Athearn GP 38-2 adding engineer

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I just recently purchased the new Athearn release Candian National GP 38-2. It performs beyond expectations but… it does not have an engineer in the cab. Is there an easy way to add the engineer whithout taking off the entire body of the loco? Any suggestions?

2

I can’t think of one. You will need to find a suitable figure and then fashion a support for it. I don’t see how you can get all this inside the cab without carefully taking the shell off. I’m assuming that there is room in the cab for the figure. By the way, don’t forget the conductor.

Joe

3

I’m not sure about the new releases of Athearn, but the “blue box” locos, the cab was a separate part, and the cab roof was also a separate part. Maybe try the roof first. The instruction sheet used to have a blow-up of the parts, so you can see how it all goes together. I’ll have to look at my newer Athearns, and see if this still works.

Depending on the room, you could just glue the top half of a figure to the side of the cab, at the right height.

Mike.

4

What company/manufacturer do you folks use for crew figures?

Regards, Don

5

For a GP-38, I would just find some generic seated male figures. The figures you’ll find listed as “engineers” are pretty much all in steam-era outfits, with the big blue-and-white hats and overalls. The GP-38 is a “post-transition-era” engine, so you’d probably not see women in the cab yet.

Preiser and Woodland Scenics make high-quality figures. Alternately, you can go with cheaper packages of unpainted figures by someone like Model Power and paint them yourself. This is a good solution for any figure that will only be partially visible, like passengers in a coach, figures inside a structure or engineers in a locomotive cab.

6

Chomper,

How ironic to see your thread as recently we had a discussion here about the lack of modern locomotive cab figures in the smaller scales.

Look at this link: From the right, the two men and the woman make for good potential engineers ( I would just paint over the red tie on the bearded man).

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/590-10406

Here’s the thread that I’m referring to:

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/214027.aspx?sort=ASC&pi314=1