US Navy Baldwin V0-1000 Color Scheme


autocoach

Active Member
The US Navy owned 40 Baldwin VO-1000 diesel switchers assigned to various navy facilities around the US (and maybe abroad?) The Navy was the second largest operator of the VO-1000. Only Santa Fe with 59 had more.

I am interested in adding a Bowser Baldwin V0-1000 to my collection to go with two Accurail 36 foot box cars I am rebuilding as used at Port Chicago Marine Teriminal and Naval Magazine on Suisan Bay near San Francisco and need any information anyone might have on the original color scheme and possible any repaint into the 1950's. The box cars were acquired from the D&RGW in 1944 to replace equipment destroyed in the huge explosion in July 1944 that destroyed two cargo ships and killed 320 men. The box cars are still in existance having been donated by the Navy to the Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista, California. They were painted a light grey common to a lot of US Navy equipment.

Apparently Navy records show there were two VO-1000's assigned to Port Chicago in the late 1940's Navy Road Numbers 22-23 Mfg BLW Model VO-1000 BN 71753, 71754. Their Build date was 5/1945. They were later renumbered USN 65-00111 and 00112. The renumbering may have been as early as 1948.

best

Ken Adams
 
The US Navy owned 40 Baldwin VO-1000 diesel switchers assigned to various navy facilities around the US (and maybe abroad?) The Navy was the second largest operator of the VO-1000. Only Santa Fe with 59 had more.

I am interested in adding a Bowser Baldwin V0-1000 to my collection to go with two Accurail 36 foot box cars I am rebuilding as used at Port Chicago Marine Teriminal and Naval Magazine on Suisan Bay near San Francisco and need any information anyone might have on the original color scheme and possible any repaint into the 1950's. The box cars were acquired from the D&RGW in 1944 to replace equipment destroyed in the huge explosion in July 1944 that destroyed two cargo ships and killed 320 men. The box cars are still in existance having been donated by the Navy to the Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista, California. They were painted a light grey common to a lot of US Navy equipment.

Apparently Navy records show there were two VO-1000's assigned to Port Chicago in the late 1940's Navy Road Numbers 22-23 Mfg BLW Model VO-1000 BN 71753, 71754. Their Build date was 5/1945. They were later renumbered USN 65-00111 and 00112. The renumbering may have been as early as 1948.

best

Ken Adams
I can't help with most of this, but if numbering of most military equipment is any example, the 65-XXXXX indicates the equipment was acquired in Fiscal Year (FY) 1965. If built in 1945, the reason for the renumbering, was probably to bring the locomotives into the new numbering system, even though they were actually acquired 20 years earlier. OTOH, if they were "bailed" back to the manufacturer for re-conditioning, and then DD250'd back to the Navy in 1965, the new numbers would be consistent with that situation.
 



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