Baldwin's entry into the diesel road freight & passenger locomotive business hatched the unusal DR12-8-3000 (freight) & DR6-4-1500 (passenger)units....."Centipedes" or "Babyfaces". I understand that 17 total units were bought by SAL, and that they could be a maintenance nightmare. Were any of them preserved? Who manufactured the prime movers used in these locomotives and what other RRs bought Centipedes?

-- Greg Hodges (lynnhodges@earthlink.net), September 21, 2004

Answers

Last spring I found an old (early 70s) Hallmark Models Brass Centipede in a hobby shop - and the stars must have been aligned right as it was already painted for the SAL (#4506). It needs to be re-engined, have some details added, etc., and one day I might actually get it done. Until then it's a good looking "hanger queen".

-- Bill Parks (bparks_43@yahoo.com), September 24, 2004.

The Seaboard DR6-4-1500 Babyfaces were taken out of service in 1964, they were traded in to EMD toward the aquisition of the SDP-35's. I've been told none of them (of any railroad) were preserved. As for the fate of the Centipedes, I doubt any exist. Overland dropped the ball on the Babyface Baldwins IMHO. Who knows, we may one day see something from PROTO 1000. One can hope; after all, they gave us DL- 109's.

-- Bob Venditti (bobvend@bellsouth.net), September 21, 2004.

PRR and NdeM had "Centipedes". The Central of New Jersey had double ended passengers units and NYC and MP had single end units.All the passenger units had minor differences while the freight units were nearly identical.Overland did the CNJ units.They should have done the single end units that could (without a lot of trouble)be built for all three roads.AFSIC they screwed up on duing the wrong units.Would have sold a lot more by doing SAL,NYC,MP.

-- Joseph Oates (uj67@mindspring.com), September 21, 2004.