Wonderin' where the "Alco's" are

I've been talking about doing this for a while and now that I've amassed all of the necessary locomotive starting points, its time.  I will be placing various orders in the coming days to several ebay detail parts/Atlas shell dealers, as well as a certain Shapeways merchant to fill in any gaps in detail part inventory I may have.  After these arrive it will be straight to eight.

These project locomotives will become the following in the coming months:

RS-18's    3624s, 3663n, 3669n, 3852s, 3859n, 3865s

RSC-14's  1757s, 1769n, 1777s

RSC-13's  1709s, 1724n

C424's      3205s, 3208s, 3219n, 3223s, 3232n

Note: an "s" indicates an engine painted in stripes whereas an "n" indicates an engine in the 1961 Noodle scheme.

My Gaspe diesel fleet will consist of a mix of GMDD and MLW products, with the latter being the mainstay of the fleet.  For the better part of 30 years between the late 1950's and the early 1980's, the venerable MLW RS-18 was the mainstay of the Campbellton Division's fleet.  All of the mainline freights had one if not several RS-18's leading and the yard power in Gaspe and New Carlisle was, you guessed it, RS-18's.  Even the passenger trains (CN, later VIA, 118/119) were hauled by 1, sometimes 2, RS-18's up until the winter of 1987 when the FPA4s came online.  I remember that the 3600s and 3700s were my grandfather's favorite locomotives to operate.  He used to talk about leaving Gaspe or Campbellton with five or six RS-18s on the head end.  In the early days, they were lucky if they would arrive in New Carlisle with two still online, however, they would just keep pulling he would say, you  just couldn't stop them.  

Throughout this time, H16-44's and H12-64's were also used frequently, as well as a mix of C424s, C630Ms, M636's, M420s, SD40s and GP40s.  In the later years (1980+) the RS-18s began to operate less frequently and engines like HR616s and HR412s started to appear.  

The copper ore train was an interesting situation.  According to my sources it was always hauled by two 2500s (later 3500s) or two to three 1700s.  I found it interesting to note that they used 1700's due to the weight of that train.  It would make sense that these would appear though as there were three 1700s assigned to the St Quinten Sub out of Campbellton that would have been "spare power" when not in use on that line.

I already have a couple of locomotives out of this batch completed, but the majority are barely started yet.

It took me three tries to get an RS-18 right (I rebuilt the two I did into 3624 and 3663 after two attempts I was unhappy with) but now I've got it down to a science.  This engine was completed in the fall of 2013.

3624 leads VIA 118 (otherwise known as The Chaleur)

3663 and 1724 were completed this October, just in time for Truro.