The Carolina Sandhills Lines in HO Scale

[davefoxx]

With the nice weather this weekend, I took the time to hang my trestle up on a tree branch in the yard to begin applying the paint and weathering.  It got a coat of primer and a coat of Scalecoat II Flat Railroad Tie Brown.  That will be the base coat, which was needed to help allow me to blend the plastic and wood parts that are supposed to be weathered creosoted wood.  I still need to paint the steel girders in the middle section black, and I have a bottle of Tru-Color Brushable Weathered Gray Wood that I plan to paint on the "wood" parts.



I also cleaned the railheads before the paint set up too much.

DFF

[Point353]

I bought an Atlas GP40 in Rock Island bankruptcy blue yesterday with ESU Loksound for a really good price, so my first attempt will be a patched locomotive.  I expect that @RockGp40 will be disappointed with the sacrilege that I commit to a RI piece, but I will also be preserving its heritage since it won't be completely stripped.  The Rock Island Geep is plausible, because that road's assets were sold off in the early 1980s in the bankruptcy.  Who says that the Seaboard Central couldn't have purchased a GP40 for a good price and then needed to merely patch it to get it into service as soon as possible?

There's quite a story behind those RI GP40s:
https://utahrails.net/articles/ri-gp40s.php
https://utahrails.net/up-diesel-roster/up-diesel-roster-08.php#gp40-600

[davefoxx]

There's quite a story behind those RI GP40s:
https://utahrails.net/articles/ri-gp40s.php
https://utahrails.net/up-diesel-roster/up-diesel-roster-08.php#gp40-600

So, Atlas got the road number 3000 wrong on the RI unit?  That’s really unlike Atlas to mess that up.  What’s going on there?  Although, the road number is irrelevant, because I’m patching the locomotive. All I’d have to do is patch the road number on the cab side, so it looks repainted.  Jeff at Shawmut Car Shops is including road numbers with my decals.

My bigger boo-boo is that I purchased a locomotive with no dynamic brakes!  I am going to swap out the brake blister insert to give my locomotive dynamic braking to deal with the hill on my layout.  I’ll patch that part to look obviously added, too.  I wonder if a railroad ever did that: added dynamic brakes to a non-dynamic brake unit.  This is quickly turning into a Frankenstein’s monster.  Nice.

DFF

[RockGp40]

3000-3006 were supposed to be part of the Capital Rebuild Program, but I think they only got to 3004 before the final day of operations, 3/31/1980. 3005 and 3006 got to the primer but the blue never made it.

As far as me being upset, fahgedaboutit. You're HO, so no foul. Besides, I took a KCS GP-30 in white and fantasy painted it to Bankruptcy Blue.

[Point353]

So, Atlas got the road number 3000 wrong on the RI unit?  That’s really unlike Atlas to mess that up.  What’s going on there?

That would be one of the handful of GP40 units that the RI did not return to the UP.
Those units were rebuilt to GP40-2/GP40u specs and renumbered into the 3000 series.
They were later sold to GO Transit.
Still later, they made their way to the St. Lawrence & Atlantic.
https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/GO_Transit_720-726

[Bendtracker1]

My bigger boo-boo is that I purchased a locomotive with no dynamic brakes!  I am going to swap out the brake blister insert to give my locomotive dynamic braking to deal with the hill on my layout.  I’ll patch that part to look obviously added, too.  I wonder if a railroad ever did that: added dynamic brakes to a non-dynamic brake unit.  This is quickly turning into a Frankenstein’s monster.  Nice.

DFF

In a roundabout way, this did happen to the 10 Rock Island SD40-2's.
After shut down, they were sold to the ICG, who later sold them to EMD and were rebuilt, including the additions of dynamic brakes, eventually most if not all of them were sold to the WSOR (Wisconsin Southern) and some even wound up as Webb Asset Management Corp.
https://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr3331.htm

 

[davefoxx]

Thanks for the information, guys!  Just looking at St. Lawrence & Atlantic GP40 No. 3204, it clearly has the addition of a dynamic brake, too.  So, since my Geep is in a batch of RI GP40s that didn’t go back to UP and were sold elsewhere and modified, my Seaboard Central is plausible.  This makes me happy, because I found a good deal on the Atlas GP40, which already has a Loksound decoder with sound.  So, I don’t have to mess with the lights (already LEDs) or the decoder.

DFF

[Philip H]

When KCS bought its initial group of GP40-2Ls fro the great Canadian north they were DB free. The Road of the Belles added them.

[ronw1970]

https://www.thedieselshop.us/Rock-11.HTML

The Rock Island GP40R for rebuilt were in the 3001 series. Since the RI owned these outright they stayed on the property post shut down as is int this case .... in 2020 where this picture is taken is now  shared by 3 different railroads... Metra .. Chicago Rail link and Iowa Interstate

[wazzou]

GE may have eventually surpassed EMD in sales and initial reliability but there are still a lot of 1st and 2nd gen. EMD's on the rails today.

[davefoxx]

I put a solid eight hours into the Seaboard Central's trestle today to prime, paint, weather, and install nut-bolt-washer details.  All that's left to do is paint and weather the I-beam girders that bridge the Seaboard System's mainline below (I'm probably going to paint them black), touch-ups, Dullcote, and plant it permanently.  Of course, there's kudzu, too. 



DFF

[Point353]

I put a solid eight hours into the Seaboard Central's trestle today to prime, paint, weather, and install nut-bolt-washer details.  All that's left to do is paint and weather the I-beam girders that bridge the Seaboard System's mainline below (I'm probably going to paint them black), touch-ups, Dullcote, and plant it permanently.  Of course, there's kudzu, too. 



DFF

Are you going to put the railroad's name on the center I-beam?

[davefoxx]

It’s funny you should ask that.  I was just thinking about that earlier, because I’ll have plenty of Seaboard Central decals on the 8-1/2” x 11” sheet that I ordered.  I think it would fit perfectly, it identifies the owner of that line, and this is the first scene that you see when you enter the room.

DFF

[wazzou]

I get that it's the scene you first see but does it really make sense to have the advertising above another rail line verses a highway?  Just something to consider.

[Point353]