I finally started work on the first Rock Island locomotive for my Godinez roster. The model is a vintage 1990's Front Range GP7 kit which I will be superdetailing and painting in the late sixties Rock Island maroon and yellow paint scheme.
I started with a non-dynamic front range shell which was partially painted for Burlington Northern by the previous owner but never finished.
The Front Range kit is the same tooling that formed the basis for the new Athearn Genesis geeps, so I knew that the cab roof was the wrong angle. I decided to try and address that by replacing the original kit cab with an Atlas one.
The Atlas cab is slightly longer than the front range one so I had the do some trimming and filing to get it to fit, I also needed to shim the cab with styrene to raise it slightly as there is clearly a difference between the hood heights on the front range and Atlas bodies.
I also separated the nose from the long hood to make it easier to add the longer cab in between, otherwise I would have needed to file away the rivet detail on the roof.
I've added grab irons and prepared the shell for further detailing. I've got several bags of Details West parts ready to add to the locomotive and will be giving it MU stands, air hoses and drop steps as well as adding brass horns.
Next step will be filling the gaps with milliput and sanding to give a smooth surface ready for priming.
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