Model Railroading > Tower 55 ES44AC SP Black Widow

Hey all,

I have been considering a purchase of one of the Tower 55 "Classic Concepts" ES44AC's in SP black widow paint. I am modeling SP/Cotton Belt in the early 1990's but thought it would be fun to have one of these just for kicks. Has anybody out there seen one in person or have one? If so, what do you think of them?

I have some friends with Tower 55 GEVO's and I have been impressed with them, but under "normal" circumstances an ES44 would be out of my era, but in this case I'd be willing to make an exception.

Thanks,

Dave in Cincinnati

I have one of these locomotives and I love it... Detail wise and running wise, it is as good as any other plastic locomotive out there. That being said, I have a couple issues with it. My issues with it though are completely personal taste issues and nothing more than that. 1) The 300 number series that they put the locos in puts it in the T&NO numbers .... I'm tempted to either subletter it for TNO or renumber it into the greater than 999 series. The other issue is that the number on the side of the cab is a little on the big side ... again, it might get renumbered.

Hope this didn't meander too much!
Vince in Aransas Pass, TX

I have one and it is beautiful. Runs very nicely and sounds good. I am considering purchasing a non-sound unit so I can MU two of them.

See, for me modeling the modern era on the "Southern Pacific Lines" as they called it, that 300-series is perfect, as it places it just behind the last new units delievered to SP, the AC4400CW's in the 100-378 series.

Dave


kestrel Wrote:
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> I have one of these locomotives and I love it...
> Detail wise and running wise, it is as good as any
> other plastic locomotive out there. That being
> said, I have a couple issues with it. My issues
> with it though are completely personal taste
> issues and nothing more than that. 1) The 300
> number series that they put the locos in puts it
> in the T&NO numbers .... I'm tempted to either
> subletter it for TNO or renumber it into the
> greater than 999 series. The other issue is that
> the number on the side of the cab is a little on
> the big side ... again, it might get renumbered.
>
>
> Hope this didn't meander too much!
> Vince in Aransas Pass, TX

I fully agree about it being good about being sequential for the modern SP numbering series. The only thought that I had was that if it was going to be in the triple digits, it would have been a higher nuber than 379 simply because you would have figured that the SP would have gotten newer AC4400s after their initial delivery and before the GEVO series of locomotives arrived. I have a better time seeing them in the 500 or even 700 series to fit in with other locomotives. (I still reserve the 800s for the rumored but never acted upon SD80Macs... but that's another story ;) )

Vince in Aransas Pass, TX

SSW_BlueStreak Wrote:
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> See, for me modeling the modern era on the
> "Southern Pacific Lines" as they called it, that
> 300-series is perfect, as it places it just behind
> the last new units delievered to SP, the
> AC4400CW's in the 100-378 series.
>
> Dave

I'd have to agree with kestrel, AC4400's would be up towards the 500's or more. So let's say the AC6000CW's numbered more than 3, like 25 more. UP was ordering convertibles and straight 4400's for several years before the GEVO's came out. Save off 800's for SD80MAC's, maybe 900's for some 90MAC's, 700's for SD70MAC's??? So then what....follow the 8100's? You'd run into 8200 numbered SD40T-2's well before they would be retired.

Was there a rumor that 9825-up were to be SD70MAC's or SD43/90MAC's? Maybe renumber the few AC6000's under 100, that could free up 500-999 for AC4400's and GEVO's.

But I do think the upper 300's are a good call for a fantasy scheme. Hard to really say what would happen, but that's modeling!!

Now, for my new GP40X's, all 60 of them. Numbered 7200-7229 masters, and 7230-7259 slaves. Hey, it could happen. As long as you substitute your reality with mine. :-)

Or you could've added more AC4400CW's in the 1-99 number slots, leaving the slots over 378 open for GEVO's...

That's the great thing about model railroading, you can always create your own little world.

Dave

mcdeo Wrote:
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> Now, for my new GP40X's, all 60 of them. Numbered
> 7200-7229 masters, and 7230-7259 slaves. Hey, it
> could happen. As long as you substitute your
> reality with mine. :-)

Amen Brutha! Gotta love that! Well, what EMD should have done was to keep the flared radiators from the GP40X onto the production-series GP50s and GP60s..

Soo.. then we'd have flared-radiator-equipped GP50s for CNW, MoPac, BN, Frisco and of course for our beloved SP, who went on to get flared radiator GP60As and GP60Bs. yah.. <grin>

Cheers,
Harry