There is an interesting picture on eBay of Racehorse E8 SLSF 2016 "Citation". See eBay number 250590145516. Beat up nose, but a pristine looking original dark blue nose coonskin herald. Gold nose and side stripe, but with no white outlines. Duluxe gold lettering, numbers and Racehorse name. Quite a mixture! Looks like she just came off of a tough run. Still looks good to me, though! Ken
You're right, Ken, she does look like she had a tough one. Hope they were going to clean her up. There are several "racehorse" pictures up right now on ebay. I especially liked the "Meteor" coming through Tower Grove behind 2002. It looks like from the roof detail that the trailing unit was also an E7 if my eyes aren't playing tricks on me . Terry
I don't think I could do that to any of my E8s. Maybe a little weathering around the bottom to simulate an end of run look, but I just can't go that far as in the picture. They are way too beautiful, in my opinion, to let go to that extreme. Remember, it is cheaper to keep our models looking clean than it was the Frisco. There must have been a change in philosophy on appearance toward the end of passenger service as the expense of keeping them looking clean grew. I know the freshly painted ones looked good, but I wonder for how long. Terry
I agree with Terry. I kept my Frisco E8's (2006,2016,2019,2020,2022) pristine. They look so good I would hate to weather them up, even though they were often pretty filthy in real life. Ken
This might be outside of the scope of this thread, but I've always wondered why the passenger units were so piteously maintained in their later years, with fresh paint and regular washings lacking. Expense is the obvious guess. Even with automated washers, I suspect it still cost a sizeable chunk of money. Seems that after 1960, the Frisco (and others) saw the writing on the wall for the impending demise of passenger travel by rail, so the real need for public relations would be with freight shippers and not individual passengers. It also seems that the practical need for meticulously washing steam power (to keep moving gear in good, clean running order) had disappeared. Regardless of the reasons, it seems to fly in the face of reason for a railroad that, in my opinion, so very carefully maintained its whole physical plant and was obviously keen on presenting itself to the public in the best possible light. I'd be curious to hear other's thoughts.
When I hired out in June of 1971, there were still several old head passenger train conductors working. Some were grouchy old men,and I left them alone, but the ones who would talk to me told me a lot of experiences they had as passenger train conductors. One told me that the mail contract actually paid the expenses for the passenger trains, so that any customers were all profit. I know that the mail contracts probably would have eventually gone away anyway, but the railroads (Frisco included) wanted to get rid of the passenger trains as soon as possible. They placed the track maintainence expenses on the passenger trains which skewed the expenses line for them. By having poor connections with other trains and running late, they were able to run more passengers away from the trains thus affecting the income side. With poor service the passengers did go away. I know that the car and plane influenced this, too, but the railroads were determined to get rid of the passenger trains as soon as possible. Not having clean equptment would have fallen right in with the no passenger train philosophy. I just wonder what would have happened if railroad execs. would have really tried to keep the passengers on the trains instead of being hell bent to get rid of them. I am sorry I missed the passenger train era as I was just a kid in the 50s and 60s . Terry
I can see your point. It does seem that passenger trains were beginning to "get in the way" of the freight business and with the decline in ridership it was only logical to let it slip away
My dad worked in the Industrial Development department of the Frisco at its headquarters in downtown St. Louis. I remember many dinner table discussions back in the early '60's where he complained that passenger trains were hurting their bottom line and that managment would have liked to get rid of them as soon as they could. One has to remember that railroads were heavily regulated in this period and had to ask the ICC before they could discontinue passenger service. An element of getting this approval was to cite low ridership, so during this period most railroads were trying to discourage people from riding on the train. From about the mid '50's until the adoption of the Staggers Act in 1980, the railroad industry was in steep decline. Airlines had taken an increasing share of the passenger business, while the development of the Interstate highway system enabled trucking companies to make significant inroads into the railroad's freight business. Government provided the infrastructure for these industries (airports and highways) while railroads maintained their own. The railroads had to ask the government to change rates, abandon lines, and drop trains. They also had to deal with antiquated union work rules. Not surprisingly, the railroads cut corners where they could which resulted in dirty equipment, austere paint schemes and defered maintenance. A glaring example of the difficulties of this period was the Penn Central. Rich
