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Post by slowfreight on May 3, 2020 12:15:54 GMT -8
Finished!  After weathering. These were not rustbuckets during my era.  The real reason for building this kit. Needed something to go with my completed locomotives.  Another distraction project completed. |
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Post by TBird1958 on May 3, 2020 13:13:19 GMT -8
It's turned into a pretty nice day here! On the road to a better GP40.  |
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Post by timvanmersbergen on May 3, 2020 15:01:42 GMT -8
![]()  A load of 1969 John Deere 4020 tractors, fresh from the factory in Waterloo, head east through Dubuque.  Mostly done with this section of East Dubuque now. Here's an overview of that section of layout. Tim VanMersbergen |
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Post by TBird1958 on May 3, 2020 15:09:52 GMT -8
Wow! That's looking great, Tim!
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Post by Artur on May 3, 2020 15:26:28 GMT -8
Graffiti girl on a NARC grain car.   |
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Post by Chad on May 3, 2020 15:45:25 GMT -8
Great work, on the other side of the car is she laying on her side facing out? Graffiti girl on a NARC grain car. |
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Post by dti406 on May 3, 2020 18:38:21 GMT -8
Got some work done the last couple of weeks. %20IMG_0738.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds) 50' Branchline AAR Double Door Boxcar kit, lowered the ladders and brake gear to show a rebuilt car and new A-Line sill steps instead of the plastic ones. Car was painted with Scalecoat II Black and lettered with decals from Bill Mosteller. This was one of a group of cars the NF&D (Owned by the N&W) got from NKP in a mixed bag of ACF & GATC cars. This car came about has there was a thread in the MFCL Group on these cars, and I had to build one. %20IMG_0750.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds) Exactrail PS 4427 CF Covered Hopper Kit, painted with Scalecoat II UP Hopper Gray paint and lettered with Microscale Decals. Car was in grain service on the Northern Pacific, I finally finished off a sheet of Microscale Decals with this car. _IMG_0758.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds) 40' IMRC 40' PS1 Boxcar kit, painted with Scalecoat II Black and Boxcar Red paint and lettered with Mask Island Decals. This is one of a group of cars the LS&BC actually owned and not involved in the PC car stealing, but the LS&BC actually did not steal the cars, it is a long involved story with many participants. _IMG_0757.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds) 52'6" Proto 2000 Greenville gon kit, painted with Scalecoat II Black and lettered with Herald King Decals. The DT&I owned a hundred of these cars, transferred them to the AnnArbor and then took them back, mostly used in transporting coiled steel, accounting for the covers I have in the car. %20001.JPG?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds) An old club shot of New Haven C-425 and U25B on a mixed freight, it was not often the C-425 led as engineers preferred the ride of the U25B to a C-425. But I like the classification lights on the top of the cab to show! Thanks for looking! Rick Jesionowski |
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Post by 12bridge on May 3, 2020 19:01:54 GMT -8
I got one of my FM 31A engines painted up to use as a flatcar load.  Been working on an FM switcher as well. Not following anything specific, just freelanced. The ESU file is pretty damn good, especially their AA2 horn, which I dare say is one of the best horn recordings they have.  |
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Post by slowfreight on May 3, 2020 20:11:26 GMT -8
Got some work done the last couple of weeks. Thanks for looking! Rick Jesionowski I really enjoy your regular output of all kinds of random stuff from random custom decal sets I'd never heard of. How many custom painted freight cars would you guess are in your fleet? |
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Post by Artur on May 4, 2020 3:53:14 GMT -8
Great work, on the other side of the car is she laying on her side facing out? Graffiti girl on a NARC grain car. lol, I don’t believe so. |
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Post by carrman on May 4, 2020 7:23:24 GMT -8
It's turned into a pretty nice day here! On the road to a better GP40. Ok, spill your guts about the frame and fuel tank mods!! |
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Post by TBird1958 on May 4, 2020 8:31:10 GMT -8
That's an Athearn 3600 gal tank, I picked it up from Horizon, they come with a nice assortment of drains, fuel gauge and brackets. The air tanks and cab are Cannon, the sill is made with .010x.080 and .010x.030 strip stock to represent the lower visible portion of the "I" beam.
This is an old Red box GP40, honestly, it's never looked "right" to my eyes, the cab and fuel tank/air tanks are not very good and the under frame is pretty lacking as well, the upside is that they run well and were not expensive originally. I have 5-6 to upgrade and didn't want it to be too big of a project, all but one of these are "B units" on my roster, like the prototype they won't lead any consist, having all crew amenities removed.
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Post by carrman on May 4, 2020 8:41:18 GMT -8
That's an Athearn 3600 gal tank, I picked it up from Horizon, they come with a nice assortment of drains, fuel gauge and brackets. The air tanks and cab are Cannon, the sill is made with .010x.080 and .010x.030 strip stock to represent the lower visible portion of the "I" beam. This is an old Red box GP40, honestly, it's never looked "right" to my eyes, the cab and fuel tank/air tanks are not very good and the under frame is pretty lacking as well, the upside is that they run well and were not expensive originally. I have 5-6 to upgrade and didn't want it to be too big of a project, all but one of these are "B units" on my roster, like the prototype they won't lead any consist, having all crew amenities removed. I've got about 8 of them undec, which I wanted to turn 4 into MILW but the fuel tanks and frame have always held me back. Plus, the fuel tank is a 3,000 gallon pieces which I can replicate using the Atlas SD35 tank, but it's so shallow behind the air tanks. |
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Post by TBird1958 on May 4, 2020 8:54:51 GMT -8
I had to do some trimming to get the Athearn tank to fit, nothing major, would it work to shorten a 3600 or 3200 tank?
