If you have seen my Photo Galleries or looked through the C&SFT | Motive Power page, you might have seen some pictures of EMD FT-A units. Over the last few months or so I have been wondering how prototypical it might be to have FT units in the era I model. So I did a bit of research over the Internet.

It seems that some FT's were in existence on common carrier railroads up to the late 1960's. One particular example caught my attention - Georgia Northern railroad's number 14. The EL also seemed to have some FT's operating between 1960 and 1968 which it inherited through it's merger with the DL&W. I found some evidence that there was some sort of trade in scheme in operation regarding the FT's which some railroads took advantage of (see http://espee.railfan.net/sswftab.html for example). But the existence of Georgia Northern #14 in operation in 1969 suggests not all were traded-in. It's not too much of a stretch to have some FT's still in regular service in the era I model. I figured that as I don't do strictly prototype modeling that I could get away with having them on my layout. Rather than de-commission them and have to purchase other motive power for MWSL trains, I would rather come up with a 'believable' excuse for having them on MWSL trains (after all, I do like the look of the FT units, with their 4 exhaust stacks and rectangular dynamic braking fins) - "The MWSL purchased Georgia Northern #14, and EL #6014 in the 60's. The MWSL re-motored and re-numbered them to #23 and #28. The MWSL FT-A's are seeing out their days hauling trains along the MWSL mainline through to Barr Yard, Illinois over the C&SFT tracks."

Works for me!