Big Blue has inspired some purchases

[jim currie]

just a hint for toning down Led's is scuff them with 400 to 600 grit sandpaper.
Jim

[TMo]

Wow! Never would have thought of that, but great tip Jim.

In this case I wanted the center headlights to be nice and bright, but I wanted the number boards to be legible rather than washed out.

[jim currie]

when i do headlights, t don't sand the front lens just the sides also sanding the sides gives some tooth for paint to hold on to which I often paint with silver.

[TMo]

Back for one more try with the brass Erie Lackawanna RS2... (pages 5 through 7 on this thread). After doing a little correspondence with Charlie, I got up a bit of gumption to try to install a DCC decoder that will last more than a minute or so while running on the layout. Put in another order for a Digitrax DN136 early this morning. Once I get it I'll be doing some additional work to further isolate the motor pickups from any potential contact with the shell and frame and doing a lot of resistance checks along the way. I've sorta fallen for some of this 70's Japanese brass and figure it's a good challenge that is worth trying.

[jim currie]

fixed one brass for boy so he could run it dcc that I did was to silicone a can motor to frame making sure of the aliment then letting silicone set up making sure of no frame contact.
Jim

[TMo]

Good tip, Jim. When I tear her apart again I'm going to look at the points of contact on the underside brushes as well.

[jim currie]

on the frame contact i coated the contact points with liquid tape.
Jim

[TMo]

Whoops.... did it again.

I occasionally catch a glimpse of a "good deal" or more likely "that COULD be a good deal" on ebay.  That was the case last fall when I was out on furlough and saw a Buy It Now (or maybe it was an auction with not much time left) for two locomotives - one a F9A (Bachmann I think (listed as a dummy)), the other an old blue box Athearn GP35.  I think for $20 + shipping I got them both.  They were both in Chessie System colors, and the dummy had been "weathered" (more like painted with black paint). 

Did a little research.  The Chessie never rostered any F9's, and there are some slight differences in carbody from the more popular F7, so converting it didn't trip my trigger.  The rear truck mounted motor was working, but the truck gearing was missing, it had a working headlight, but the motor was rather puny.  Not worth renovating in my opinion.  I cleaned off the black paint, but that also stripped some of the Chessie colors and decals off as well.  Put some decent couplers on it and put it up for sale on ebay and got 12 or 15 bucks for it and I was delighted.  Here's a shot of her just before selling:

   

Now the GP35.  What to do with her?  Opened her up and I was a bit disappointed to see that it was a older flywheel-less motor, but it seemed to move.  Checked out it's supplied road number, and although some of the B&O GP35s did get Chessie paint, the road number supplied was not one of those.  Another quirk was that the short hood nose had a set of vertically mounted headlights (2) in addition to the center cab headlights.  Of course, none of the Chessie units had those.  I'm guessing that in the blue box era Athearn didn't put all that much weight in being prototypical by roadname. 


   

 The Southern Pacific rostered some with a pair of horizontal headlights along with a class light above them, but I think the only vertical nose lights I found were for Western Pacific and Northern Pacific (love that paint scheme!) GP35s, all of which (I believe) would have been re-rostered to the Burlington Northern by 1976 when I model.  What to do with this unit?  Sell it as is?  Modify it for DCC and sell it?  Paint it in BN color and add decals?  Make it an NP unit?  I kicked things around and stuck the unit on my workbench and let it collect dust.

So today I was doing an internet search on GP35s with vertical headlights and LO AND BEHOLD, a picture of a Canadian National-rostered GP35 with vertical headlights appeared.  Turns out that the CN had a GRAND TOTAL of exactly 2 GP35s, one in the zebra strip paint scheme (road number 4001) and one in the black long hood with the big white CN on the side and a red cab.  They were still up and running in 1977, one of which (4000) was pictured in Kentucky on the head end of an L&N consist, so it looks like the CN was loaning power.  As many of you know, I recently added my first foreign power (a CN M420 last month which has caused all kinds of grief), and if I keep that one, wouldn't it be nice to pair it with another CN unit?  I'm smelling a new project....  Here's a link to pics of both 4000 and 4001.  

CN 4000  CN 4001

Inspired myself into a new project apparently.  Don't know when I'll begin it, but it's now on my mental list.  Note the red bell that replaces the cab mounted headlight....  might have to make sure I incorporate that.  DCC decoder obviously, conversion to a better motor, gotta buy decals, maybe a detail kit...  you can see where this is going....  "Good deal" = more money flying out of my pocket.