I Would Like to Know More About This!!!

[E7]

I've never particularly cared for the aesthetics of the headlights on Alco FA's and PA's. Looking through Bill B's post on the Sunset PA's, I noticed a post by De Bruin about half way down on page 4 with an image of a GM&O FA with the nose in shadows. I looked at it a bit, and something looked a bit off. I came back this evening and looked a bit more, and decided the headlight didn't appear to be in the conventional location.....so I did a search and found:

https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/ ... tion=click

Check out number 722

Wondering if this headlight placement was exclusive to the GM&O or ????? Any other roads have it? An ALCO option?

[ScaleCraft]

That's a George Barris FA.

[E7]

That's a George Barris FA.

Old George only did cars.

[Tom Dempsey]

Perhaps some sort of inhouse wreck repair.

[ScaleCraft]

That's a George Barris FA.

Old George only did cars.

and that was a joke.

[sarge]

Although I don't know when the cutoff was, the first crowd of GM&O FA1s, up into the 730s at least, were built with the headlight grill ending at the cowl line of the nose. The PAs and subsequent FAs had the grill extending up past the cowl line as you are used to seeing. There are 750-series FA1s on GMO that had normal headlight grillwork (and no gutters).

As far as I remember the very early headlight grill configuration was unique to the first order of FA1 on GMO and the demonstrators, as was the PA style gutter behind the door. I also seem to remember the two features coincide on the earliest FA1s.

[E7]

Thanks Sarge!

[E7]

That's a George Barris FA.

Old George only did cars.

and that was a joke.

Understood.

[E7]

Here is one a bit different:

https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/ ... tion=click

And yet another:

https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/ ... tion=click

[bob turner]

It just sends the iPad to the same group of pictures.

[E7]

It just sends the iPad to the same group of pictures.

Works for my desktop.....looks like the problem is with your iPad

First link is CP Rail with orange white diagonal stripes on the nose

Second is a heavily worn Canadian National with the headlight ring extended out beyond the lens

You should be able to pick them out of the group of images. Appears that there are quite a few variations of this loco.

[De Bruin]

Sarge summarized the odd characteristics of the early 1st lot of GM&O's FA-1's well. They're actually ordered based on the Kuhler styled "Black Maria" demo sets, strange critters looking sort of like B trucked "mini" DL-109's.
Interestingly and similiarly B&O, EJ&E and PRR ordered cab units from Baldwin expecting "baby face" car bodies and received "sharks" instead.

Later modifications of the FA's headlight grill included the extended bezel ring which I believe kept the CN's FA & FPA's headlights from covering over with accumulated snow. (the extension allowing the lamp heat to concentrate and melt the drifted portion off the glassed area and outward, conversely both RI and LI removed the grated molding entirely , RI's being rebuilt into EMD F-units right down to Blomberg trucks, LI's receiving new power plants and twin halogen headlight installations as cab equipped power cars.

Obviously those details around the FA1's of the GM&O are like cat nip for obsessive fans of Diesel trivia like .....well you know.
They also got foot boards on the nose and rear ends along with a roof mounted rear headlight. It goes on and on.....
I sure like them and would welcome the opportunity to build a set if I had a good styrene or pvc FA-1 carbody to start with. The Ken Krayer example Jim covered in PST#96 would be good to work with too, but they're not very common, and would likely require some serious machining to render accordingly. Fun to "arm chair" the proposition though.