Hilton and Mears Fairbanks Morse hunting…
As new EMD power arrived at H&M the Fairbanks Morse days were always numbered…
288 was the last, and by 1980 was just a standby locomotive. She did see use later though and these undated glimpses show her on the mill job, her familiar skeleton log bunks swapped out for 50ft boxes.
This is a model with a real back story. A kind gift from across the Atlantic from Chris (Mears)’s collection, an original Walthers / Roco Austria model. A repaint and some finer details brought her back to life and what’s more a fitting livery for this memory machine. Not first hand memories but those evoked from old video and photographs, sharing a time when the rails sang a different tune, not GE or EMD, not even Alco, but FM.
Until next time, more soon…
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Hi James
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the post on your Fairbanks Morse and the way your cameos can be used to represent different time frames and even locations. I really like those FM H-type switchers, they seem a link between the steam era and the diesel now. The Weyerhaeuser shortlines use of them in the 1950’s-1970’s allows me to use at least one for powering my H0-scale shortline in the early 1960’s. I actually have two. One the early Walthers version like yours, which I had painted and chipped and the later version which was sound equipped. This came in blue and was not unlike the repainted units on the Columbia & Cowlitz so I kept the livery, and just numbered and lettered it for my mill’s shortline the Hartford & Cowlitz. This was the main lokey until it developed a fault and is side-lined awaiting a replacement rear truck. I now use the earlier unit but details are a bit clunky.
When I visited Washington first in 1989 the units on all the Weyerhaeuser roads had been replaced but my friend the late John Henderson photographed some and he and a friend rode the H12-44 on the White River Branch in the mid 1970’s. Fortunately I have some notes of the trip. I will e-mail them to you along with some photos of the real thing and my H0-version
Best regards
Alan
Great to hear from you Alan, and thank you for the email too… Kinross does well standing in for multiple locations yes, and I do have a soft spot for these locomotives too!
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