A short while ago I picked this Great Trains F-40 body shell up on EvilBay:
With the intent to build it up so I have something to pull my Great Trains Observation car around. Now thanks to a fellow MLS forum member XL Special, Larry Trumbull, who as Marlon Brandow said, "Made me an offer I can't refuse", I now have a very large reason to proceed with this project now, actually 3 very large reasons...
I am now the very proud owner of 3 vintage Amtrak Superliners that Larry offered me. These are big cars, about 24" long, nicely detailed to me, and very impressive looking, did I mention these are large? I did some preliminalry testing on the layout and yes! they should be fine going around it, they juuuust make it through the new tunnel portals in the background. I'm just glad I aquired these BEFORE I had set in the scenery, Now I can builld the layout around the clearance these cars will require. I just now need to build an engine strong enough to pull it around the grades, or if worse comes to worse, maybe a USA A-B F-3 set???
Did I mention these are large cars? Theirs some work to do to them, which Larry pointed out before I got them. The biggest being I need to add couplers back onto the trucks, one car has some glazing missing, and theres some ACC hazing but overall these look great as is. and if I decide to get nutty, the top comes off and they look like they were intended to have interiors installed. Now theres a summer project! Did I mention these are large cars?
To this day I am still amazed no one has aquired the molds and reissued any of these models. What a waste of tooling. With all the brewhaha over modern passenger cars and engines that happened with LGBs Amtrak cars theres obviously a demand for the modern out there, but is anyone listening?
Big Thanks Again Larry, I dig them! Did I mention these are large cars?
Have fun with your trains
Thats a nice trainset cant wait to see the engine finished! Who made the coaches and what scale are they? Those things are huge!
Watch, risto will make some in the next few years now that someone has shown interest. Great find and good luck. Is the FP 40H going to be as realistic as posible being held together with bailingwire, bandaids (the ocasional severed finger) and gum?
Looking good sofar!
Reminds me I need to get back to work on my flanger car! Better late than never on the updates
Vic,
Where you get the plow head? Me and Sweet Santa Fe want to know.
Great lookn dude, lots of time into it, can't wait till finished!!!
Toad
gRuMbLe......you know how to cast? Make you few extra in da pocket!!
Toadie
Sorry Toad, that pup is epoxied on something permanent! Suggest learning to fabricate in styrene
Ok the undercarraige is getting really close. Ladders built, fuel tank 75%, remainder undercarrage stuff also getting close. First drive brick installed, trimming mounting posts on top lowered body just about right. Awaiting second drive brick, ordered it last week, it only shipped today , should have it by Friday . Still need to mount the couplers, and begin building the cab interior. Once I get the beast up and running, I can begin to consider fabricating new sideframes.
Casting is fun! Besides it takes me now 3 min to cast a part!
Now you know, just send me the cool parts I know you have lurking around or I will have to send over Sweet Santa Fe to beat you over the head with a baseball bat to get your bag of goodies lmao...just joking!
Toad (waiting for my dad to come home)
I'm gonna beat someone over the head with a baseball bat? I think not.
Very funny Toadfrog.
vsmith wrote: plow looks a bit more agressive than standard.
Wow great looking!!! Well, as for the plow it is the new type there going to! It is called the "High Speed Plow".
Toad, I'm begining to consider scratching a new plow, this one puts the coupler pocket way too high to be usefull, so you and Sweet may get your wish if I have to cut the beast off.
vsmith wrote: Toad, I'm begining to consider scratching a new plow, this one puts the coupler pocket way too high to be usefull, so you and Sweet may get your wish if I have to cut the beast off.
Vic, can you cut out the plow and a pocket?
No, I had to remove the whole thing, it came off pretty easily with a good sharp razorsaw. I'm going to scratch a new plow thats closer looking to the real one, but the coupler goes on first. Once that's attached I can simply add a styrene plow to it.
Well, like I said you can get me to pour some and even more parts for free, did I say FREE? Yepo, just send them to me.
