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I had the good fortune of finding an out of production Red Caboose body kit for a GP-9 done up in Nickel Plate Road on eBay. It comes with a plastic frame, no motor or trucks but loads of nice details. I then ordered up a set of stunning power trucks in brass by P&D Hobbies. The come with a ball bearing Pitmann motor and everthing needed to make the loco run. I can't stress how nice these trucks are...every journal is independantly coil sprung, and even the leaf spring at the center of the truck is functional. The detail is just stunning. This setup currently sells for only 200 dollars, surely the best deal in the O scale end of the hobby. Truely a stunning setup. Once I got the frame and power train put together I became disappointed with the lack of rigidity of the plastic Red Caboose frame. I bought a heavy brass frame by DesPlaines Hobby Shop from a local friend who had one surplus to his needs. [ He had installed one on a Red Caboose GP-9 with a Roco power train, bought 2, to have a spare for a future project that never came] Now we have some nice weight and rigidity to the loco frame!! I have not yet started to work on the carbody but the chassis is now done, and it sure is a nice runner. Before I go to work on the upper part, I will have to modify the fuel tank to install a speaker for sound. Once the powertrain is broken in on DC, I'll be installing Soundtraxx sound and NCE 4 amp DCC decoder. I have the NCE/Soundtraxx setup in my Atlas GP-35 and it sure is nice! I install hidden switches on each decoder so that each one can be disconnected from the other for programing. After this loco is done, I have a Weaver RS3 in Nickel Plate Road that will need to be gone through. Its a brand new ready to run loco I found on a dealers close-out webpage . It has no cab 'window glass' but microscope slide glass should cure that, and it will need sound and DCC like all my locos a will have. Another project coming up is to do sound and DCC in a vintage Hinze steam engine model, a Mikado in Wheeling and Lake Erie livery, a line leased by the Nickel Plate. It will be arriving here next week, and I'm anxious to see how it runs and draws current.. I'll probably want to put a modern can motor in it. Right now I'm just so pleased with how the GP-9 is coming along, that I thought I would share it with you all. Besides, I haven't posted here in quite a while AND i thought a little break from the usual HO and N scale stuff would be nice. . Jennifer
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