Boomer Red wrote: I've been thinking of building a SDP40 in BN colours from a Athearn RTR SD40 using parts from one of their older SDP40 models. Has anyone else considered doing this conversion? The only major problem I can see is that it looks like the nose and cab on the prototype SDP version are farther forward than on the freight version.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
I remember that article.
Modeling Santa Fe's 2nd-order GP35's Model Railroader, November 1988 page 130 ( ATSF, DIESEL, EMD, GP35, "GREEN, CINDY", KITBASH, CONSTRUCTION, ENGINE, LOCOMOTIVE, MR )
Basically, what was done was the sides of a GP35 was extracted and inserted into a shortened then new Athearn GP38-2 to gain the correct width hoods. I'm not sure if that technique can be applied to the making of prototypical hood SDP40. It think the best way to make one, without doing the measuring, is to start with a SD45, replace it's long hood with a SD40 long hood and either a Atlas SDP35 steam generator compartment or narrowing the compartment from the wide hood Athearn SDP40.
R. T. POTEET wrote:I believe it was the winner - a teenage young lady if I recall right - of an MR contest of fifteen to twenty years ago who developed a procedure for narrowing the hood of an Athearn GP35. She made it look incredibly simple and you may want to hunt up that issue to see just how she did it. I remember an article on splicing the steam generator compartment from an Athearn SDP40 onto an SD45 but both of these involved old wide-hood units. There also have been articles over the years about sliding a body forward on the frame.
UP2CSX wrote:Didn't Athearn announce they are about to come out an SDP40 or was I dreaming that?
R. T. POTEET wrote: Boomer Red wrote: I've been thinking of building a SDP40 in BN colours from a Athearn RTR SD40 using parts from one of their older SDP40 models. Has anyone else considered doing this conversion? The only major problem I can see is that it looks like the nose and cab on the prototype SDP version are farther forward than on the freight version.Boomer Red, your power of perception is noteworthy and it does appear from photographs in several of my 'spotters' that EMD did, indeed, slide the body of the SD40 forward on its frame in order to accomodate the steam generator compartment on the unit's rear porch; you caught me by surprise because I sure didn't realize that that had been done.Boomer, I am under the impression that the SD40 you speak of in your post refers to one of Athearn's new units with scale width hoods; you will find that the old SDP40 had a too-wide hood as all Athearn units did in those heady days of yesteryear. I believe it was the winner - a teenage young lady if I recall right - of an MR contest of fifteen to twenty years ago who developed a procedure for narrowing the hood of an Athearn GP35. She made it look incredibly simple and you may want to hunt up that issue to see just how she did it. I remember an article on splicing the steam generator compartment from an Athearn SDP40 onto an SD45 but both of these involved old wide-hood units. There also have been articles over the years about sliding a body forward on the frame.An N Scale SDP anything from anybody is high on my 'I'd-kill-for-that' want list; I'm interested in creating some SDP35s which I will use as 1980s-era coal haulers. For some reason or another I keep thinking that there was an article in an N Scale magazine from many years about scratching a steam generator compartment to create an SDP40 or SDP45 but I sure as the dickens can't find it and it might just be wishful thinking on my behalf.If you go ahead with this idea give us a heads-up picture and tell us how you did it; and please, don't post it in WPF.
I know Cindy really well and the model still runs on Steve's (her husband)layout.
MP 53 on the BNSF Topeka Sub