Another Cheap Geep

I spotted this Athearn RTR GP35 on ebay with a very low buy-it-now, I'm guessing the seller based the price on the going rate for a wide-body blue box model.

This one is in better shape than the Western Pacific one I bought a few weeks ago.  The handrails are a bit loose and will need a spot of glue to hold them in place, the pilot steps are missing on the long hood end and slightly bent on the front, and there is no front coupler (the previous owner has chosen to superglue a stack of black plasticard to hold the shell on - a bit random, but easily fixable).

It's a nice model, but as I already have the WP one, and the Kato shell as projects, I will most likely fix this one and add it to the 'for sale' pile to go on the club table at the show in September.

Genesis Geep Rebuild

This week I picked up an Athearn Genesis GP15 on ebay, it was in pieces so I won it for £35 which seemed like a reasonable price provided I could get it back together.
It turned up today and sure enough, the model was in a very sorry state, with a large collection of loose pieces rattling around in the box.

It appears to be brand new, the wheels show little sign of wear, suggesting the previous owner had taken it apart to fit a DCC chip and then started losing parts, no doubt getting ever more frustrated as the model continued to shed parts until finally giving up in frustration and sending it to ebay. 

I have to say the construction for these Genesis models leaves more than a little to be desired, it seems like most of the parts are push-fit, with tiny details like the frame bell, tank piping and radiator grilles coming loose at the slightest touch.

The first order of business was a test run, which revealed that the engine wasn't moving at all, this turned out to be down to the 8-pin dummy plug being loose and once it was pushed home the locomotive proved to be a very, very smooth runner indeed.

I fitted a Digitrax DH123 decoder and then assembled the locomotive and replaced the various loose parts, there didn't seem to be any missing pieces, so the end result looks very impressive.

Damage to blower duct - (small hole at the walkway edge)

The only real damage to the model are the usual handrail problems (one of the supports is broken) and there is a small hole drilled into the blower duct.  This is a strange bit of damage , and it appears to be cause by the body mounting screws being accidentally pushed through the shell, or possibly the original owner attempting to drill out the chassis screw from the top.  A bit of putty and some black paint should fix the hole.

So I'm very pleased with this one, it comes fully boxed and it proved to be a very quick job to get it back on the rails, with these models retailing for £88 currently, that means I got it for well under half price.

Not so Exact Rail?

I had some Model Junction vouchers left over from the delivery of my Genesis SD70's so I decided to use them to pick up another Exactrail car to compliment the two I already have.

The car I chose was the RTIX FMC 4000 High Sided Gondola, a model that is part of the Exact Rail 'Express' series of cars.  These cars are less detailed than the Platinum or Evolution range cars that I already own.

The model is a very nicely painted one-piece shell with incredibly fine printing, the various signs on the car are clearly readable, even when some of them are so small as to require a magnifying glass. It's a superb paint job.
.

The metal wheels and kadee couplers come fitted as standard, and the model is exceptionally free rolling, I imagine a full train of these would be very smooth running.

The one thing that lets this car down is the moulded grab irons.  The ladders and steps are all part of the shell, and compared to the latest releases by Exact Rail, Atlas, Walthers or Genesis, that lack of detail makes this gondola feel quite outdated.

If the car was cheaper that might not be a problem, but at £17.99 I would have expected this model to have the same detail as other expensive cars, and the moulded grab irons and ladders are particularly noticeable on the light coloured panels of this car.

So this particular model is a little disappointing, although as a voucher purchase it didn't cost very much as all I paid was the postage, and I am considering making one of these as a scratchbuilding exercise towards my car builders AP certificate, so having this car will be really useful for reference.



Worthing South Shore Exhibition 2012

Today I drove down to Worthing to attend the South Shore railroad exhibition, a small US/Continental event hosted by the South Shore club.  (www.southshore.org.uk) and held in the Sompting village hall.

Inside the hall was dominated by the Le Fordham Yard N-Scale layout which featured a mid-west setting with grain elevators, refinery and switching yard.  The outer walls were lined with traders and smaller layouts.

I was particularly impressed with the Broken Creek layout owned and operated by Lee Wenham.  This small switching layout featured some really nice detailing and plenty of operation in a very compact 5ft length.

The layouts on display were:

G-Scale scratchbuilt locomotives and rolling stock - Sid Bunker

Le Fordham Yard - N Scale - Nick Halford & Lee Wenham

Broken Creek - HO - Lee Wenham

Stout Oak, Iowa - On30 - Andrew Dunn

A Touch of Germany - N Scale - John Walton 

Othmar Yard - HO Scale - Bevis King

Atlas and an unexpected Kato...

I managed to pick up an Atlas C30-7 on ebay for £30 - perfect for the Redbird project, and much more detailed than the Railpower shell.

This model was advertised as having a missing fuel tank, but I also picked up a box of assorted detail parts from the same seller and discovered the missing fuel tank was actually in the second lot.  So I have a complete C30-7 ready for stripping and detailing.

The second lot was advertised as containing a railpower GP35 shell, which I though might be useful to swap with the Athearn RTR I bought recently (the Athearn RTR is based on the Railpower shell). 

However when I looked at the GP35 shell it turned out to be a Kato GP35, not a Railpower, so I'm not sure what I will do with that one.  I don't have any Kato spares, and there are no handrails or cab glazing for the shell.  It is beautifully detailed with walkway tread and very finely cast details, so I will probably try to get it up and running some day, perhaps on an adapted Railpower chassis.

The rest of the lot was an assortment of whitemetal detail parts and some Atlas details, along with a stripped blue-box GP9 shell.

Athearn RTR GP35 - Project Locomotive

Another cheap geep for the Peoria project.  This one is an Athearn RTR GP35 in Western Pacific silver and orange livery. 

The ebay listing advertised it as a basket-case but this locomotive is actually in very good shape.  This is a reissue of the old Rail Power Products shell, with some extra detailing and see-through fans.  The chassis is DCC ready and it's a nice little model.  The only issues with this one are missing coupler pockets, snapped handrails and a front truck with damaged sideframes.

The previous owner has broken the sideframe mounting pins and then attempted to fix the problem by drilling holes through the plastic and using plastruct tube to refit the frames.  It's a bit of a mess of glue and plastic, so the easiest way to fix it will be a replacement truck (any Athearn GP7 or F7 truck will fit).  So it needs a little work, but for the price it was a steal.

Photograph of High Hood N&W #1309 from http://www.nwhs.org/

I plan to turn this loco into a high-hood N&W unit, the handrails will either be glued back together or replaced with brass wire and I will fit a Cannon high nose.

Vintage Model Railroad Craftsman

As part of the preparation for my SD39 project I have been looking for kitbashing articles and guides.  There have been numerous magazine articles on the subject over the years, but they are usually in older issues, most of them long out of print. 

I've been lucky to get scans of some of the more obscure articles, but one of the key pieces of missing information was a good scale drawing of an SD39.  I knew there was one in the November 1972 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman and I was lucky enough to find one on ebay last week.

It arrived today and it is a real blast from the past, the articles show scratchbuilt locomotives without cab glazing, award winning layouts with code 100 rail, adverts for manufacturers like 'Cox' who have long since ceased production.  It's a really fascinating window forty years back in time.

These are some astounding photographs of scratchbuilt buildings and rolling stock from the 1972 Seattle NMRA, showing the kinds of results that were possible long before detail parts or craftsman kits existed.

The SD39 plans are exactly what I needed, and they will easily answer all my concerns over fan spacing and door latches.   I've already ordered some of the parts I will need for this build, with an Atlas GP38 forming the basis for the long hood, and an Athearn SD40-2 as the sill.