It's about more than just the models - the backstory can provide benefits

I'm modeling and researching the B&OCT - with a specific interest in the late 1960s and early 1970s (before Chessie). But, I also have a tangential interest in the Penn Central PC - as it will be represented on the layout. I found out an interesting tidbit about the PC's operation on that railroad from a big SP fan.

I was conversing with Bill Decker, of Oregon, a new model railroad friend. I got to know him while organizing the clinics for the NMRA Rails By The Bay conference. 

Anyway, I shared the following picture with him while we were chatting recently. 

PC Geep and SP Caboose -- cross the B&OCT mainline just north of 75th St. tower. Photo by Thomas White.

An interesting photo -- a PC GP with an SP caboose. The time is the late 1960s. And the train is in Chicago --  crossing the Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal RR, just north of 75th St. tower. It's heading for the old Pennsylvania RR 59th Street Yard.

Bill is not only an SP modeler, but also a font of information about the railroad. In a few minutes he had identified the class of caboose, but the likely year of this photo. Because earlier it would not have been in Chicago.

Here's what he said in an email to me:

Definitely not a delivery of a "new" caboose!  SP 1558 is a C-40-4, built in 1961 by Pacific Car and Foundry, a 200 caboose order.  In many ways this class was the definitive SP bay window caboose.  Under 200 were built in three classes in the post-WWII period, but it was this big class that really made the SP a bay window caboose operator.  This is the Athearn caboose--blue box era.  Athearn has done great work since then in the Genesis line for more modern cabooses (what I mostly run right now), but these ware the ones that set the standard.  

Presence on Chicago trackage likely is via a UP pool, likely with CNW, although MILW was possible by this late era (Penn Central, post-1966).

Penn Central 5957 is a GP7, without dynamic brakes and what looks like a steam boiler up front.  Got to be a story there, as well, but my PC resources are scant--other than my own photos from two years spent in central NJ along the main to NYC.

The lesson for me -- I learned something new, learned a lot about Bill and was grateful that we had another reason to make a connection. Thanks for the information Bill and thanks for the photo Tom.

Bill has a blog about his prototype and modeling interests here: https://espeecascades.blogspot.com