Norfolk Southern GP60 Project - Update

Its been a while since I updated on my Norfolk Southern GP60 project.  You can read my previous post here: LINK

Today I spent some time finishing a few smaller jobs on both engines, drilling the grabiron mounting holes for the Cannon nose and attaching the anticlimbers front and rear.

There is no commercially available treadplate for the GP60, and my original plan had been to adapt a Cannon Gp38-2 tread to match, however the differences in the step edges made me rethink that plan - there was simply too much of a difference between the shapes to make it work.

I followed up a suggesiton on the Diesel Detailer board and investigated Railflyer Prototypes. They have a set designed for the GP50 which should be a close match for what I need, a little pricey at almost $20 per set, but I have ordered one to give it a go.

Unfortunately there is only one UK supplier for Railflyer, the Scottish model shop Macs Models, and he was out of stock of the particular set I wanted, so I had to go with a direct order from the US.

In the meantime, I am going to try using an Archers resin treadplate decal to make the tread for one of the models.  The tread is similar to a waterslide decal and is applied to the model just before the final paint.

This shot shows the nasty seam along the front edge of the Railpower shell, these old moulds seem to give a 'soft' edge to the details, far different from the crispness of a modern model.  Most likely this is due to the type of plastic used to make them.  The seam will show through if I use the Archers treadplate, so I decided to try and use some ultrathin plasticard to cover the tread area.

After a lot of trial and error, I managed to cut a piece of 0.13mm styrene sheet to match the shape of the tread area on the front of the locomotive.

This shot shows the styrene in place, it nicely covers the gap in the decking and should make fitting the resin treadplate a lot easier.  The styrene is only 0.1mm thick, so if the Railflyer decking does fit, then I can simply glue it on top without affecting the look of the model.

Here is a shot of both engines with their decking sheets fitted.  The rear engine is using the slavaged SD50 cab, and it is intended to be a 'consist' engine rather than a showcase one.  That model will use the resin treadplate to keep the build costs down.

The rear of each engine features a handbrake recess.  The Railpower kit for a spartan GP60 comes with a blanking plate for the hole, but because both of my base units are GP60M's I needed to cut and fit a small piece of styrene to fill the gap.

My original plan was to fit a Cannon blower duct, but I turned out that the Railpower shell does not have enough space to fit one, there isn't enough height under the inertial filter grille.  So I opted to simply use the Railpower duct and fit the Cannon walkway tread and base around that.  It won't be as nice as the Cannon part, but it should be okay once it's painted.

Next step will be to drill and fit the remaining detail parts, the rooftop lifting hooks, and the radiator fans.