hon30critter Dan: I'm not into modern diesels but your project would certainly be inspiration enough to go there! Very well done. Dave
Dan:
I'm not into modern diesels but your project would certainly be inspiration enough to go there! Very well done.
Dave
Dave - The U36B is hardly "modern" having been built in 1969 !
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
Wow that looks great, very well done.
Don't weather it! It looks great with the gloss black. The railroad just put it into service.
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
Love them old Athearn U boats I have 8 at the moment 5 Bs and 3 Cs.One of the Bs is going to become a U 18-B when I find the article on building it.
Excellent! A mighty fine looking SCL U36B.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Excellent work Dan! Congratulations on completing a very nice model! I'm glad my little project was helpful.
Nice to see your use of the AMB glass; I found the kit after I cut all the glazing by hand LOL!
We'll have to get our units together for a photo shoot :-) I hope to meet you the next time you are in the Tampa Bay Area.
Thank you for sharing :-)
Carl
Carl in Florida - - - - - - - - - - We need an HO Amtrak SDP40F and GE U36B oh wait- We GOT THEM!
Excellent work, your efforts really come through.Great Model!!!!Thank you for sharing & making a real informative write up.Your Modelling & the information is really appreciated!
Thanks!
Yes, Plant City is still an enjoyable place for railfans to visit.
Looking forward to seeing that your U-Boat. I remember first seeing GEs in Family Lines paint in the Tampa area around 1981-82. Neat thing was that both black "Bumble Bee" and Family Lines schemes lingered through to the CSX era.
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"
AntonioFP45 STOKESDA This is excellent! (MRR Magazine article candidate?) . Another SCL U36B on the forum with beautiful work and detailing. Individual LED lights for each? That had to be quite a task! You mentioned Plant City. I visit their quite a bit and see CSX and Amtrak action (although it's nothing like the Seaboard Coast Line days). Do you currently live in PC?
STOKESDA
This is excellent! (MRR Magazine article candidate?) . Another SCL U36B on the forum with beautiful work and detailing. Individual LED lights for each? That had to be quite a task!
You mentioned Plant City. I visit their quite a bit and see CSX and Amtrak action (although it's nothing like the Seaboard Coast Line days). Do you currently live in PC?
Thanks, Antonio! I have seen you around the forum in the past and knew you were an SCL fan. I do have another one of these "in the queue" that I plan to finish in the Family Lines scheme one of these days.
I grew up in Plant City, graduated from PCHS. I don't live there anymore, but my family still does. We try to make the trek down there about once a year to visit. A couple of years ago I stopped by one of the model RR club meetings in the old High School building - that was really neat to see, and they were a great bunch of guys. The next day we visited the train station/museum where my wife authorized the purchase of the two club boxcars in the photo above
Dan Stokes
My other car is a tunnel motor
Very nice work.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
Thanks for the kind comments, everyone! It was a fun build, and I'm looking forward to completing some more projects like this now that the learning curve should be a little shorter. Not sure it's Diesel Detailer board quality, though... especially without the weathering!
@ woodman: yes, it is glossy. I finished it off with Future floor polish so I could do the decals, then sprayed it again once the decals were on. I'm such a weathering wimp I couldn't bring myself to spray it will Dullcote after that! I kind of like the way it looks, though. One of these days if I ever work up the courgage to weather it, I'll give it a nice Dullcote overspray.
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Hi,
Nice work.
You should join the Diesel Detailer site.......a lot of modelers would like to see this.
Dennis Blank Jr.
CEO,COO,CFO,CMO,Bossman,Slavedriver,Engineer,Trackforeman,Grunt. Birdsboro & Reading Railroad
It looks real glossy in one of the photos is that an optical illusion.
Nice Job!
An Auto Train U36B is on my bucket list, still looking for a shell or undec. I know I have that MR issue that you mentioned, you just saved me a few hours of searching, thanks.
Mine doesn't move.......it's at the station!!!
I don't know anything about that loco, including the model of it, but it appears as if you have done a lot of great detailed work on it. Congratulations.
Now you have to dust it all up and put the odd little rust streak on it. Darn, eh?
Crandell
Well done that loco looks amazing!
SP&S modeler, 1960's give or take a decade or two for some equipment.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SGTDUPREY?feature=guide
Gary DuPrey
N scale model railroader
I started this project a couple of years ago, and got it to 98% complete, but then it sat idle for a long time. The other day I put the finishing touches on it and called it "done." I got a PM about this from another forum member a few months ago, so I thought I'd go ahead and post my completion pics.
This project started life as a 1980's vintage Athearn Blue Box SCL U33B #1733, complete with old school metal AAR sideframes (incorrect for these engines). I just started dabbling with the project when I was inspired by cmarchan's outstanding thread on a similar project here.
For general instructions, I followed John Edwards's excellent article on modeling SCL U36B and slug sets in the Aug 1988 issue of Model Railroader. Thank goodness I lived near San Diego at the time and was able to get my hands on this back issue via the SDMRM's wonderful library!
Here is a "before" photo:
Here are a couple of progress photos:
Here are some "after" photos:
Here she is leading a consist of freight cars that I would have seen as a kid in my hometown of Plant City, FL.... Except for the 2nd and 3rd car, which are from the Plant City MRR club... and of course, the Tropicana reefers typically didn't go solo on the SCL .
Details/upgrades included:
- Complete strip and repaint using Floquil CSX Yellow (I think) and Testors Gloss Black.
- Microscale decals
- Tichy/scratchbuilt grab irons
- Upgraded trucks with correct plastic sideframes and NWSL wheels
- Utah Pacific handrails & 5-chime horn
- American Model Builders etched glass for the windows
- Hi Tech Details rubber MU hoses
- Coupler lift bar sets from an old Bachmann model
- Various A-Line, Details West, and Detail Associates parts including air tanks, MU receptacles, fuel gauges and fillers, windshield wipers, nose light, drop step, lift rings, speed recorder, brakewheel, chain, and step lights.
- Various pieces scratchbuilt out of styrene and other stuff, including the handbrake chain guide on the engineer's side, firecracker antenna, pilot details, etc.
Under the hood is a new Kato motor and Athearn Genesis hex-head drivelines. The driveshafts were for a Dash 9, so they were way too long, so I cut and spliced them together with a piece of plastic tube from a ball-point pen insert.
The last things I added were the lights, which are tiny SMD LEDs. Each bulb has it's own LED... for a total of 6 on the loco. I actually had to re-do all the lighting and wiring at some point, so this is the second iteration. Also, it took quite a bit of fiddling to get all the wiring, decoder, etc to fit in the shell properly. The lighting and the final wiring is what kept it from being 100% complete for so long. Actually, I had to remotor it along the way at some point... prior to the Kato motor I had a "lesser quality" can motor with no flywheels, and it just didn't work very well.
I know it's way too clean and shiny, but I've never weathered a loco before, and I sure ain't gonna start with this one!!!
I did make some mistakes along the way, and would have done some things differently, but overall I'm happy with the way it turned out. I'm really glad I plunked down the cash for the Kato motor, too, because it makes a HUGE difference.
This is my second loco detailing project (first was a D&RGW GP30), and it was much more complex, so I'm learning a lot as I go along. I'm currently working on an Athearn SP Dash 9, and am blogging about it on the Model Railroad Hobbyist website. (I am just adding details to that one, it won't be a complete strip and re-paint.) After the Dash 9, my next major surgery project will be transforming an old Athearn Amtrak FP45 to its proper ATSF livery.