New David K Smith Post on TTAMT

[Sokramiketes]

Maybe it's me, but I would give up lighted numberboards for correctly proportioned ones anyday.

A couple years back, on Atlas I believe, there was a modeler doing just that.  He'd fill in the number board hole and apply properly proportioned number board decals (or maybe even stickers).  The effect was astonding.

I'm trying to remember what the units were... I think they may have been Frisco?  Anyone able to dig up his photos?

[DKS]

Maybe it's me, but I would give up lighted numberboards for correctly proportioned ones anyday.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall seeing a whole lot of complaints lodged against the Atlas/Kato RS-X series for not having lighted number boards. I tend to think that, if a nice-to-have effect like lighted number boards compromises appearance because of technical limitations, then drop the effect. But it may be one of those things that, once you start offering them, you'll really hear about it if you subsequently withdraw them.

[tom mann]

I think I'll try what skibbe just recommended...

[cv_acr]

One thing I should probably comment on,

The CP Rail flatcar probably wasn't the best example to use. Neither of the prototypes match the MT at all, so both are foobies/stand ins/fantasy. CP never had any cars that actually match the MT flat in any way.
As to colour, these open frame cars have weathered pretty dramatically and I don't believe they've ever been repainted or washed since they were built. So the original colour would have been the standard CP "Action Red" like the rest of their 70s and 80s equipment.

The CP scheme was obviously added to increase the market for the car. It'd be like painting a Pennsy N5-whatever caboose into UP colours and releasing that. If it's 100% right for PRR, it's still 100% wrong for UP, so it's hard to argue that they should have used this UP # instead of that one because this car had more windows. (Although I guess a number off a wide-cupola van would be "more" wrong)

Anyway, YMMV, but examples like numbering a DB GP7 with numbers that were actually non-DB when the RR actually had some in another series that did have DB seems to me a better example to support the argument. I don't know many major examples off the top of my head, but one smaller example I can think of happened with the Proto1000 newsprint boxcars in HO. When Life-Like released the car in the modern CN scheme with the www.cn.ca URL, they put it in the exterior-post door version of the car rather than the interior-post door. They used the right number series that was appropriate for the door type, but those particular CN cars had welded sides instead of riveted and a different side sill. Subtle differences to be sure, but the inside-post door version was 100% bang-on accurate for the CN 400xxx series boxes, and many of those received the same repainting. (All the other CN paint schemes released by LL were done on this body). It always puzzled me why they put the one particular paint scheme on the different shell.

[Mark5]

I think that the post-Kato Atlas EMD hoods have more scalish number boards.

[amato1969]

Maybe it's me, but I would give up lighted numberboards for correctly proportioned ones anyday.

Amen, brother!  It's not just you.  I think that lighted numberboards are overrated in N.

[ryourstone]

I've been filling in number boards for a while, don't care about the lighting. It's not a complete fix but it looks a little better:

Atlas GP35


Kato SD45


-Rich

[TrainCat2]

Since it has not been said yet ...

All in all, the article was well written and thought out David. Kudos.

[DKS]

Since it has not been said yet ...

All in all, the article was well written and thought out David. Kudos.

Thank you very much. I genuinely appreciate it.

[bsoplinger]

Ok, I understand why the numberboards are raised up based on the explanations here.

What I don't understand is why that is the case. If the shell is, say 1/2" thick, why does the smallest detail that is cast in the hood have to be 1/2" x 1/2"?

Can't a detail be 1/2" thick, yet only 1/4" or even 1/8" tall?

These things are cast with the plastic in a fluid state, heated, under pressure, right? Is there really a chance of voids if they make a detail have less height than thickness?

Do I need to draw pictures to ask this question?

I'm trying but can't seem to find an example right now, of a cab in particular, where the scullion (or thingie or whatever it is called) between the front windows of the cab was thinner than the thickness of the shell. That is, the width of the plastic bit was less than the thickness of the plastic bit. (Perhaps it was a SD-24/26 or GP-38?)

Just looked quick through my bits and pieces. Its the infamous GP-30 cab I have here. Atlas part #470202. It isn't the front windows on this cab but the side windows (couldn't find the cab I was thinking about but this one will do). My micrometer measures it out as 37.5 mil. Yet the vertical divider on the window is only 18 mil wide, or 50% of the thickness. So couldn't the space between the bottom of the number board cut out be only 18 mil above the top of the opening for the window?

[DKS]

Ok, I understand why the numberboards are raised up based on the explanations here... looked quick through my bits and pieces. Its the infamous GP-30 cab I have here. Atlas part #470202. It isn't the front windows on this cab but the side windows (couldn't find the cab I was thinking about but this one will do). My micrometer measures it out as 37.5 mil. Yet the vertical divider on the window is only 18 mil wide, or 50% of the thickness. So couldn't the space between the bottom of the number board cut out be only 18 mil above the top of the opening for the window?

Y'know, I was on the verge of raising this very same point, but I didn't want to appear as if I was abusing a deceased equine...

(This is not to suggest you are guilty of same.)

[Sokramiketes]

I think we (I) need a picture, as I don't quite understand what is being asked.

There are cases where shell thickness can vary, and there are cases where varying the shell thickness will cause sinkholes due to varying rates of cooling, etc.

[Robbman]

Message deleted

[Nato]

  I happen to have an old Arnold Rapido Undec GP 30 shell which I just checked. It has unlighted numberboards molded on in the correct lower location. Now for my other complaint, why didn't Kato model a nose window on their modern AC diesels with a clear insert instead of solid with molded frame? I used black decal striping cut to fit inside the frame to make it look like a window. I have since sold all my GE AC Wide Cab moern locomotives as I began to rationalize  what eras I wished to model. Hey! I got $400.00 credit at my local hobby shop as my locos on consignment were sold                                      Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.