Finally Finished! Ballast Express Conrail C32-8 6618
Oct 27, 2022 17:29:40 GMT -8
Christian, fr8kar, and 27 more like this
Post by cr9617 on Oct 27, 2022 17:29:40 GMT -8
About a year and a half ago, I reevaluated my approach to this hobby. As I have mentioned before, I don't have a layout. My primary enjoyment in this hobby comes from the model building aspect of it. I had been buying willy nilly anything I could get my hands on that fit into my Conrail late 90s era which left me with this huge backlog of projects that I would never get to and an empty wallet. So I sold off a ton of rolling stock and locomotives, and decided to focus only on subjects that I had a direct connection to. It could be something personal like a story or experience or maybe just something that I had photographed while out railfanning in the 90s. This enabled me to narrow my focus immensely and bring some order to the chaos.
I bring all this up because this locomotive is from one of those personal experiences. In 1997 I was 15 and my railfanning trips with my dad were always confined to the north Jersey area, but that year he surprised my younger brother and I with a 3 day railfanning trip to Altoona PA for Railfest 97. In retrospect it was only a 5-6 hour trip from home but it seemed like a world away at the time.
The first stop we made that morning on the drive out was the intermodal terminal in Harrisburg PA and the first train we saw was this mixed freight led by an SD50 and this C32-8.
20221027_204028 by cr9617, on Flickr
So when I picked up this Overland brass C32-8 at a local show, the choice was obvious what road number it was getting repainted into. Unfortunately the unit has some serious drivetrain issues with stripped gears so it doesn't run which allowed me get it pretty cheap. The seller was adamant about his price due to the "professional paint job", which was anything but, however after some haggling he finally budged. He seemed genuinely insulted when I told him the paint meant nothing to me since I intended on stripping it anyway. Eventually I'll source some replacement parts or maybe an entire drive, but right now that's not important.
As with most brass, the majority of the details were there so not much work needed to be done. The model represented the unit as delivered so some minor modifications were necessary to bring it up to its 1997 appearance. The horn was relocated from the cab to the long hood. The grabs on the nose and rear were added to match the Conrail modifications. The plow was replaced with correct part and trimmed for 3rd rail clearance. The anti climber support was added along with ditch lights to the front and spare knuckles to the rear. The stock wipers were ditched in favor of Detail Associates parts, and the small brackets, strip things were added to the cab roof with styrene.
The loco was sandblasted and primed with baked on TCP light gray primer. The base color is Tamiya XF-80 Royal Light Gray and the bottom half is TCP Weathered Black. These units didn't receive any type of mechanical attention when they were repainted into the ballast express scheme so the got pretty ratty, pretty quick. In October of 1997 when I photographed the unit, it was still pretty clean with just light coat of road grime. I wanted to capture the grungy look of these units a few years out of the paint shop so I kinda found a happy medium between the photographed look in 97 and what 6618 looked like later on along with photos of her sister units for reference.
HO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on Flickr
HO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on Flickr
HO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on Flickr
20220825_205502 by cr9617, on Flickr
HO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on Flickr
HO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on Flickr
HO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on Flickr
HO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on Flickr
Ignore the missing AEI tag on the fireman's side, that fell off sometime between finishing the model and the photographs.
I bring all this up because this locomotive is from one of those personal experiences. In 1997 I was 15 and my railfanning trips with my dad were always confined to the north Jersey area, but that year he surprised my younger brother and I with a 3 day railfanning trip to Altoona PA for Railfest 97. In retrospect it was only a 5-6 hour trip from home but it seemed like a world away at the time.
The first stop we made that morning on the drive out was the intermodal terminal in Harrisburg PA and the first train we saw was this mixed freight led by an SD50 and this C32-8.
20221027_204028 by cr9617, on Flickr So when I picked up this Overland brass C32-8 at a local show, the choice was obvious what road number it was getting repainted into. Unfortunately the unit has some serious drivetrain issues with stripped gears so it doesn't run which allowed me get it pretty cheap. The seller was adamant about his price due to the "professional paint job", which was anything but, however after some haggling he finally budged. He seemed genuinely insulted when I told him the paint meant nothing to me since I intended on stripping it anyway. Eventually I'll source some replacement parts or maybe an entire drive, but right now that's not important.
As with most brass, the majority of the details were there so not much work needed to be done. The model represented the unit as delivered so some minor modifications were necessary to bring it up to its 1997 appearance. The horn was relocated from the cab to the long hood. The grabs on the nose and rear were added to match the Conrail modifications. The plow was replaced with correct part and trimmed for 3rd rail clearance. The anti climber support was added along with ditch lights to the front and spare knuckles to the rear. The stock wipers were ditched in favor of Detail Associates parts, and the small brackets, strip things were added to the cab roof with styrene.
The loco was sandblasted and primed with baked on TCP light gray primer. The base color is Tamiya XF-80 Royal Light Gray and the bottom half is TCP Weathered Black. These units didn't receive any type of mechanical attention when they were repainted into the ballast express scheme so the got pretty ratty, pretty quick. In October of 1997 when I photographed the unit, it was still pretty clean with just light coat of road grime. I wanted to capture the grungy look of these units a few years out of the paint shop so I kinda found a happy medium between the photographed look in 97 and what 6618 looked like later on along with photos of her sister units for reference.
HO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on FlickrHO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on FlickrHO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on Flickr20220825_205502 by cr9617, on FlickrHO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on FlickrHO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on FlickrHO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on FlickrHO Scale Conrail Ballast Express C32-8 6618 by cr9617, on FlickrIgnore the missing AEI tag on the fireman's side, that fell off sometime between finishing the model and the photographs.
