Hi folks.
Mystery afoot: I keep seeing photos of a model that Atlas sold back in Yellow Box days of an FP7 in Northern Pacific's "butterknife" or "Pine Tree" freight scheme, usually road number 6600. The thing of it is, is... NP only had two FP7s, numbers 6600 and 6601, and in every source I've found they're listed as only being used in passenger service, which would have used the Loewy livery. In fact, I have an Atlas Roco FP7 number 6600 in the Loewy colors.
The two locos were eventually renumbered when Burlington bought NP, but I can't find any source that says they were repainted in the freight livery between their original passenger service days and the merger. So I disbelieve that these #6600 Atlas freight models are true to the prototype, unless their as-delivered scheme was the freight livery and the Loewy colors were not implemented until later.
Anybody know anything I might be missing?
Thanks,
-Matt
Returning to model railroading after 40 years and taking unconscionable liberties with the SP&S, Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads in the '40s and '50s.
Apologies for not reading through the entirety of this vast repository of hive knowledge before posting my Q.
It looks like Jim and Garry both offered different yet similar answers to my question on an earlier post (http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/217342.aspx) or at least provided possible scenarios. Maybe ol' 6600 came delivered in the pine tree livery and was enLoewied later on, and Atlas simply offered two different temporal avatars of the same loco. Wow, I could run both 6600s back to back and call it the Time Warp Express!
The Burlington did not buy the Northern Pacific. In 1970, the NP, Great Northern, Spokane, Portland & Seattle, and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy merged to become the Burlington Northern.
The 6600 was delivered in the early passenger scheme, there is a picture of her on page 137 of Lorenz P. Schrenk & Robert L. Frey's book "Northern Pacific Diesel Era 1945-1970". She was later repainted into the Loewy scheme (photo on page 138 in above book). For a better treatise on the NP's F unit paint schemes see the November 1993 issue of Model Railroader.
1940's NP F-units came in one of two 'pine tree' schemes, a black with gold stripe version for freight:
https://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr0001/np5405a.jpg
...and a light green / Pullman green one for passenger engines (which matched their passenger car scheme):
https://streamlinermemories.info/NP/NPNCLPostcard1.pdf
When the Loewy scheme was introduced in the mid-fifties, passenger cars and engines were repainted into that scheme:
https://www.railpictures.net/photo/355630/
However, freight diesels stayed black and gold until the BN merger.
Thanks guys, that seems to be the only way I could have made sense of what I was seeing.
BTW re the BN merger - NP and GN together owned a controlling share (I think each owned about 45%) of the Burlington Route going back to about 1910. They did that so their passenger trains had access to Chicago. I believe NP-GN had a similar controlling share of the SP&S. They tried several times to merge them all into one railroad, but failed each time due to anti-trust issues until (as noted) they finally merged in March 1970.
wjstixThey tried several times to merge them all into one railroad, but failed each time due to anti-trust issues until (as noted) they finally merged in March 1970
Overmodwjstix They tried several times to merge them all into one railroad, but failed each time due to anti-trust issues until (as noted) they finally merged in March 1970
They tried several times to merge them all into one railroad, but failed each time due to anti-trust issues until (as noted) they finally merged in March 1970