Should have a email.
Ole Toad
New "improved" plow plus couplers added front and back, using hooks for now, I have a feeling given my curves that this and the superliners will only work with the hooks.
Its starting to look pretty good.
Cab is the last big hurtle, though bending all those handgripes may prove to be the biggest headache of all.
There's a beautiful Great Trains Rio Grande set on eBay. I remember seeing b+w photos of the set in a Walthers catalog (Large Scale 1989), but never before in color. Reminds me of the Ski Train, I like it
Great Trains Rio Grande Set
Matt from Anaheim, CA and Bayfield, COClick Here for my model train photo website
Chassis painted: really improves the look, this thing might just work!
Even got a basic cab interior in place.
Now the part I've really dreaded, figuring out what to do with painting the body
Modeling the D&H in 1984: http://dandhcoloniemain.blogspot.com/
scoobster28 wrote:I would suggest painting it in silver with red and blue stripes, kind of like the Amtrak paint scheme. Then again, you could always paint it seafoam green with purple polka dots...
I wanted to paint it Amtrak colors, but at $250 for a custom paint job I'm rethinking that. I'm kinda lousy with rattlecans, and have 0 experience with an airbrush, so I'm considering all my options.
Your best bet at this stage is to airbrush it with Floquil Platinum Mist and Engine Black, although the black you used on the underframe appears close enough.
But then at least she'll be in the right colors and you can worry about the stripes later. I'm pretty sure no company makes G scale (1:32 in your case) Amtrak decals. So custom run decals will probably be your only option. Might be a little costly, but nowhere near $250. Typically Amtrak stripes (especially phase III) are done with decals. Painting is just too tricky since the lines are likely to run over (more so in larger scales) even with the best masking job.
Here's a few links that might be helpful when you do get around to painting.
Website with painting tips on an HO F40
Floquil Colors
On the Floquil colors, you'll want Platinum Mist #110144 (at least 2 bottles) for the body color, and the color you used on the trucks looks good enough for the roof and cab black.
Don't be scared of airbrushes. We were new to them, but spending a lot of money on model spray can paint was not a good plan. However you might get close to the $250 mark for the entire paint project if you get your own airbrush, paint, decals, etc... But for future projects you have the airbrush and the high initial costs go way down after that.
We ultimately went with a fairly simple setup. Although prices seem to have jumped considerably since we purchased it, this is essentially the set we use:
Airbrush (this airbrush is the same one we have, just a bit newer. Great entry level brush)
Compressor (the compressor we got was a lot smaller, less heavy duty, and less costly, but unfortunately doesn't seem to be offered by Mirco-Mark anymore).
Back to the decals. The largest appropriate set I know of is Microscale's O scale set #48-58. But this is going to be too small for your loco even though it's close 1:32 -1:48. You might want to consider buying the set though and then scanning the decal sheet to your computer. Using a photo editing program (I use PaintShopPro8) you could then enlarge to the right size and print out your own decals. I did this with an HO set for some Rio Grande style lettering for my Silver Vista car. However a very big problem with most homemade Amtrak decals are that the white portions won't print out, unless you have a printer that has white ink (unlikely). So again custom decals essentially based off of the Microscale set would be your best bet. Stan Cedarleaf does custom decals for G scale (I'm sure you knew this already) and he has a printer that prints white ink. So you might want to check with him to see what a sheet(s) might cost. He might have even made some Amtrak sets in the past and may have the artwork all ready to go.
But the starting point is always the toughest with custom decals. That's why I'd suggest getting one of the Microscale sets to use as a starting point. The O scale one I linked above is good since it's the biggest and it's a good idea to work from the largest source you can. However some details are lacking in the O scale set and depending on how accurate/detailed you want to get, the HO version #87-424 has some special lettering such as the maintenance base "Los Angeles".
Whew, sorry for the long reply, but I hope it helps some.
Get the Garden Railways newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month