Never say Never...

Dear ??? (peter-f),

Never say "Never"...

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/rolling29.html

The Ath car may be a "liberties taken" model, but it appears Amtrak do/have run RPOs and combined RPO/Baggage cars up into the 2000s...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

@Prof !

Baggage, yes...  (I see them on NEC often),   but RPO??  Especially Phase IV for Northeast regional service as the model # indicates...  I still doubt it!

Plow?

This looks funny, speaking of Floriduh plows

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5559/15032226349_4007aa50c9_b.jpg

Carrying Mail

Carrying mail possibly but an RPO sorted and post marked mail in route, so I doubt an RPO at least in the truest since.

@Irish

  Exactly!  

  About as real as  an Amtrak K-4!   Can we come up with other anachronisms & improbables?

  (Perhaps the 1870 Conestoga-on-flatcar service!)

The last RPO

The last RPO ran in the late 1970's, 1978 I think, on the Washington-New York run. It was a Conrail, not Amtrak, train. I was working for the USPS Postal Data Center by then and recall the Postal Bulletin article about it. If Amtrak operated any RPO cars it wasn't in mail sorting service. All the cars shown in Northeast Railfan are baggage-express cars or mail storage cars, even the one labeled "RPO". RPO's made poor baggage cars because of their small doors, though rpo-bags could be of some use.

Barry P.

How about a CPRail GG-1

Photo Creds to John Longhurst:

However, I think it would look great in Maroon and Grey with Canadian Pacific in script!

I LOVE the GG-1, but (& @Barry)

even it has its limits.

-Barry ... interesting that the Farley PO still has the LOOoong platforms once used for mail... soon to goto use for Amtrak.

Absurd? Or fun?

 

Amtrak... it's EVERYWHERE!

 

How about an Amtrak BL2???

 

Or my very own SOU EMD BL2? (not fair... as I made this one)

 
 

Really?

As much as I admire this work ...

Amtrak DID use GG-1

Amtrak did use GG-1's, IIRC, at least for a while.  My (non-prototypical) dream includes Mallets and Garratts, and even a six axel diesel running on a surviving 2 foot gauge railroad in Maine, and interchanging wih a passenger train hauled by a B&M GG-1.  The GG-1 part isn't going to happen, but the big 2 footers in HOn30 might.

Amtrak did--

They were retired when the catenary supply was converted for commercial supply .. 25Hz to 60Hz... I think in 1985 or so... PC was previous owner, and went bankrupt circa 1972.

And, Yes, there was an Amtrak Bicentennial paint job on a few... but I think most were kept PC Black.  Amtrak in white on sides.

NATO searchlight car

HI all,

this is one that I still have -  http://www.tri-angrailways.com/images/searchlight.jpg In Triang's  Battlesace range. I'll bet this one was never in the NATO inventory.

I also had the   R216 Missile Launcher - until I accidentally trod on it (Remember when we used to run our trains on the floor??)  and a converted a bogie flatcar into 2 4-wheel bits. But the missile launcher still worked 

Unfortunately I never ever got that exploding box car.  

From when model trains were just fun for kids rather than "collector items" or "dead-scale" replicas down to the last rivet,

Oddities

Here's another GG-1 version. I kind of like this one.

Bernd

Toys and Models

I think that one of the beautiful things about this hobby is that it's not hard to transition, gradually or abruptly, between toy and model.  Rockets like that are toys, and so are many train sets--yet to a kid, the train set is a model, within here understanding.

My truck mounted couiplers and oversized grabs were fine models as a kid, and I tried to run them as such.  Gradually, the less convincing things got moved off the layout, and wooden billboard cars no longer ran behind diesels, and an 0-4-0 teakettle didn't shove autoracks around.

Later, when I wan the older equipment, I went as far as to pull the KFC off the layout, but replacing cars with earlier models wasn't an option.  Then high school came along, and the trains got packed up.

But toy to model is a continuum that we all occupy a part of, from the wooden railroaders to the most meticulous rivet counter, and once we are running electric trains, we can ease from one to the other.  (Wooden train to electric is a quantum leap...)

@Irish - but

Yes there's a difference between toy & model... as to scale, liberties of length and brakewheel location... The odd looking  IHC passenger car  with only one door...  They're fine with me if you need to Fill an otherwise hard to complete consist.  If the paint & markings are otherwise near-real, it may pass... but if the RR Never ran such a car... it could be fully to scale and accurately detailed... it's still a toy and draws attention for being on the wrong track!  (That GG-1 with GN colors... Huh??)

