I have had my proto freelance shortline on hold while I searched for and engine that "floated my boat". I had a few that I picked up and thought might work, but the fit didn't feel right. The line came into exhistance in the late 1980s before ditch lights and when many lines were dumping first geneation power, Alcos ect. A small shortline would be looking for cheap power, the stuff nobody else really wanted. Most EMD's would be in demand and higher priced, where as stuff like Alcos, Baldwins ect would be dirt cheap. I found this beast on brasstrains online store. Cheap as it was non running, had been attacked by the box foam but an odd ball. A low hood Alco RSD12, only buyer was the SP, everybody else had high hood units. (I also love beacons and oscilating lights!). So I bought it for $55 plus shipping. The non running part was a missing motor brush, I dont think this model has ever turned a wheel. I stripped the model of its clear coat and the foam crud to reveal a nice looking, 6 axle Alco diesel. I added the SP nose Gyralite, and might attempt the rest of the light package. Or I may just model it as the rest was removed and restored to a more normal look. SP themselves removed the long hood light cluster long before the units were retired in real life. I have redone the drive shafts with Athearn/A line parts, replacing the motor with a Namki coreless can. Paint scheme will be PRR like as my shortline runs on ex PRR track. Something similar to the brown Louisville & Indiana units.
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
Mike: I scored the exact same locomotive model for nearly the same price!
It is a beauty.
It is too new for my 1954 date that I model, but I will paint it as a STRATTON AND GILLETTE locomotive anyway and use it as a prop for "time warp" pictures.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Awsome Kevin! Mine will sport the L&I inspired PRRish tuscan brown with yellow stripe scheme for my Logansport & Eel River RR. Mine will still carry the SP nose Gyralite but with standard lighting like yours has. Have you tried to run yours yet? Mine had 2 cracked gears, one in the tower and one axle gear that I had to replace to get it going again. I ordered a new can motor for it to. Mike
emdmike Have you tried to run yours yet? Mine had 2 cracked gears, one in the tower and one axle gear that I had to replace to get it going again.
I ran it back and forth on some Kato Unitrack set up on the kitchen counter.
It ran loudly and poorly. I have not had time to investigate it. I know it will need a good cleaning.
All my trains are packed away right now while I work on the house.
Those are great looking locomotives. I'm not into brass, but I do run a free lanced short line.
In my mid sixties/70s/80s version (haven't yet decided exactly the off-era from my standard modern era I'll occasionally run) I have a low nose RSD12 as well.
Its a plastic Atlas RS36 shell on a factory dcc/sound RS11 chassis. I replaced the 4 axle trucks with 6 axle versions from an RS3 to make a decent model of the RSD12 (need to redo the fuel tank since it has the standard RS11 tank). Its ex-L&N 911 with the lettering scraped off and then touched up. Added the wire grabs and rings and pilot details, then weathered it heavily to represent the beaten down Alco that would have been acquired by a short line. Sorry no pics.
Great looking locos guys.
- Douglas
I thought about having the unit in a beat down SP grey/red scheme. But then I would need to correct the lights above the cab to the full SP cluster, along with the long hood. Otherwise it wont look right to me. But once repainted into my shortlines simple one color with a stripe scheme, I can rationalize that the lights were redone prior to paint. These usually are noisy Kevin, especially with the stock rubber "love joy" style drive shafts that like to bind and vibrate. Combine that with dry as a bone trucks and an open frame motor, you get lots of noise. Once you get your trains back out, a full service, new drive shafts and maybe a can motor really helps these old diesels out. Mike
Kevin: why not redetail it to look like an RSD-7... with a subsequent 'aftermarket' nose chop... which would be clearly within your date range (albeit as new power)? Some sources note the only 'major' difference between the RSD-7 and the RSD-15 was substitution of the 251 for the 244 engine, something little affecting the carbody shape... stands to reason an analogue of a 244-engined RSD-12 'could' have been built in the 8-odd months prior to 'The Day'.
I was going to say 'who would paint an alligator red?' but PRR's high-hood versions would look pretty good in Tuscan and so will this. Note that any 'weary' SP unit would likely already have the extra lights taken off or plated over, either as a result of the rules change requiring all those added lights to work like mandated lighting when installed, or as 'stripped' by the SP "for the usable parts they contained". You can always 'put some of the lights back' as you find use or need for them in your service...
I am tempted to note that if your line 'got' this from NdeM it might still have some or all its Locotrol equipment installed ... you could have some of the fun of DPU cheap, and probably some RCO functionality too... detail it accordingly?
As one of the other threads suggests there's a high level of activity on eBay.
