CSX F40PH Nscale Build

[Herc Driver]

This is about it for this build. I still need to add two ditch lights on the front of the engine, the a/c unit over the cab, and the front number boards that rest on white backgrounds. But the dull coat was applied...and I'm calling the major painting and bashing - completed. Additionally, I started adding the tiny B&O gold stripes above the windows on the matching passenger cars. They'll all get this treatment, one gold line above the windows (which isn't perfectly prototypical as the real coaches have four stripes - two above and two below the windows), as well as gold CSX emblem beside the door or each car. The passenger car roofs will get some weathering on the roofs, but remain pretty clean overall, then a dull coat to finish them off. We've decided to use the other Amtrak F40PH as the running mate to this CSX unit. So that one will get stripped of its Amtrak paint and painted blue/yellow really soon. But this time, I'm going to use the blue painters tape I usually use instead of the Tamiya paint masking tape that I used for the first engine and see if I can get a crisp and definite yellow stripe. If the second engine turns out better - it will be the leader and I'll let this first attempt run behind it. Of course the only problem is...neither of these two engines are powered...so for the time being, another CSX engine will do the honors of pulling them and their passenger cars around the layout. I've seen pictures of this in past years when a larger engine led the F40's around, so that's not straying too far from being prototypical.

(Oh...and the high railer got a coat of paint...and the MoW car some decals. It will soon get some additional pieces added as well to finish it off.)







My critique:
I'm not happy with the yellow/gold stripe at the front of the engine...just don't like the paint bleed through and the fact that I was unable to fix it satisfactorily. But the overall color blue and yellow look very good compared to other CSX equipment I have. The roof of the passenger cars are a bit too light grey, as the more recent pictures I've seen of them make it look like there's a pearly grey paint applied that is glossy. Mine are flat grey for now, but I might try to spray a coat of glossy grey to simulate the prototype color better, but spray a dull coat over the blue car bodies to highlight the difference. I need to figure out a better fuel tank for the F40, as the one on this LifeLike engine isn't even close to the CSX rebuild. I'm thinking of grabbing one off an Atlas GP or SD unit. The decals seemed to turn out well, even under the magnifying glass...but you'll have to take my word for that as the pictures here don't really show them too well. There's no silvering or glossiness though. This engine is in desperate need of a better snow plow as well...but that means coming up with a new mount for the Microtrains couplers that I installed when I cut off the hook-style coupler off the trucks.