Bachmann - 4671 - Locomotive, Diesel, GE U36B - Auto Train - 4000

Prototype History: GE U36B was a diesel-electric locomotive produced by General Electric beginning in 1969. The U36B was GE's 3,600 hp (2.7 MW) answer to the power race with EMD. Only 3 railroads bought this locomotive. Major purchasers of U36Bs were Auto-Train Corporation and Seaboard Coast Line, which hosted most Auto-Train Corp. traffic. In 1976 four U36Bs that were built by GE for Auto-Train Corporation, which had purchased 13 earlier, were instead sold and delivered to Conrail due to Auto Train's financial difficulties. These units, built to Seaboard Coast Line specifications, were originally fitted with Blomberg trucks; when Conrail purchased them, the railroad asked GE to replace the trucks with AAR Type B instead.

From Wikipedia

Road Name History: Auto-Train was incorporated in 1969 and began operations in late 1971. Initially, they hauled passengers and their automobiles from Lorton in Northern Virginia to Sanford, Florida which is not far from Orlando. RF&P and Seaboard Coast Line were the host railroads. The passenger car fleet was purchased secondhand from various roads and the autoracks were an early design from Canadian National. GE U36B's were used for road power (built to Seaboard Coast Line specifications.) Lorton was the northern terminus because the autoracks would not fit the clearances in Washington D.C. and points north. Auto-Train featured daily departures from both ends. The trains were popular and usually exceeded 30 cars evenly split between autoracks and passenger cars. In 1974, Auto-Train expanded with trains running between Louisville and Sanford. This second route was a failure and this combined with a couple of expensive wrecks sent Auto-Train into a downward spiral. In 1980, they declared bankruptcy and the following April, the last Auto-Train ran. Amtrak resurrected the idea in 1983 with a tri-weekly service on the Lorton - Sanford route.

Brand/Importer Information: Bachmann Industries (Bachmann Brothers, Inc.) is a Bermuda registered Chinese owned company, globally headquartered in Hong Kong; specializing in model railroading.

Founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the home of its North American headquarters, Bachmann is today part of the Kader group, who model products are made at a Chinese Government joint-venture plant in Dongguan, China. Bachmann's brand is the largest seller, in terms of volume, of model trains in the world. Bachmann primarily specializes in entry level train sets, and premium offerings in many scales. The Spectrum line is the high quality, model railroad product line, offered in N, HO, Large Scale, On30, and Williams O gauge all aimed for the hobbyist market. Bachmann is the producer of the famous railroad village product line known as "Plasticville." The turnover for Bachmann model trains for the year ended 31 December 2006 was approximately $46.87 million, a slight increase of 3.36% as compared to 2005.