Sunday, October 18, 2026

Rapido Duluth, Winnipeg, and Pacific RS-11

I spent my late teens in the White River Jct, VT area, which was where I began to turn into a mature railfan. Both the Boston & Maine and the Central Vermont still ran passenger trains there, while the Canadian Pacific ran freights in over trackage rights on the B&M. The Central Vermont was mostly GP9s, but when I was there, it also ran unique RS-11s lettered for the Duluth, Winnipeg, and Pacific, at the time still in CN green and yellow. It appears the Central Vermont almost always had at least several of these on the line, running both on the Central Vermont proper and the Grand Trunk to Portland, Maine.

While Atlas has produced RS-11s lettered for DW&P, I was never interested, because the DW&P units were unique. For whatever reason, they were built by Montreal Locomotive Works, not by Alco, and MLW did not offer the RS-11 as a model, so there were a number of feaures that didn't match Alco RS-11s. Below is the engineer's side of the Rapido model.

Below is an Atlas model:
There are differences in the trucks and fuel tank, not very visible in tne top photo, as well as in the square vents at the top of the long hood. On the Atlas model, there are five, which appear on an Alco RS-11 with dynamic brakes. (Atlas never offered an RS-11 without dynamics.) On the Rapido model, there are three, because the DW&P units, while they had dynamics, had them in the short hood. The Rapido model carries the vents for these on the fireman's side of the short hood, as well as compressed air cooling coils.
On the engineer's side of the cab, control panel lights illuminate when you press F0 to light the headlight:
I'm sorry the RS-11s don't have ground lights, since I saw the prototypes frequently at night, riding the Washingtonian, but the panel lights are a nice feature.

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