DANIEL USCIANI didn't see one FA-1 in the YouTube video!
"The Great Northern Railway - A Pictorial History" by Charles & Dorothy Wood says that GN didn't like Alcos once they'd owned them a while due to maintenance issues, and that several Alcos, including two four unit sets of FA were sent to the SP&S in the 1950s.
It does have a couple of pictures of an A-B set of FAs on a freight train in western Montana in 1952, and a couple of pics of 310 A-B-A set "north of Spokane on the Kettle Falls Branch". It notes "Alco freighters, after a brief stint in main line service on the Cascade Division, worked the Kettle Falls Branch for some years."
(SP&S, like CB&Q, was co-owned by GN and NP - each parent railroad owned about 45% of the subsidiaries.)
SP&S was jointly owned by the GN & NP.
Dan
I seem to recall the Alco F units being widely used on the SP&S RR, and possibly purchased for or by the SP&S. I don't know the details, but I generally understand the SP&S to have been affliated or even part of GN.
I think you'll find GN's Alco F's spent a lot of time between Vancouver BC and Portland, on general freight.
Ed
What consist are they in?
IIRC in GN's promotional film "Empire on Parade" (1962) a set of FAs is pictured working in Montana, but I think the shot is too distant to be able to see an engine number.
ALCo FA's & FB's #310A,B&C were built in 1950 and traded into GE in 1966.
Great Northern Empire - Then and Now
I always understood that GN based all their ALCo's in the Pacific Northwest, to centralize their maintainence.
From what I can tell, the GN's 276-279 set were used in Canada. But I can't find any info on the 310 ABA set
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