Low-Nose GP7/9s in N-scale

[Anonymous]

I'd like to know if any of the other N-scalers out there are as frustrated as
I am that LOW-NOSE GP7/9s are not available in N? I've written to Atlas
and I may contact Kato, but I don't know how much good it will do.

In the industry today, I'd have to say the vast majority of remaining GP7s
and GP9s that I've seen or know about are low-nosers, either built that
way orginally or chopped. In HO you can find manufactured low-nose
Geeps of many different models and conversion/detail kits as well.

Not all of us (and I applaud those who do) have the scratch-building
talent to chop our own high-nose Geeps and end-up with an acceptible
outcome. I'd love to model, for example, an IAIS GP10. If I could get a
low-nose hood and chassis to start with I'm fairly confident I could take it
from there.

Could I suggest an e-mailing campaign to Atlas or Kato for them to
consider low-nose GP7/9s? Would a Forums poll be useful?

[der5997]

2 thoughts. 1) Could you be satisfied by adapting a GP20?
2) I'm not sure about how many others out there are going to write to Atlas et al. Lastly, what's acceptable to me may be gross to you. After all, at 3 feet away it's all a blur anyway[X-)]

[Anonymous]

Well now the GP20 thing might be a thought. I know there are low-nose GP18s
out from Life-Like but they have the slanted nose.

Ideas on the GP20?

[Anonymous]

I did just receive a response from Atlas (thanks to Cory in Product Dev.). Their
reasons for not doing low-nose GP7/9s is the great degree of disparity in how
the various road's did their modifications. I guess I can understand that. I had
read somewhere that at least SP had GP9s that came from EMD in the low-
nose form but maybe I'm remembering things wrong.

Well, it was worth a shot.

[DSchmitt]

The GP20 is not a good canidate to make a GP9 because it was turbocharged. The GP18 is the direct decendent of the GP9.

You might consider usings a low nose G18 as a stand in. The SP had some late GP9's that were almost identical in appearance to the GP18 (I'm not sure is they were low nose or high nose)

It might be possible to bash a high nose GP9 to a low nose GP9 using the cab and hood from a GP18, or bash a low nose GP18 to a GP9 by replacing the roof fans with the earlier style.

I once converted a 1970's Atlas GP9 to low nose by cutting down the nose and modifying the front of the cab with styrene.