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Post by riogrande on May 4, 2020 9:56:39 GMT -8
IIRC, the Red Box Atlas GP40 cab roof sides angle was off the prototype reportedly. I don't know if it's visibly noticeable. I have six of those Red Box D&RGW GP40's - four are unnumbered. Supposedly Atlas corrected the cab angles on cab roof on later runs - I think starting with the run that included the ex-Conrail GP40's.
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Post by TBird1958 on May 4, 2020 10:14:00 GMT -8
IIRC, the Red Box Atlas GP40 cab roof sides angle was off the prototype reportedly. I don't know if it's visibly noticeable. I have six of those Red Box D&RGW GP40's - four are unnumbered. Supposedly Atlas corrected the cab angles on cab roof.
You can buy a D&RGW '81 nose from Athearn as well, the cab (original) is not good, mine are all going to get re-done like this one, it hasn't been a bad project. Besides, I really need these units to fill out several locomotive consists I'm wanting to put together.
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Post by riogrande on May 4, 2020 10:41:49 GMT -8
I edited my last post to include that Atlas reportedly correct the cab roof sides on a later run.
For sure, during the Action Road period, the GP40's were "core" power across the west end of the system. I recall the Green Frog video series Rio Grande Odyssey mentioned the power consists in the 70's were set up usually with 4 GP40's and had enough power to run short frequent fast trains across the system without helpers. The video shows a number or run-by's wizzing by the camera, often with 4 GP40's or sometimes a GP35 or GP30 in the mix. That's the reason I grabbed 6 of the Atlas small heralded GP40's when they were offered.
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Post by carrman on May 4, 2020 18:41:36 GMT -8
I had to do some trimming to get the Athearn tank to fit, nothing major, would it work to shorten a 3600 or 3200 tank? The MILW tanks were either 3,000 or 3,200, I'm not sure which. |
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Post by TBird1958 on May 4, 2020 19:09:04 GMT -8
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Post by riogrande on May 5, 2020 5:28:15 GMT -8
Those fuel tanks do look good. Speaking of fuel tanks, remember the old Atlas yellow box GP40? I had a couple of those but the fuel tanks were horrible blobs of metal with ugly slots in the sides, which I assume were there to aid in removing the shell. When Atlas produced the Redbox GP40, although not perfect, they were a major improvement over the Yellow box GP40.
As far as the Rio Grande B units. From memory I want to say it was all all GP road numbers from 3020 - 3075 became B units for a number of years; 3020-3028 being GP30's, 3029-3050 being GP35's, and 3051-3093 being GP40's.
My thoughts on GP40 B units, which I haven't fleshed out, would be that since most of the small herald were relegated to B unit status, a model fleet would ideally mirror that in approximate ratio. A batch of 6 could be 2 as "A" units and 4 as "B" units. I must admit I'm more tempted to have more being able to lead, so might end up with 3 "A" and 3 "B" assuming I continue with 6 small herald GP40's.
I'd love to see ScaleTrains offer the GP40 some day since the Atlas model is getting a little long in the tooth by todays standards and time is a limited commodity for me.
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Post by TBird1958 on May 5, 2020 7:45:56 GMT -8
For all their faults these units are really good runners and even more importantly they mix really well with all the rest of my roster, Kato powered locos are robust mechanisms and I use them as the basis for a good part of my fleet. Units that can easily be programmed to run with each as a set of power are a big plus, so my Atlas units are a really important part of the scheme, I can run them with my upgraded '7s,'30s,'35s 45s and Genesis 40-2's. My Scaletrains T2's actually run a bit better than anything else and have a much different operating characteristic about them, so they run as a dedicated set, were they to take on early EMDs I'd still probably go for some, but maybe not - endlessly buying locos isn't part of my plans either.
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Post by drolsen on May 5, 2020 19:20:49 GMT -8
I've got about 8 of them undec, which I wanted to turn 4 into MILW but the fuel tanks and frame have always held me back. I'm in the same boat. I bought a bunch of undec GP40s and later GP38s because, in my mind, they were some of the first diesel models that stepped up from the traditional Athearn Blue Box line in terms of offering different prototype variations. I really only need a couple of each to build older CSX MOW "Pumpkin" units and maybe a Chessie survivor or two from the '90s. The thing that really held me up was the shallow stepwells that were designed to allow the steps to be see-through but still molded as one part with the walkway. The middle step doesn't overlap (vertically) with the top and bottom steps as it should, and the overall stepwell is too shallow, if I recall correctly. I really like that Athearn offered those fuel tanks separately. I bought a bunch, included a half dozen of the 4,000 gallon tanks to modify my Athearn SD50s, since CSX units have a slightly smaller fuel tank. Looking forward to see how those Rio Grande units turn out! IIRC, the Red Box Atlas GP40 cab roof sides angle was off the prototype reportedly. I don't know if it's visibly noticeable. I have six of those Red Box D&RGW GP40's - four are unnumbered. Supposedly Atlas corrected the cab angles on cab roof on later runs - I think starting with the run that included the ex-Conrail GP40's. If I remember correctly, the Atlas cab subbase is too tall, which raises the sides of the cab. The cab sides are still the correct height, and the roof remained at the correct height above the rails, so that fudged the angle of the part of the roof connecting the sides and rooftop. If you replace just the cab, with a Cannon cab, for example, the cab will sit too high because of the subbase. The best option on the early models is a complete cab / nose / subbase replacement. Dave |
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