1. Home
  2. Model Railroad Forum
  3. Re: Thoughts on the New Atlas Rustbucket

Re: Thoughts on the New Atlas Rustbucket

And why I like it.... most of us who are interested in diesels have

>seen the Atlas U30C announcement. Even though I'm not a GE lover, >this is the best news so far in 2003 for me. With every other >manufacturer banging out duplicates, or ultra-ultramodern, the smoking >roundhouse-queen U30C is a welcome change of pace. > >Of course a lot of people don't like it much... the U30C, while >produced in fairly high numbers, wasn't a smashing success... >certainly not when compared to it's contemporary competitor, the SD40 >and SD40-2. A large number of the latter are still in daily, class-A >service while one would be hard pressed to find a U30C that's running >at all, much less on a main line major railroad....................

Indeed. Your comments are more than kind. Benign and benevolent perhaps would be a better description. We had five of the execrable things on the Southern Railway along with ten U33Cs. They were our 3800 class. Everyone who had to come in contact with them hated them; not the least of which was yours truly. However, I have plowed this field before, so I will not do it again here. There is more to a model than my personal remembrances of its prototype.

I suppose that a model of this thing was needed, as many of them were produced and railfans and modelers seem to have a special place for GEs. So do I, but it is not the same place.

Although I will never have any model of any GE on my model railway, I can appreciate the efforts of Atlas. I certainly hope this model performs as well as other Atlas locos, and I hope that all the poor, misguided GE aficionados find happiness with it.

....................F>

Reply to
Froggy
Loading thread data ...

Froggy, I have a 44 Tonner. I hope we still can be friends.:>))

Den

Reply to
Dennis E. Golden

Long dry spell? BN's last U30Cs came in the summer of 1975 and the first C30-7s were built for BN in the fall of 1976.

David Thompson

"The humans founded America, mastered the nuclear forces, and destroyed the original Mars about thirty thousand years ago." "So George Washington was there when they split the atom?" "Could have been."

-from "Triumph of the Terrans", copyright 24L1042

Reply to
James D Thompson

Good comments, I enjoyed reading the message.

Andy Harman wrote...

What's a "low-brake" configuration?

Reply to
Mark Mathu

Somehow it is not surprising in this cash careful day that Atlas is doing this unit, which enables them to save $ by reusing some of their older tooling.

I will be getting a UP unit. I am curious what happened to the Rock Island Units after they went under, as well as the Mopac ones etc? Atlas always does a second release which might have CNW and SP in it.

Reply to
MrRathburne

Take a look at the Atlas site. The low brake setup has two brake cylinders mounted below the sideframe casting, between the journals. The high brake setup has the brake cylinders above the outer journals. The triple clasp has cast double shoes on each wheel, and one cylinder per wheel, high mounted.

Go to

formatting link
and look at any N&W C30-7 (8003-8082) for an example of the triple clasp. It will be some work to modify the Atlas trucks, but it looks as if the base frame shape is correct, so for the first time I'll have a good starting point.

Andy

-----------------------------------------------------------

formatting link
- Pre-Interstate Urban Archaeology

-----------------------------------------------------------

Reply to
Andy Harman

Jim,

The 1975 date was the last of deliveries from the old orders. In the meantime, EMD feasted on SD40-2 orders. BN had EMD production so tied up the they were building engines in multiple shifts at La Grange, and even took delivery of engines assembled in the London facility(normally reserved for Canadian production back then). The U30C's were worn out quickly and were not considered good material for a rebuild program. The C30-7's fared better, and lasted longer. Even with all of the SD70MAC orders, there are still a lot of SD40-2's still on the roster. As I mentioned, GE got their act together with the C40-8(and set a new standard in North American engines). Though burned, BN watched GE's progess and bought the B30-7A boosters, and leased the B39-8 engines following the U30C/C30-7 problems. BNSF bit hard on the 'dash 9' line and has about a 1000 units, as well as about the same number from EMD in the form of SD70MAC's. The current GE production is very good. The big problem in North American diesel production is the slow orders. Both EMD and GE have lots of room in their order books right now!

Jim Bernier

James D Thomps>

Reply to
Jim Bernier

Thanks. Looks like UP it is then..............

Reply to
MrRathburne

I didn't realize we were in the year 2007 already :)

Reply to
me

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.