BQ23-7

Too bad none of these exist anymore. They were just so ugly that they were cool looking engines.

I have the complete drawings of this loco if anyone would like them..

Tom

How much more space did the crew have in the cab than on a modern wide cab today such as a ES44?

kalvingp30fan wrote:I thought CSX made it so they couldnt lead?

They were converted to just trailing units because crews thought it was unsafe in a crash. Heres a pic of a later BQ I found.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... x?id=98971

The BQs were meant to seat five people in the cab, if I recall correctly. A modern safety cab locomotive, be it GE or EMD, generally provides seating for three people, and you might be able to fit a fourth person if he brings his own chair, but five would be a pretty tight squeeze.

There GP9 and GP30 were athrean molds they bought and put a cheaper motor in

I'm not sure how accurate the Lionel U18B is - it looks like it was a compromise of a clone of the Athearn U30B, designed to fit the same chassis as Lionel was using for it's GP9 - which itself is a clone of the Athearn GP9 shell. I know Athearn's GE U-series have the same problem as their EMDs - the hood is a scale foot too wide for motor clearance. The U18 also has the too-wide hoods on it.

While the Lionel GP9 is similar in many ways it also exhibits a number of differences from an Athearn product - it was a clone tooled up about 1959 after Lionel and Athearn parted ways.

Lionel's GP30 was an all new tool with a scale-width hood done by Kader in Hong Kong and became a Bachmann product after Lionel quit, most recently available as a Spectrum locomotive.

Stupid though, but is the cab capable of being replicated?

With enough money, anything can be replicated. How deep are your pockets? But why would you want to replicate one of those beasties? They make a CF-7 look pretty neat, which they were- (And I'm well qualified to make that last statement-)

When I was a kid, the CSX ran these uglies along the ex-C&O/PM in Southwest Michigan. They never made it out of Family Lines gray. By that time I believe the windows were plated over due to trailing-only status.

And they were stinking ugly. I remember being in awe of how something could be so ugly.

Reviving an old thread here.
Did all these units come with reused EMD trucks like those of the U18b's?