Swinging Bells on Northern Pacific Geeps

Tom,

The NP specified "customer provided, bells removed from steam locomotives", when they ordered switchers and GP units from EMD. I'm pretty sure they did the same thing with Alco and Baldwin. Some of the "older guys" at EMD remember the bells arriving in the receiving dept. for use on NP diesel units. I had seen former NP GP units on the BN after the merger, with the steam locomotive bells still in place, but I'll bet the BN folks removed them prior to final disposition of all those units.

Not a real engine, and not a very good picture, but thought it was interesting given the topic - just noticed today this new Lionel Legacy GP with a bell mounted on top of the short hood, which I thought looked odd.

Applause for Lionel.  That's a good-looking geep, breezinup.  Say what you will about Great Northern -- and it was a well-engineered, well-maintained, and prosperous railroad, on a par with Union Pacific and Santa Fe -- I always liked Northern Pacific better, because the NP had the tougher route between St.Paul and the Pacific coast, and because it had that wonderful diesel locomotive roster with all those F9's, very well maintained and not cobbled up with after-market appliances.  And the semaphores, of course, right to the end of the NP.

Good choice, breezinup.

I like 'em both 

Regards,

GNNPNUT

I agree with you entirely, Tom. It was a great railroad. Among other things, they were closely linked with Yellowstone National Park; several years ago I bought a T-shirt at one of the lodges there which had the NP logo on it - the railroad was still around the park, at least a little! We also traveled through some sparsely populated areas and small towns in parts of Wyoming, and saw Northern Pacific signs still on some railroad buildings near the tracks in a few towns. Nice to see.

I grew up in the Twin Cities area, and remember NP TV ads for the North Coast Limited (with a "Northern Pacific, Really Terrific" musical jingle), and seeing the NCL on a number of occasions. My grandfather worked for a period of time as a lumberjack in northwest Wisconsin around the turn of the (20th) century, and they were producing ties for the NP, and I've felt a little connection with the railroad since I was small and heard the stories.