Rich, I appreciate the "inside" insight from your family. That makes a lot of sense, all things considered. Somewhere I have a VHS of a film produced by the Illinois Association of Railroads in the 50s that makes their case for railroads being at a competitive disadvantage. Best Regards,
If you think about it one could say that the government did shoot the railroads in the leg during the transition era. Funding for the Eisenhower Interstate System and the development of air travel was made possible by the Government, however, at a time when the railroads needed to bring their "A game" they dropped the ball. I believe they can share in the blame
That is part of the point I was trying to make in my earlier post. I know that all the issues you mentioned entered into the equation, but instead of trying to be innovative, the railroads took the easy way out--slash and burn. One thing I noticed in all three railroads I worked for (Frisco, BN, BNSF), the emphasis on cost control has always been cutting scheduled employees. In Tulsa due to the economy we have fewer scheduled employees working, but the number of officials has never been higher. By the way, Warren Buffet made the statement before he bought BNSF that the compensation for officials (upper management) was out of line. One of the most idiotic proposals the railroads proposed while I was still working was to have engineer only trains with utility trainmen stationed along the subdivisions in case of emergencies. Members of Congress who could generally be expected to support business told the railroads not to count on them for that proposal if the dispute should end up in their lap for resolution. That died thankfully. Oh, yeah, in case the engineer should begin to get sleepy, the plan was to have clerks monitoring screens in Ft. Worth, and they would arouse the engineer somehow. These clerks were to be monitoring several trains at once. I know this post has been long, but I think it is important to be aware of what is going on in the railroad industry. Believe me, I enjoyed running trains. Nothing gave me a bigger thrill than rounding a curve and looking back and knowing that the train was my responsiblity. I do hope the railroads can continue to be successful in the future because we do not need the extra traffic on our roads and I think they are cool. Terry
I've always believed that the Penn Central was the supreme example of how not to run a railroad (or any business). I once read (can't verify) that at the time the Penn Central got really in over its head it had more $100,000+ executives than any other company on Earth but it tried to solve its problems by cutting from the bottom and had cut over 1/3 of its section crews before it ever cut ONE over priced executive. John
Well... I can understand the desire to have your Racehorse models clean and "nice". It is such a HANDSOME scheme. Period. BUT... the weathering side of my hobby sees those unique and intriguing weathering effects and they beckon to be modeled! IF I ever did a "Racehorse" in S scale for my mid-sixties era layout attempt... it's cleanliness would depend on answering the following question: * Will the engine be used during operation on the layout, or will it only be a mantle piece? If the latter: By all means "clean and nice". If the former, then to reflect reality: Weathered... as close to the effects pictured as I could capture! I don't know why I'm a sucker for weathering effects... but pictures like the 2016 in the link just look awesome to me!! Yeah... I'm sick.
I agree reality requires weathering. My E8s, though, will mirror a railroad that took pride in its equipment and washed them regularly. It is unrealistic to run trains without some weathering, and I agree that weathering is the icing on the cake. I have seen some weathering that I thought was over done, however, and completely overwhelmed the cars/engines. Do you think weathering should be more subtle or as close to the prototype as possible? I have stopped being so concerned with perfection in constructing the kits because I know that a little weathering will cover places where excess glue has gotten on the car accidentally --shaky aim with the glue brush from being 65 . I was building a unit coal train from the Athearn SLSF 50 ton hoppers, and noticed that I was getting the cars dirty from the weights. It hit me, so what, those cars were filthy in reality, and I started rubbing my hands all over the sides,and the effect was better than I had expected. Anyway, weathering is part of reality and I think should be part of the hobby. Terry
During my days of riding and watching #3, #4, #9 & #10 on the Eastern Division (1960-1964), the Racehorse E's were generally pretty clean and looked great (although they were almost all in the Dulux Gold stripe decor by then). I have my five E's weathered a bit with exhaust carbon, grill dirt, rust on the buffers, dirty trucks and dirty and oily fuel tanks. But otherwise, I'm keeping my guys clean. To me, that is realstic based on my era (1955-1960). Ken
