July 1, 1996 will be the next meeting of the Lubbock Model Railroad Association. The meeting will be at our regular meeting place, Highland Baptist Activity Center southeast corner of 37th and Quaker at 7:30 PM. The program for this meeting is not known to this author at this time.
The slide SIG met on June 20, 1996 with about 8 people present, to view slides of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. All present enjoyed the slides. The next meeting will be August 22, 1996 at Pat Pritchett's with the subject of New Mexico and Arizona trains. Come and enjoy the fun with us.
As most already know, on Sept. 22, 1995 the BN and Santa Fe Railroad companies merged their holding companies to form the BNSF Corporation. The railroads have not officially merged, but you would not know it by seeing some of the trains lately in Lubbock and Amarillo. July 1, 1996, the railroads themselves are to merge. As of that date, we will no longer have a BN crew or train come into Lubbock.
BNSF has decided on a new paint scheme which will adorn the 164 new General Electric Dash-9 locomotives. The paint scheme features Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Burlington and Santa Fe predecessor colors--orange, forest green, red and silver. A trial run with this paint scheme was applied to BN 9297 which was traveling the system with employee acceptance. One report has one paint scheme for the "Northern" lines using a Burlington inspired paint scheme and the "Santa Fe" lines using a Santa Fe inspired scheme.
Just prior to the deadline to file opposition to the proposed UP- SP merger some big guns came out against the merger. These include the Transportation, Justice and Agriculture Departments. Non-governmental organizations are the State of Texas, Colorado, National Industrial Transportation League, KCS and Conrail, along with several smaller groups. The Surface Transportation Board is to make its ruling in either July or August.
Interstate Hobbies has several new locomotives in stock including: U33/36C in BN, SF and BN predecessor schemes, C 30-7 in BN and SF and the Dash 9-CW from Kato and Athearn, and then the Dash 8-40BW from Walthers. Several new cars are in from Athearn, Accurail and Walthers. Intermodal has been expanding with a number of new containers and trailers on the market. Come check out all these and many other new and forgotten products at Interstate Hobbies at 5101B 34th Street, Lubbock.