person. Best decision I ever made was asking her to marry me.

:)
 
flightops said:
Dominion Central was a rail line in central Canada around mid 50's IIRC. We had an Atlantic Central Rail line here, but they never used this particular Diesel Loco, they used Alco S-3's and replaced them with SW1200RSes. But the era of the Athern model is at least right.
Click to expand...

Nope, the Dominion CENTRAL is someone's fictional railroad and colour scheme.

Dominion ATLANTIC was a real railway in the Canadian Maritimes that was absorbed by Canadian Pacific and operated as a division of CP.

Atlantic Central is also a non existent name, although there was a Canada Atlantic Railway that was absorbed by Grand Trunk in the early 1900s and CP briefly used a "Canadian Atlantic Railway" (not to be confused with the previous "Canada Atlantic Railway") brand in relation to the old DAR division. At least one boxcar and two RS23 locomotives were painted with the CAR logo but with regular CP reporting marks/numbers,


 
cv_acr said:
Nope, the Dominion CENTRAL is someone's fictional railroad and colour scheme.

Dominion ATLANTIC was a real railway in the Canadian Maritimes that was absorbed by Canadian Pacific and operated as a division of CP.

Atlantic Central is also a non existent name, although there was a Canada Atlantic Railway that was absorbed by Grand Trunk in the early 1900s and CP briefly used a "Canadian Atlantic Railway" (not to be confused with the previous "Canada Atlantic Railway") brand in relation to the old DAR division. At least one boxcar and two RS23 locomotives were painted with the CAR logo but with regular CP reporting marks/numbers,


Click to expand...
Nope. There actually was a Dominion Central railway in Ontario, although it was steam era. 1907:

IMG_8319.jpeg

Alphabetical list of Private Acts — Railways

Federal laws of canada
lois-laws.justice.gc.ca lois-laws.justice.gc.ca

It was a short-haul freight route (from what I’ve been able to dig up), around Windsor to Kingston (Ont) area iirc from the scant ref material about it. That seems to track since the Parliamentary act approved changing the name from “Kingston and Dominion Central” to just “Dominion Central”.

Not to be confused with the “Dominion”, which was a transcontinental passenger.

This little sdp-40 paint and labelling IS pure fantasy though. DC never made it out of the steam era to my knowledge. Even if they had, they certainly wouldn’t have been using an SDP. I had it shipped from Ontario (Clifford, Ont actually) when I bought it, so whether or not the original crafter of this sdp40 knew about the 1907 DC is debatable, but the concept of “local area knowledge” offers that they might have and just made up their own modern era engine colors. Or perhaps it was a grandfather or great grandfather who worked on the DC and passed on stories of it and someone wanted to capture those memories with this sdp40. Could be any reason for it really.

I’m well aware of DAR. I’ve ridden it several times. The “Dayliner” before they ripped up the rails and turned the beds into snowmobile/quad trails:

IMG_8322.jpeg


Although it was in Via livery when I rode it. Like so:

Kingston VIA152 6142 Sep89 BL8755.jpg


Not my picture, but that's the Kingston stop in 1989.

The steam powered DAR line is just a few ticks before my time. In fact, when I look out my back window I can see part of the old rail-beds through the trees on the other side of the river valley. That portion is now maintained by the county as a walking and cycling trail in the summer and the local snowmobile club maintains it in winter. We walk the dogs there routinely.

The rest of the province passenger lines were Via by the time I was on it. Couple trips up Ft Louisberg way. Also now defunct for passenger rail.

Only thing left now is the Halifax-Montreal passenger rail (Via) which is…..well, getting pretty bad. Its all old, and last time I checked only runs three times a week. CN owns the rail and Via uses it, so if it comes down to freight or Via, guess who wins….

Regardless, this little sdp has the “estate sale” vibe, so I think I’m going to leave the paint scheme “as is”, mostly because I believe the hands that crafted it are likely no longer with us. A lot of care seems to have gone into the quality of the paint, so it just “feels right” to leave it as it is…
 
Last edited:
D&J RailRoad said:
Are you sure it's HO scale?
Does it in fact have a motor in it?
Is the drive train intact?
Click to expand...
flightops

Thread 'A forgotten Athearn SDP40 looking for some “love”..'

The SDP40 I picked up off ebay for 25 bucks showed up today. Well, 25 bucks to purchase, more like 65 bucks once shipping was added. Still, it was worth taking the risk to me based on the pictures.

Not an expert on this stuff by any means, but I believe this is whats known as “blue box”:

IMG_8277.jpeg


This is obviously someone’s collection of bits (likely an estate sale box lot thing) as the end of the box is hand written in marker “gp 40 Dummy”:

IMG_8280.jpeg


If I use some magnification, it looks like the first stamped letters crossed out are “F7A”. The rest are mostly illegible...
  • Like
 
flightops said:
Regardless, this little sdp has the “estate sale” vibe, so I think I’m going to leave the paint scheme “as is”, mostly because I believe the hands that crafted it are likely no longer with us. A lot of care seems to have gone into the quality of the paint, so it just “feels right” to leave it as it is…
Click to expand...
I commend you and I agree.
 


You must log in or register to reply here.




Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a commision from some of the links and ads shown on this website (Learn More Here)

Back
Top