New K Line ALCO's

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I just received my new catalog from K Line in anticipation of there new ACL diesels. I have the ACL passenger cars. They are semi scale O27 and are in the purple, smooth side variety. I was looking forward to a new F3, E8 or E7. When I opened the catalog to my amazement was K Line touting their ACL Champion, a ALCO FA-2 road number 500. Correct me if I am wrong, but I have never seen a ACL ALCO FA-2 nor do I believe from looking at my reference books that there was ever such a train. How can K-line make such a mistake. Please tell me if I am wrong or K Line. I am disapointed and feel like buying a Williams F3 engine. At least the ACL had F3's. Thanks.

-- Jim Simoncelli (bluecomet832@webtv.net), May 27, 2000

Answers

Just a correcton to Mr. Callo's E-mail. Santa Fe never owned any FA/FB's. They did stable a respectable number of PA/PB 1's in their resplendent Red Warbonnet scheme. They made their last runs in 1968, traded in on new GE (YUCH!!!!!) U28CG's and U30CG's. Four wound up on the D&H. Two are now up in Oregon recieving major overhauls. One will be cosmetically restored to AT&SF colors and donated to the Smithsonian. The other is to be completely rebuilt, but painted for the Nickle Plate Road. The other two are in museums in Mexico. Rio Grande had a pair of PB 1's that they converted into boiler cars, but I'm not sure if they still kept them after the UP merger.

-- John V. Pasquariello (GRIZZLETOAD@AOL.COM), September 02, 2000.

Sometimes model companies don't want to concern themselves with proto-type accuracy. They just want to market something to attract the masses. They figure the average Joe, unlike us, could care less about anything except saving money. And they are probably right, unfortunately. Companies do this all the time and continue to do so despite being corrected. Just to cite two more examples, Athearn makes an SAL SD-45. It is engine black with a orange stripe and has an aluminum colored logo. I'm sure an expert like yourself can point out every mistake starting with the locomotive itself. Also, when Lionel was building HO scale, they built a Santa Fe FA-1 in the experimental blue-bonnet colors. The real FA-1's were only painted in warbonnet red; only seven F-7's actually received the blue-bonnet scheme. In short, from their perspective, if it will make the company alot of money, it's not a mistake. If I were you Jim, I'd get the W

-- Andrew Callo (acallo@dcf.net), May 30, 2000.

ACL never owned ALCO FA's

-- J Oates (jlosal@mindspring.com), May 27, 2000.

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