CPR F unit Icicle Breakers - Super-detailing Intermountain locos

[CNR5529]

I ended up gluing the water tanks just on one side, and split the twin air tanks so that each tank is on its own frame half. Add a quick coat of black and the underside now has the right silhouette. I may go back to add some piping, but this is not a high priority right now.

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[Big Train]

CNR5529

Looking forward to seeing these in action!....

[CNR5529]

Looking forward to seeing these in action!....

You and me both!

As part of the fuel tank chop job I had to fabricate a new back wall. This was done with some styrene sheet and a bit of cutting and shaping with a file. A bit more black paint and the fuel tank is ready to go.

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[CNR5529]

Well, its been more than 30 days. I've been warned...

Thanks to a bit of dumpster diving @craigolio1 did in his scrap bin, some suitable brass stock from an old detail fret was donated to the cause. This material was quite close to what I was after dimensionally, being .010x.018 vs the .008x.013 target. With brass in hand, I quickly made up some drawings to help with the bending and all that:

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Once all parts were bent, I drilled some holes in the shell, assembled them loosely in place and soldered them together. I am quite pleased with the results:

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These icicle breakers are remarkably rigid now that they are assembled, and I'm pretty sure they will survive normal trainshow use. Anyways, now I need to make up a second set for the FP7a, and can then move on to other details.

[Philip H]

being from a part of the world where icicles are not really a thing, can you clarify why the components are where they are:

it would seem to me that bar thingy in the back should be up front to protect the machinery that comes behind it . . .

[nickelplate759]

I believe the bars are to protect the windows of dome cars (a.k.a. Skyline cars) further back in the train.

[CNR5529]

it would seem to me that bar thingy in the back should be up front to protect the machinery that comes behind it . . .

I believe the bars are to protect the windows of dome cars (a.k.a. Skyline cars) further back in the train.

What he said. If you look at the locomotive from the front, the 3 icicle breakers form a slightly larger profile than the outline of a skyline or park car dome. Why the CPR put the curved ones at the front and the central one at the back behind the winterization hatch is a mystery to me. Could have to do with spreading impact loads throughout the roof structure rather than concentrating it all in one spot? And I guess they didn't really care about the winterization hatch hitting ice, as it is metal?

[CNR5529]

Next up, cooling coils.

CPR used a few different types of cooling coils on the roof of their FP7a and FP9a locomotives. Not all locos got them, and some were fitted later during overhauls. A bit of research indicated that 1407 had the more standard style of coils CPR used on most FP9as, while 1426 had none at all. I drew up another bending template based on measurements taken from a HO Rapido FP9a and was able to come up with a pretty good approximation of this part.

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The piping was then glued to styrene support blocks according to where the actual supports went, and the whole thing was fitted to the roof of 1407. The one bent leg may get slightly re-positioned, as it is sticking out a bit too much for my liking.

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[craigolio1]

Awesome.

[CNR5529]

Well, these two locomotives have been finished for a little while now. In fact, they have already been put on display at two local shows. That said, I hadn't gotten around to updating this thread, so time to fix that!

After doing the cooling coil and icicle breakers, I moved on to the last round of roof mounted details. This included assorted vents, roof grab irons and piping, etc.

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As for the Gyralites, I got those parts prepped and painted silver per the prototype. Here is a reminder of how small these things actually are. They didnt get installed yet though, as final assembly would include some nano LEDs, and would only be done after the carbody painting.

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With that done, I could start with the final paint touch ups. My goal all along was to try to match the factory paint as best I could instead of stripping and painting from scratch, in order to save the crisp lettering. To this end, I painted a bunch of swatches with all the versions of CPR Tuscan I had on hand.

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In the end, a 50-50 mix of @rapidotrains Proto Paint CPR Tuscan and TH&B Maroon came out incredibly close to the colour used by Intermountain. After a bit of masking and painting, I was happy with the results.

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The grey was then touched up using a mix of True Line Trains CNR grey 11 and CPR diesel grey.

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Finally some decals from a Black Cat CPR diesel set were used to reapply the yellow stripe.

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[CNR5529]

1407, the FP9a, will normally be used as the lead unit. For that reason I decided to install an MT scale coupler on the front. With the locomotive all apart for the final task of lighting the gyalite, I decided it would be a good idea to also install a crew. After a bit of digging through my stash of Preisers, I came up with an engineer and conductor that would be suitable for the job. The engineer has one hand on the control stand and the other arm leaning on the window, while the conductor is looking at paperwork on his desk. There is just enough light coming into the cab from the back of the headlight LED to light them up with a soft glow. The effect turned out quite convincing for anyone who happens to even notice them in there!

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OK, so now for the fun part. When I first designed the gyralite housing, I had hoped to someday get some tiny LEDs in there. The base of the housing was made hollow to run magnet wire through, and the lens openings were designed to be able to thread an 0402 in there sideways. That said, I didnt actually have any on hand so it was a bit of a leap of faith to get the housings printed based off dimensions found online. Well, @craigolio1 saved the day once again and donated a pair of LEDs to play with. Boy are these ever small! He was kind enough to pre-wire them for me, but while test fitting them I promptly broke off some of the wires. Time for a crash course in micro surgery! Guess what? It wasnt that bad.

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Once threaded in, it wasnt too hard to seat the LEDs at the back of the housings. Got them wired through the roofs, connected to the decoders and programmed so that they, well, gyrate. I am happy to report they look great in person (though it is always difficult to convey that through crappy cellphone shots converted to a gif).



So with that, these two locomotives are ready to pull my Dominion consist, and maybe someday the Canadian too! Now I need to track down an F9b...

[trainforfun]

They look  great !!!!

[peteski]

Very impressive, especially the Gyralites!

[tehachapifan]

Excellent work! I'm fascinated by the circus/carnival/mountain lights that these units had. Never knew about these before. Would've loved to see what these looked like in the wild!

[CNR5529]

They look  great !!!!

Very impressive, especially the Gyralites!

Thanks! I am pleased with how this whole project turned out.

Excellent work! I'm fascinated by the circus/carnival/mountain lights that these units had. Never knew about these before. Would've loved to see what these looked like in the wild!

There is a great vintage video for The Canadian where you can see all the details in question. Take a look at 10:08 for example... https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=42881.msg543257#msg543257

You can actually tell what section of the train they are shooting in the various clips based on how many U series heavyweight tourist sleepers are in the consist, behind the Baggage Dorm cars. If there is one U sleeper, its the Montreal section east of Sudbury, if there are two, its the Toronto section, and if there are three, its the combined consist somewhere between Sudbury and Vancouver. There are a few spots where they are showing the wrong consist for a given location...