That talgo truck mounted coupler is proof that some physics are hard to overcome when reduced to a scale like ours... the coupler mounted on the truck--- unrealistic LOOKING in operation,  Less unrealistic when parked in a yard.. ... a wooden reefer with Roller bearing trucks is unrealistic in Both places. It rises to the Absurd... as are RPOs 40 years OUT OF DATE.

I guess my point originally was there are so many CORRECT ways to represent and model 2010s era Amtrak that resurrecting an RPO just because there were once RPOs is an Absurdity and Anachronism.     (edit: just saw a plug door boxcar with McGuinnis(sp?)  NH Logo!)

Or should we place reservations on unit trains of War Emergency hoppers with rotating couplers?

I know... to each his own... but in my opinion,  if you insist on an RPO ... model a railroad that had RPOs. 

?

Why? Can't a modeler build a "protolance" railroad and use equipment that ran on other railroads in a time frame of his/her choosing?

Ever think what kind of engines would be running today if the earth had never produced crude oil? Would they still be coal fired? Would they use nuclear power? Perhaps electric's would be hauling the freight and passengers today. Novel idea, no crude oil to produce gas, perhaps no cars, but passenger trains. How about a steam-electric engine. Instead of a diesel powering the generator/alternator they would use a steam engine to power the electrical generation for the traction motors.

I could go on but I'm sure the reader is getting bored or rolling their eyes at this point. I think Irish has some good ideas. Remember it could have happened.

Bernd

....

I didn't open this thread for this result...

I am one to express that ALL opinions are valid... and gain value through credible, well founded reasoning... and I wanted to thank all for your positions... but I think you misinterpreted mine...

I don't intend to feed what is leaning toward a 'flame war'

I opened the thread to snicker at the New products  [Phase IV RPO?]  that are produced to Sell... and do so because the manufacturer(s) want to profit off of old tools that represent Nothing that ever existed - possibly because the tool isn't yet worn out... and laugh about the probable extremes to which such implausibles could be carried. 

I, for one, would love a fantasy railroad... how would you equip one on the Moon?   That said... toys do have their place... a 'Hustler' traveling at a scale 350 MPH!  Who knew high speed rail dates back to 1955, and was invented by Athearn!

Here's a snicker from times past

Hi Peter and all,

Another commercially produced non-prototypical boxcar

As a snicker and to help douse any flames may I offer this "blast" from the past

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cheneworth/2675395063 

 Hmm - maybe this should be parked further away from any sparks or "flames"???

For many years Bev-Bell and Concor do/did Christmas and other "celebratory"   cabeese, the odd locomotive and  boxcars like this one For an additional snicker, click on the photo in the link and enlarge to get the turkey's view on Thanksgiving.

For additional "improbable" stuff that extends mould usage - How about the "promotional" "limited-run" (collector??)  trainsets Caterpillar / Coco Cola / NFL / Hawthorne Village etc, all based on prototypical vehicles that never ever carried those liveries?

And then there's my Bachmann On30 "North Pole & Southern" Christmas train, which is now well over 4' long

Someone somewhere thought all this stuff would sell.  And a lot of it did - I even bought some of it.  

Any other "snickers" out there??

Yes-- tongue in cheek humor done right!

John Allen would have been proud! 

My layout will soon feature  Jon's Drop Forge   and   David's Consolidated Freight... with non-revenue rolling stock - reporting marks of (respectively)  JDFX  and DCFX   - My sons' initials on the sides.

John, that was a classic

John, that was a classic right there. I am glad I was not drinking anything or I would have shorted out my computer. I am thinking Accurail would print those in units of 48...... Do you know another 47 folks besides yourself that would want to buy them?

Watch out, its the cops

This loco was painted like a British police car for a TV advert in the 1980's. However, before it was painted back to its normal colours, it did actually pull a freight train or two.

Here is the TV advert:

Ian Morgan

Hampshire UK

Bean car

I LIKE that bean car...that was a commercial product?  I've also seen some O scale buildings that are not prototypical, like "Cook, Books, and Leaves, Accountants," and the classic "Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, Attourneys."

I can't find where I stashed the pic, but the 36' boxcar labeled for the North Central Coastal, car 1701, is certainly not something that ever ran.  Car number NCC-1701.