Western Railroad Discussion > RS4TC Question

Back in 2008 when I first started driving OTR for Schneider National one of my trips took me to the Walmart DC is Grantsville Ut. On the way in off of I80 was a company called Better Chemical Solutions. The gentleman I spoke to, was the owner of the facility and after he and I talked abit he let me wander around abit. BCS RS4TC 243 was in front, which is actually what caught my eye and made me stop to check it out. He informed me of "some other" units in the rear of the plant. Back on a track I found the sister unit, 242 and Ex USS S6 1 from Wellington Ut and one of the ex OIM S6/SSB9's the 1217. My question is, I can't find any background on the 243, shown here. Have checked a few resources I have and the web but no luck. Does anyone out here in TO land have any info on this units background? Any help would be nice. Oh, here are the other 2 goodies I shot that day. TIA Ben

---

---

---

On the 243 I've done some looking no old numbers in the number boards nothing in the cab as far as order numbers or builder numbers I've looked my self and cann't find any thing. We do have two new RS4TC's working for Rocky Mountain Rail car in Tooele.
Ryan Ballard

They look like repatriates from the Tooele Army/Air Depot at Hill Field south of Ogden.

I was stationed there late in 1964.

If you could get details from the Builders Frame Plates on the units, that would help those in the know.

--Jim Baker

I believe 243 came from Broken Arrow Construction near Tooele

Is unit 243 a GE unit?

coach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is unit 243 a GE unit?

Its a Baldwin Lima Hamilton locomotive. I believe one of the two was USAX 4012.
MrOGDEN

After looking at a Roster and a web site, The US Army RS4TC # 4023 became the 242 at Grantsville / Flux Utah

These units have been moved around and Resold so many times

Many times its minor things that sideline these, the unit 4028 , for a while was the Shop Switcher at the Vast US Army Rail shop at Hill AFB, till its Air Compressor quit, but by " Robbing Peter to Pay Paul , the Army got it running again, the 4028 retired and is up in Heber, UT on that Tourist line ( A Fine Line ) , in in Sept of Last year it was out of service when its Air Compressor Quit

The Legs of the ompressor's are made out of Zamac and have become brittle and break



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/12 23:47 by miralomarail.

The yellow unit seems to have some sort of modification on the front of the hood. Any idea what this was?

lwilton Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The yellow unit seems to have some sort of
> modification on the front of the hood. Any idea
> what this was?
First of all it was set up for remote control, then second guessing your question, they wanted to rebuild them (the ALCos) and send one to Delta, Utah and the other to plant near Eureka, Ut on the former Rio Grande Tintic branch.
MrOGDEN

lwilton Wrote:

> The yellow unit seems to have some sort of
> modification on the front of the hood. Any idea
> what this was?

Not sure what particular modification you're referring to, but as general info, SSB9's were Alco cow/calf sets of S6's. Ordinary switchers often didn't have MU capabilities, and therefore no need for a gap in the end handrails or a drop-step for moving between units, but a cow/calf set does. This thread has a photo of 1217 with its calf coupled to the radiator end, and judging from other photos online, they were generally run that way:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1410151

All that stuff on the front handrails appears to be the MU connections and drop step. These photos of sister 1218 show a little more detail of the connections:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/uss/uss1218dgs.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/uss/uss1218cgs.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/uss/uss1218bgs.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/misc-o/oim1218dsa.jpg

Went by Flux today and almost all the cars stored there have been moved out? The two switchers mentioned were both out on their own. I was coming back from Winnemucca and this SD40N was parked near the Amtrak depot, pretty quiet around there.

---

---