I must admit I've been part of the activity. I have 108 items in my cart although I have not bought anything lately. I sure have fun looking though. If I decide to buy, I have a lot to choose from
Ironically here is one of the items I stumbled across the other day.
I could easily become a member of the Oddball Club
Go Go Green Machine
The RSD-12 reminds me of the short-legged Dachshund wiener dog with the long snout. Mind you, I am not making fun of it. I like Dachshunds. The locomotive has an extreme amount of character and that's all I've got to say about that
TF
emdmike I thought about having the unit in a beat down SP grey/red scheme. But then I would need to correct the lights above the cab to the full SP cluster, along with the long hood. Otherwise it wont look right to me. But once repainted into my shortlines simple one color with a stripe scheme, I can rationalize that the lights were redone prior to paint. These usually are noisy Kevin, especially with the stock rubber "love joy" style drive shafts that like to bind and vibrate. Combine that with dry as a bone trucks and an open frame motor, you get lots of noise. Once you get your trains back out, a full service, new drive shafts and maybe a can motor really helps these old diesels out. Mike
Perhaps I'm reading the history wrongly, but if SP in fact stripped off the light package before they were scrapped/handed off to other carriers, then I would think it would be MORE prototypical if your shortline had a package-less RSD12 in beaten down SP paint. Whether or not you want to show a new shortline paint scheme would be a matter of personal choice, not necessarily a matter of prototypical plausibility, IMO.
They stripped off the long hood light package, the low nose Gyralight and upper package stayed in most instances. But with my own shortline, I can rework the power how I see fit as long as it makes sense.
SeeYou190 emdmike Have you tried to run yours yet? Mine had 2 cracked gears, one in the tower and one axle gear that I had to replace to get it going again. I ran it back and forth on some Kato Unitrack set up on the kitchen counter. It ran loudly and poorly. I have not had time to investigate it. I know it will need a good cleaning. All my trains are packed away right now while I work on the house. -Kevin
Kevin, Good luck taming those loud KMT drives.. Back in the day we tried every trick in the book to quiet those drives down short of repowering them.
I quit worrying about the racket and enjoyed those Alco,Hallmark and Trains Inc diesels. You see the eary 60 models had those KMT drives.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
BRAKIEKevin, Good luck taming those loud KMT drives.. Back in the day we tried every trick in the book to quiet those drives down short of repowering them.
Since this model does not fit my timeline, it does not need to be a good reliable runner. If it runs at all, that is good enough for my plans for the model.
It is a shame that we got decent quiet steam loco gear boxes early on, but yet we got stuck with the noisy Kumata drives for years till Samhongsa made a little improvement(got us to Athearn BB noise levels), but with so many spur gears, even those growl. Wasn't till the Ajin tower drives in the OMI diesels did we get a nice quiet diesel drive set up in brass. The best option is a pair of yellow box era Atlas/Kato RSD trucks, this takes away the least amount of brass from the model. I have a coreless motor coming, but for now, I will retain the old trucks as it wont operate very fast so the noise is tollerable.
SeeYou190 BRAKIE Kevin, Good luck taming those loud KMT drives.. Back in the day we tried every trick in the book to quiet those drives down short of repowering them. Since this model does not fit my timeline, it does not need to be a good reliable runner. If it runs at all, that is good enough for my plans for the model. -Kevin
BRAKIE Kevin, Good luck taming those loud KMT drives.. Back in the day we tried every trick in the book to quiet those drives down short of repowering them.
Kevin, All of my Alco, Trains Inc and Hallmark locomotives ran fairly well.. The issue the majority of us diesel modelers had was the noise.
Even in the mid-60s steam locomotives was still king and us all diesel modelers was to put it gently oddballs. After all you see one diesel you see 'em all according to the steam modelers but,we diesel modeler will out and even got "All Diesel" issues of Trains magazine and of course Extra 2200 South magazine.
Diesels won the battle, Steam's high labor needs to keep them up to snuff was their undoing. Granted things improved toward the end with roller bearings on all axles and rods, but the boiler upkeep, trackside needs for water and coal was the downfall of the steam locomotive as labor costs skyrocketed. One just has to accept the noise from the KMT drives as part of brass history. I usually just replace any cracked gears, add 8 wheel power pickup and a can motor, then run the snot out of them. Short of retrucking with later Samhongsa or another brand of trucks, thats about all you can do with them. But they got diesel models to the modelers when there was no other brand doing this. Now they are a cheap way to add a few old brass engines to the layout. Mike the Aspie
BRAKIEKevin, All of my Alco, Trains Inc and Hallmark locomotives ran fairly well.. The issue the majority of us diesel modelers had was the noise.
Noise from my model locomotives does not bother me.
I usually have my music up real loud in the train room, so it would need to be as loud as an industrial blender for me to hear it.