Great Northern Fan

[Anonymous]

Hi,
I am a huge fan of Great Northern because I grew up alongside former GN tracks (an old branch line to nowhere pretty much) where I observed BN using old Great Northern rolling stock. Where can I find out more about GN's Locomotive roster and operational area-maps in particular? I tend to buy just about anything GN I run across, but it would be nice to have some direction. I think it would be fun however to model modern trains in GN livery!
Does anyone make SD40's in GN? lol
How about cabooses, particularly in N scale...
I am also interested in Northern Pacific and CB&Q as well.
Basically any forerunner of Burlington Northern interests me.
I have had a really hard time finding ANYTHING for NP. I don't believe I've ever even seen a locomotive in NP. I KNOW I've never seen a diesel although since they never merged until 1969 (right?) they must have had them...
Any iformation anyone can provide will be much appreciated...
Thanks

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

For purchasing, just go to the Walthers site.. WWW.Walthers.com and do a search for Great Northern. They have plenty of rolling stock like that, and if you do not find any, it is easy to modify undecorated rolling stock to Great Northern. Micro-scale has decals for Great Northern too. I am doing similar things with undecorated stock and older diesels. I am modifying them to the ROCK scheme.

For pics and information, try railnet.net or a search engine with Great Northern Railroad as the subject. Good luck. Email me, and we can see what we can come up with. Thanks.

Wolv33
[e-mail]

[tankertoad70]

Four Ways West has several good books on GN motive power and rolling stock. The company advertises quite regularly in various railfan publications. Champion Decals is my source of a very comprehensive line of GN decals. Between the books offered by Four Ways and decals from Champ, one can pretty much model accurately anything GN had.

[Anonymous]

Hi Ray
I did a little scouting around and Kato makes four different caboose in Great Northern. I couldnt find any SD40s but they do make a SD 40 -2 if that would work. A great website with a lot of n-scale stock is www.texnrails.com Hope I was of some help. Ron

[Anonymous]

In addition to the books recommended by other respondents, I'd join the Great Northern Historical Society (1781 Griffith, Berkley, MI 48072). There's a Web site link from this page under Historical Societies.

Atlas makes a wide-cupola caboose in the 1969 Big Sky Blue scheme and the earlier red scheme.

BTW, the merger that created the BN occurred on March 3, 1970. After the merger, locomotives and rolling stock in NP, GN, Spokane, Portland & Seattle, and CB&Q livery could be seen up through the mid-1970s, with some rolling stock in their pre-merger paint into the 1990s. I saw several NP boxcars and chip gons on the Washington Central.

Paul Schmidt
Associate Editor
MODEL RAILROADER

[Anonymous]

You mean they make an SD40-2 in GN paint?
That would be fantastic! My favorite road and my favorite loco!
I've thought about doing a fantasy layout with modern rolling stock and power in fallen flag companies' paint.
Imagine a couple of SD90's pulling an intermodal hotshot train with GN paint!
I doubt I'd have the patience or the money to research and detail the models though!

[Anonymous]

Thanks to everyone who replied to this. You've been very helpful.