Description
The four-axle GE B36-7 was a high-horsepower speed racer built to be the backbone of the intermodal power fleet. There were few drag freights or slow-moving manifests for these thoroughbreds in their early years. They could usually be found in multiples at the head of the hottest of hot piggyback and autorack services and the new double-stack container trains.
By the mid-80s and early 90s, many of the original B36-7 owners began repainting or modifying their fleet. Southern Pacific removed the red emergency lights and the front and rear Gyra-lights, replacing them with a Stratolite beacon on a shop-built bracket over the headlight. Cosmetically, very little changed, except for two that received speed lettering paint in the mid 90s. Conrail began to repaint a handful of their B36-7s in the 90s with a white sill stripe and later the full ‘Quality” repaint. Two of Santa Fe’s B36s wore what might be the most recognizable paint scheme in railroad history: Kodachrome! This was for the failed merger between SF and SP. The unmistakable red and yellow scheme matched the colors of Kodak’s “Kodachrome” slide film boxes.
All of the above is offered on our surprise 2nd run, including new Stratolite brackets for Southern Pacific!
The B36-7 Locomotive features:
- Incredible underframe detail including piping, a ridiculous number of separately-applied parts and full cab interior
- Dead straight metal side handrails with plastic stanchions
- A crazy level of road-specific detail options, with different pilots, anticlimbers, plows, fuel tanks, air dryers, antennas, wind deflectors, headlight locations, air-conditioning units, different bodies, multiple nose and rear end styles, three versions of drop step and so on...
- With or without class lights (as appropriate)
- Conrail locomotives come with their unique “red bug eye” marker lights
- Equipped with ditch lights - on front and/or rear - as appropriate
- ATSF and Southern Pacific locomotives have Stratolite beacons
- Three styles of operating, flashing ditch lights, front & rear (as appropriate)
- Working headlights in correct location, switchable number boards at both ends and cab interior headlight
- Metal Knuckle Couplers
- All units come equipped with DCC/ESU LokSound
