sense that BNSF would consider end- ing service on the Raton Pass line be- cause of the steep grades and sparse lo- cal traffic, and that is how the concept of the NPSF railroad came about. The NPSF would take over the local traffic that was not profitable to the BNSF and provide bridge traffic support for them when needed. The new railroad would follow BNSF operating practices and BNSF would maintain trackage rights. This allowed me to logically run intermodal trains and just about any- thing that Santa Fe, now BNSF, did. With a location and plan, everything started to fall into place.
The NPSF name came about from
emails being sent back and forth be- tween my friends during this planning stage. What started out as “Nicolo Platas’ Santa Fe” in the subject line, eventually got shortened to “NPSF.” Taking a cue from the BNSF, the NPSF moniker stuck. With a plan and a name, the next order of business was motive power. I expected the classic blue and yellow warbonnets and the Super Fleet paint schemes to disappear with the merger, but now they could live on lettered for NPSF. Since the NPSF was a start-up railroad, the need for motive power would be filled by leas- ing or purchasing ex-Santa Fe or BNSF engines that were in good running order, such as SD40-2’s, U36C’s, SD45’s and GP38’s. Similar to what BNSF was do- ing, NPSF would sub-letter the Santa Fe engines that were acquired until they could be painted into NPSF schemes. As traffic picked up newer motive power was added, including a few Dash 8-40BW units in the Super Fleet
On the NPSF, Lamy, New Mexico, has a number of industries served by local freights in- cluding this metal recycling yard (above). Patched-paint job BNSF 2043, a GP38-2, is working for its fourth owner and is on loan to the NPSF; it started out on the Penn Cen- tral, then went to Conrail, CSX and GMTX, a leasing company. Below, it passes modern in- dustrial park buildings on its way to the yard. The work zone makes a great mini-scene.
scheme. Other engines were rebuilt to new standards and given new paint jobs in the blue and yellow warbonnet scheme. The HO scale NPSF motive power fleet is made up of Kato, Atlas and Athearn locomotives. They are cus- tom painted and detailed to follow the original Santa Fe engines.
The freight cars are all top quality from various companies. One problem I had was that no decals were available for the NPSF, of course, so I contacted a decal company to make custom decals for the engines and freight cars being added to the roster. There are two sets
of New Mexico Railrunner trains for commuter service and an excursion railroad that has a Shay built by PFM. My friend Vinny Pelliteri put a new motor and sound decoder in the Shay and then painted it. There are also BNSF and ATSF units that have been updated with sub-lettering to match their prototypes, and a few units from GATX, UP, Ferromex and CEFX are part of the operation. Around 2006, BNSF decided to sell
the Raton line to the State of New Mexico for their commuter service; Amtrak would still use the line, but
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
41
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100