Layout Update

[Tylerf]

Well you are right about that, i guess i meant just the metaphor of rivet counting is fairly excessive so translated to road names, saying they must be consistant to be realistic is also rather excessive. Hence rivet counting? But thats also not always a bad thing, i like my locomotives to be accurate to their road specific details, which to some could seem excessive, but its to myself. Going around telling others something like their cprail ac6000 is unrealistic as it doesnt exsist isnt as good...i do have one of those though, had to convert it to an es44 to make it right :-P

[jward]

concerning the patched santa fe locomotive. i know the area where cody lives. i also know that there were similar patched santa fe b23-7s within an hour of where he lives. and b23-7s from any railroad are the definition of junk power in this day and age. believe it or not, a 50 year old gp9 would probably sell for more than a b23-7, even though it is 20 years older.

but all this nitpicking about what is and isn't realistic is one big reason why i decided many years ago to model a fictitious line. with my own road name, who's to say they didn't run a particular type of locomotive? only me.....

as an example in cody's situation.....that santa fe b23-7 might be the road's primary locomotive. the union pacific one, leased. or possibly they bought it too, for dirt cheap and haven't gotten around th patching it yet. csx and conrail power? csx might have trackage rights, or it is simply borrowed for use on a coal train which is destined for a power plant on csx tracks.... the possibilities are endless.

[Cody J]

I would like to thank all of you for your comments/replies and Rogertra was right. The Union Pacific is no longer used on the layout, only sometimes whe I like to mix up the power. The Santa Fe is not owned by CSX, it is the only locomotive owned by the coal mine- the Kanawha Creek Railroad (KCRR) so it wouldn't make sense for it to not be patched, and it's just a switcher engine so they didn't care how the patch looked.
As for the Conrail/CSX debate, I model CSX and the Conrail engine that doesn't need to be patched and hasn't been repainted yet.

-Cody