I just purchased a nice Lionel Santa Fe Berkshire 2-8-4 loco that I want to use as the lead for a Lionel Santa Fe Madison passenger car consist I have. I try to keep things as scale as I can. Can anyone confirm to me that Santa Fe Berkshires ever pulled passenger consists? I'm concerned that now that I have the Berkshire it will not be a true representation of my Santa Fe because I can only find one weak instance of such a combination put together - a Lionel advertisement.
Ever? No one can prove they never once pulled passengers, but will be hard to find a pic of one doing it.
Let's put it this way, never say never as far as "power for the run" is concerned. There may not be much photo evidence for a Santa Fe Berkshire pulling a passenger consist, but there's plenty of photo evidence of freight locomotives pulling passenger consists on other railroads.
There's even photo evidence of the reverse, such as passenger locomotives pulling freight. So if I were you I wouldn't worry about it.
They look pretty darn good together if you ask me! Unless someone has all the train master reports from every train the Santa Fe ever ran I'd say it would be harder to prove that the AT&SF never used Berks on passenger consists.
Same me, different spelling!
From what I understand, ATSF didn't like their Berks - they were first generation machines with low (63 inch) drivers, which made them too slow for the high speed line the Santa Fe was. Second generation Berks like the NKP's PM's and C&O's with 69 inch drivers would have been a different kettle of fish
It's too bad, they were handsome egines
The second-hand B&M Berks were pretty much restricted to helper service. They assisted FT-powered freights and E1-powered passenger trains as well as steam-powered trains. They were replaced by FTs on the B&M on the Hoosac Tunnel route.
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