The Royce Files

I found some additional photos of the BNSF 1885, a SD40-2 with a snoot nose that plies the yard in Fargo and occassional pulls a train west and visits Northtown Yard. That distinctive snoot and blueboonet  freightbonnet* Santa Fe scheme makes it easy to spot. I think I took these from Great Northern Drive near the throat of the yard.  Formerly SF 5121 and then BNSF 6805 after the merge. Built in November  1979 with builder number  786223-7. On the Santa Fe this engine saw time out west in California then made its way to the Midwest in the early 2000s and then to Minnesota and North Dakota around 2010. Sometime between spring 2019 and Fall of 2021, the BNSF 1885 was repainted in what looks like the H4 scheme (see here  BNSF 1885 in Oct 2021 ). Looks like they added an air conditioning unit or two too. From the angle of the photo I cannot tell if they reduced the nose size as well. *It came to my attention that bluebonnet was a color scheme only on passenger engin...

I passed through the old Fargo Great Northern yard en route to marathon activities and noticed a blue big nosed diesel with Santa Fe markings intact and a patched number 1885. According to online sources the 1885 is a SD40-2. 2 different SD40-2s It is working in with another SD40-2 in the H3 paint without a long nose. 1788 had been in the Burlington Northern colors up to around 2016 when it got new paint.  Both these engines have seen local service in the Fargo region going back and forth from the Fargo Yard to Dilworth and occasionally out to Jamestown on the former Northern Pacific line. Previously, both saw time around of the Twin Cities area. 

It was a frigid Saturday in early December, but I got the family out of the house for a little under an hour to meet Jolly St. Nick outdoors by the old Great Northern depot in Fergus Falls. Otter Tail Valley railroad is own by short liner Genesee and Wyoming via their purchase of Rail America back in 2012. You can see the RailAmerica paint on the GP9 diesel. Caboose OTVR 101 with OTVR 1483 Caboose was posed with the Geep for the Santa Train festivities. The caboose formerly ATSF (aka Santa Fe). The caboose is typically parked nearby the depot or further down the tracks near some maintenance facilities.   For a cold day there were plenty of youngsters out to meet Santa. In fact there was a line. GP9 in RailAmerica paint OTVR 1483 is a GP9 originally ordered by Nickel Plate . Built in 1959 it went through a few different owners prior to coming to the Otter Tail in 1997 including Norfolk and Western and Dakota Minnesota and Eastern.

I am finally coming out of the deep freeze which the blog has been in since December. It seems like it has been coldest winter I recollect. To warm up 2014 I'll be posting a bit about my model railroad. It made a major acquisition this weekend with the assembly of a train table. Now I need to start to lay track and clean up the floor layout upstairs. For now I will feature one of the 'road's' special trains. Once there was an fine train that could take you from L.A. to Chicago. It was BNSF predecessor Santa Fe's Super Chief . The funny thing is that I learned a lot about the Super Chief by listening to Jack Benny. He would have a train episode nearly every season. Here one from his TV shows. Simply hilarious.       The Lionel 212 Alco FAA pair belong to my father. He recollected to have acquired the diesels and the 3 passenger cars in the early 1960s. I have childhood memories of my dad running the train around the house...