the
little engines that could... and did
switchers
operating Bottineau Farmers Elevator, Bottineau, North Dakota
BFE
#1366
BFE #1366 is an
EMD SW1, which started out as Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
#9153. It became BN #97 after the 1970 merger, was retired and
sold to ILS where it got the number 1366. Finally, it came home
to Bottineau.
I don't know much about phases of these early
switchers, but this one has the arched windows in the front. It
also has a large three-pane all weather window on the engineer's side,
a firecracker antenna and a Stratolite flasher beacon. There's
also some kind of capped exhaust fitting, possibly some kind of spark
arrestor, which must help with engine/exhaust system wear, because it
closes automatically when the engine is shut off, which is more often
than not.
The Walthers SW1 is the obvious choice as a starting point for this
locomotive, but regretably they are getting harder to find and more
expensive. I am perplexed why this locomotive, although offered
by AHM, Model Power and Lindberg, all poor 60s-70s train-set quality models, has
only been offered in one run by Walthers. I would love to see a
state-of-the-art SW1 put out by someone one day, hopefully Kato or
Atlas, even Life Like. Until then, I'll be hunting on ebay for
undecorated models...
My brother (he's the one with dark hair) and I on #1366:
BFE
Trackmobile
The Trackmobile is
an interesting little locomotive, if you can call it that. The
SW1 seems small, and it is as locomotives go, but it's a giant compared
to the Trackmobile. This is a Model 95TM Trackmobile, which must
be a pretty old one because in any literature I can find on
Trackmobiles, the nomencalture is totally different for the various
models. In any event, while a couple models of Trackmobiles have
been made over the years, none have been modeled after this type, so
some serious kitbashing will be in order to have one on the layout.
Since I was 18 at the time and getting ready to start college a month
later, I didn't have much money to spend on film. Instead, a few
colored pencils and a short stack of typing paper allowed me to
document the appearance of the Trackmobile reasonably well:
BFE
#1367
A couple years
after I took these photos and made the drawings, Bottineau Farmers
Elevator replaced the Trackmobile with another SW1, this time
#1367. I really haven't spent any time getting any information on
#1367, since it's out of my target modeling time period, but it appears
to my eyes to be nearly identitical to #1366.