WTB: Southern Pacific light clusers, plows, etc. for SD9's?

[Miles]

I'm aware that Sunrise made them up until a few years ago, but has anybody picked up the ball and produced accurate light clusters for SP locomotives since then?

If not, would anybody provide me with accurate drawings so that I can 3D print them?

How about Snowplows or Nathan P3/5 horns?

I'm building a fleet of 15(!) of these SD9's for a friend, so as streamlined and cheap of a process to procure these as possible would be appreciated, thanks!

[chessie system fan]

Atlas makes that gyralight for their SD24.

http://shop.atlasrr.com/p-2284-n-sd-24-gyra-light-housing.aspx

No picture, but you can see it on images of decorated CB&Q units.

[C855B]

Are you going specifically for 43/4400 SD9E's, Miles? Or are we backdating to 38/3900's? The "simple" dual Gyralite works for both, but pre-rebuild SD9s had the five-light package with the single red Gyra over the dual white instead of the white and red in the same housing: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2702555

BLMA has your plows and horns on this page. IIRC, SP's SD9's had 3-chime Leslies, although after years of shops servicing I'm sure you will find exceptions. Anyway, BLMA has both Nathan and Leslie 3-chime, center chime reversed in the SP style.

[Spades]

Miles

For headlights I would use detail associates PLASTIC headlight casting DET-8216 Dual headlight early for the bottom set and DET-8218 Dual OSC Headlight Pyle for the upper headlight. You can fabricate the emergency light bracket http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/sd09e_photos/4400_sp-sd09e-gene_mckinley.jpg and use DET-8219 OSC Hdlite Pyle for the emergency light. If you want to model the Farr air filter http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/sd09e_photos/4451_sp-sd09e-bob_dengler.jpg the box above the letters AC just use some evergreen plastic.  For plows there BLMA as well as Detail Associates.  Horns Atlas, BLMA. If you are using an Atlas SD-9 it has only one ladder on the nose cut a Micro Train caboose ladder to size and glue it is an identical size and spacing. There is also Miniatures by Eric for detail parts.  I got to tell you I felt the Sunrise casting were a little crude. If you can find them N scale of Nevada SP dandi diesel details for  SD/GP-9s it couldn't be easier but NSN has been out of business since the  1990's. 

G

[tehachapifan]

With the dual-purpose gyralight like the one pictured above, did it have a single-piece oscillating plate inside like on the ones with 2 clear lenses but with the "red" light bulb off?

[C855B]

Yes. They just moved the red lens to the dual housing and wired the lights separately.

[Miles]

Wow!    Thanks guys! These are all very strong leads. I'll draw up a parts list now that I know I can get most of what I need.

Two more questions:
-Since I plan to probably split the fleet between the SD9E rebuilds and the unrebuilt units, I suppose it's easy enough to make the larger electrical cabinet part and Farr air filter out of styrene as suggested?

-My friend also wants some of them equipped with icicle breakers and rotating windows for snowfighting service in the Sierra. Ideas on how to make those? In HO I'd just make them out of flat brass stock, but in N...that seems a bit fiddly.

[SP-Wolf]

Miniatures by Eric also offers these lights. He has the SP lights and brackets (NL6) as well as the large Pyle National "Ash Can" signal lights (NL8 or NL10) - you will need to make your own bracket for this one.
To add- these are very nice brass castings.

I use both the above and Detail Associates for all of my SP lighting needs.

http://www.miniaturesbyeric.com/catalog.htm

Regards,
Wolf

[mcjaco]

If you want some of the Barrell type, I have a couple loose.  I don't know if I'll need them.  I just used the sets for the other lights.

The Mini's by Eric are pretty good castings (the pics are crap on the website).  I've been using them for my Cal Northern SD9s.  Good lead on the MT caboose ladders though!

[C855B]

Were the barrel lights unique to the snow service power? I don't recall ever seeing them in SoCal.

[jnevis]

I'll dig around, I may have a couple of the ?Sunrise? icicle breakers in the parts box.  I built a GP38 with one, REALLY fragile.

[tehachapifan]

Yes. They just moved the red lens to the dual housing and wired the lights separately.

So, just to confirm, if you were to look closely at the red lense when that bulb was off but the clear lense was on, you would see movement of the mechanism thru the red lens?

Regarding the MBE castings, I used them on my SP switcher bashes with very good results....





The MBE castings also come with a bracket appropriate for SP GP9's and SD7/9's.

[C855B]

So, just to confirm, if you were to look closely at the red lense when that bulb was off by the clear lense was on, you would see movement of the mechanism thru the red lens? ...

Yep.

[w neal]

I wonder if some enterprising souls could recreate some of the sunrise parts via shapeways.

[jnevis]

I looked and the breakers I have are for the GPs not the SDs similar to below...

http://rrpicturearchives.net/pictures/58581/580b.jpg