Has anyone used these things?
I did two FAs using them: a dummy LL plastic frame FA-2 (I bought it at a show that way. I know that LL only put the B units on a dummy frame, but I saw this one for five dollars at a show, it was an A shell on a B frame) and a powered LL FA-1. I used the smaller straight brackets. I used Woodland Scenics foam cutter wire for the antennae.
The service photographs of the locomotives with these things look funny. The models look hideous. I wonder how much of that might be due to my own failings, but I did line up the brackets with a ruler. I used Loc-Tite to affix the antennae to the brackets and used as little as possible to keep the antennae on the brackets. I then painted over everything. I managed to get off most of the slopped paint with my fingernails (this avoids scratching the factory paint). In contrast, the only models that I have seen with the Trainphone antennae from the factory have been the BLI Centipedes. The antennae look funny on them, like the prototype photographs, but not hideous, like mine.
I am going to try either an RS-1 or RS-3. If I try the RS-3, I do not know what I should do for the two angled brackets that were in the middle of the long hood on those. Fashioning a pair might be beyond my abilities. I will at least try it. I am assuming that I should use the brackets with the loops in the end for the other ones and for all of them on the RS-1, with the exception of one caboose bracket for the end of the short hood on the RS-1. It appears that Kato 2-8-2 straight handrail stanchions would be the best for the roof brackets on the ALCo road switchers.
As soon as I can find GF's digicam, I will see if I can post some photographs of my models (this will require actually figuring out how to upload photographs on Trainboard's new format. I had a hard enough time finding my photo album when they changed format).
Has anyone else used these and had good or bad results?
Since I mentioned ALCo road switchers, does anyone know where I can find a service photograph of Penn #5906. It was the first RS-1 that the Penn bought. I am trying to figure out if it had a Trainphone antenna. I have now read in three places that the Penn bought it in 1948 for "Baltimore commuter service", although I can not imagine its working that kind of service anywhere up there unless it was on the Northern Central. I seem to recall that passenger service did persist there even into the 1960s. Likely the train would not have been too much longer than two or three cars, which an RS-1 could handle. I can not imagine its working passenger trains on Pope's Creek Branch, as I seem to recall that passenger service ended there right after the Second World War and it was gas-electrics in the last days of passenger service there.
Hallmark did sell an unpainted brass Penn RS-1 in HO that has steam generator stacks and a Trainphone antenna, but, as it is unpainted, I am not sure which prototype road number it was supposed to represent. The two numbers that Atlas offered in its updated Penn RS-1s also had Trainphone antennae on the prototypes.
Does anyone out there know if any Penn gas-electrics had Trainphone antennae?
Thank you in advance.
