Nope, the FA's will look right at home pulling varnish or freight. The B&O seemed to make a practice of keeping its newer E-units with its top trains (Capitol, National,Cincinnatian...) During the last years of steam, it wasn't oncommon to see a set of FA's on the point of a steam engine as helpers.
So it wouldn't be wrong to use them to pull the Williams Heavyweights that I have?
The B&O purchased its ALCO FA2 sets as freight engines. Although this was their primary function, they did see passenger service. And they were all painted in the blue-grey-black scheme (some were repainted later at the end of their careers).
It was the Baldwin Sharks that were intended for the varnish, but didn't last long in passenger service.
Should know better than to post when medded up! Totally forgot to ask if B&O ever used the FA-2s in passenger service.
in the catalog it states that these were used for freight service yet Lionel painted these in B&O's passenger paint scheme. I'm not a rivet counter but this just seems like a big oversite on their part.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month