October 13 MOW Equipment

Last week it was cool enough to put some time in the garage working on my layout.  I got some serious cleaning and sorting done.  I found two unfinished MOWs to work on.  It warmed up here in Bakersfield again and I'm back working in my computer/hobby room where it's cool.
 


I cleaned up the wrecking crane and snowplow then I put on the SP decals and painted the blade on the plow red like the prototype.

 

Athearn forgot the headlight so I drilled a #33 hole and installed a white LED between the windows top center.  The Athearn plow was longer than the SP prototype from the 50s.  The SP plows were shorter so I removed 10' making the plow 45' long.  I have a F7A that I'm converting to a F7B as the "Snail" that powers the traction motor.  The SP Shops installed the traction motor to power the blade in 1953.  It was built as steam powered in the 1920s, notice the exhaust stack on the roof and the boiler front plate on the rear.



The wrecking crane is very close to the SP prototype.  I crawled all over the crane in the El Paso SP Yard when I was a teenager and it didn't have glass in the windows so I don't think I'll put glass in my crane either.


I put the full name on both of my MOWs because I like all my railroad equipment to display Southern Pacific.  The prototypes only have "SP" on them.

There wasn't a snowplow in El Paso where we lived when I grew up but there was one assigned to the San Joaquin District here in Bakersfield to clear the Tehachapi Pass during bad winters.  Since my layout has mountains I need a snowplow.  I'll park the snowplow in the yard because it's still summer on my layout.


It's 1956 in the middle of summer on my layout so there's no snow and the kids from town are hanging out at the RR Super's swimming pool.

There are more pictures of the Railroad Superintendent's swimming pool in my December 2009 Archive, check it out.