GM42, C507 Bridgewater c. 1993

Its been a while since I've posted here. Here's a shot taken last night of an Adelaide bound super freighter waiting for a cross with an opposing train.

The lead engine (GM42) has just entered service - its a heavily modified 1970s vintage Lima Victorian Railways S class body, riding on a Proto2000 SD9 chassis. The body had major work done to rebuild the body sides, fill in the hostlers cabs in the No.2 end, add Dynamic Brake air intakes, along with a suitable fan, and rebuild the roof. The nose was re-profiled, windscreens modified and dual marker light clusters installed. The loco was then completely repainted with Vallejo acrylics.

The loco is fitted with an ESU LokPilot decoder, and fitted with fibre optic head and marker lights, as well as step lights.

The prototype engine was built by Clyde Engineering under license to GM-EMD. It was delivered to the Commonwealth Railways and spent its life working the standard gauge desert lines from Port Pirie (South Australia) to Kalgoorlie (Western Australia) and eventually Alice Springs once the new standard gauge line was built to replace the old Narrow Gauge line. With the amalgamation of the South Australian Railways, TasRail and Commonwealth Railways, Australian National Railways was born, and the loco ended up on the AN roster.

Now I model the broad gauge line that ran south of Adelaide, connecting Adelaide and Melbourne, which traditionally was ruled by Alco power (830, 930 and 700 class) and a smattering of early English Electric power (500 and 900 class).

In the early 90's AN started retiring the aging Alco fleet in favour of standardising on EMD power. Two GM class loco's were re-gauged to work on the broad gauge south of Adelaide, with GM42 being one, and sister GM43 the other. In 1995, the line was gauge converted to standard gauge, and the loco ended up back on standard gauge - Australian National was privatized in 1997, and so it wound up operating under Genesee Wyoming Australia's control - they stored the old girl last year after a downturn in traffic.
 

Anyway, there's a bit of a story for you all..

Enjoy!