I noticed this SD50 shell going cheap on ebay and picked it up for less than a tenner, it's an Athearn RTR and perfect as a replacement for the parted out Conrail 50 I have sitting on the 'to do' pile. The shell has clearly had a major collision with the floor at some point, but its in good shape apart from the walkways which have disintegrated. I already have a Conrail walkway and handrails, the long hood and other parts are the pieces I needed.
I really should get around to completing some of these rebuilds soon, it's getting crowded in the parts box! :)
I found this Athearn 'Transport Leasing' 85' flatcar going cheap on ebay, the auction picture was a bit blurry, but I thought I'd take a chance on it. I'm glad I did, the model arrived today and it is in mint condition, with only some superficial wear to the outer box to reveal that it is not brand new.
The model is very nicely detailed, with separately applied wire grab-irons, detailed loading ramps, separate trailer hitches and very fine printing.
The model also comes complete with two 40ft trailers, one decorated for B&O and the other for Great Northern, these seem to be the old A-Line trailers with modern printing and very detailed wheels and chassis, they certainly look great.
A great model, and one I'm glad I picked up, it's certainly whetted my appetite for more of these.
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.
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.
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.
Work continues on my GP60 project locomotives (see HERE for details)
I had been intending to use Cannon & Co cab part for one of these two GP60's and a salvaged Athearn SD50 cab for the other. I realised it made more sense to use the Cannon parts on the Railpower shell and keep all of the salvaged parts together on the same model. So NS #7129 will be a model made using recovered components.
The SD50 cab came from my basket-case ebay purchase back in March last year (see HERE for details) and was painted for Conrail and partially repainted/stripped. Because the cab/sub-base are smaller parts I used a couple of old snap-top pill containers as stripping baths.
The parts fitted neatly into the containers and the lids helped to keep everything airtight so the 99% alcohol could do its job
The Athearn RTR conrail paint turned out to be a bit more resiliant so I left the parts soaking in the shed for a week to soften all of the paint.
Here's a shot of the parts after scrubbing. The brakewheel came loose during the cleaning and will need to be refitted or replaced.
Intrestingly the 99% alchohol didn't strip the silver paint from the window frames, I'm not sure why, but it might be the type of ink that those parts are printed with. In this case that actually a good thing as it saves me from needing to try and remove the cab window sides (I'm not even certain that it is possible to remove them once they have been glued in place).
The next stage will be to assemble the locomotive and begin adding the main details, including a multitude of Cannon & Co parts.
